Greetings From The UK
Pause for a moment to witness the changing colours in life
"Our National Health System"
Following in the aftermath of WW2, many reforms were introduced by our post-war socialist government. These reforms were in the main to give the working classes of this country a voice that could be heard, and a better quality of life.
The National Health Service (NHS) was introduced in 1948 to ensure that good quality health care would be available for all the population as and when it was needed, regardless of the wealth (or otherwise) of the individual.
The NHS is paid for by taxation so the concept of free health care is not strictly true. Anyone working and drawing a wage or a salary that was sufficient to warrant taxation, paid a certain percentage of taxation to finance the NHS system, in exactly the same way as we would for defence or education. Unemployed or sick people who were not working of course drew no taxable salary and hence paid nothing into the NHS system whilst ever they were unemployed.
So the normal person would pay in all his working life, only taking out when sickness or old age takes over.
So our health system, funded by central government, built hospitals in all major centres of population and set about training doctors, nurses and associated health service technicians. The concept of the University Teaching Hospital was born and even today some of ours are considered "Centres Of Excellence" within their specific specialisation's.
Primary health care starts with the local practise of General Practitioners (GP) who serve the population within a specific catchment area or district. Everyone registers with their local GP who draws a salary from the NHS in proportion to the number of patients registered with him
Therefore all visits to the GP are totally free to the patient. The GP will deal with a full range of minor illnesses prescribing drugs as he feels is necessary. There is a set charge to the patient for each prescription irrespective of the real price of the drugs prescribed. This charge is currently £6.10 (approximately $9) and this would normally cover one months supply.
Patients with chronic conditions e.g. Diabetics, Children in full time schooling, pregnant mothers and everyone over the age of 60, get their prescriptions totally free.
Anyone not in the above categories, who expects that they will require multiple prescriptions in the next 12 months can purchase a prepayment certificate. Currently this costs approximately £86 and ensures all prescriptions for the next year are free
To keep the costs of drugs to the NHS as low as possible, GPs will prescribe generic drugs if possible, but may if the medical condition merits it prescribe the latest "wonder" drug if this will give the patient a specific benefit. Most prescriptions are generic by definition.
So the primary health care GP operates and lives in the community he serves often striking up life long relationships with his patients families. The GP is very much respected within the community as he provides this service. Should a patient present a more serious illness, the GP will refer the patient to the correct specialisation consultant who normally operates out of the local hospital. This referral can progress up to the teaching hospitals if necessary
One of the "Draw-backs" of our NHS system can be the time waiting to see a consultant and or the time waiting for a minor operation to be carried out. It is often these time delays that are splashed across our newspaper headlines that produce the most criticism of our system. Sure these delays can occur, but the press is always too quick to publish the bad news, and would never dream of publishing the good news to provide a balanced view.
The system works well most of the time, and failures once identified can often be attributed to the human error element at that time. No system operated by humans will ever be perfect. I personally am very happy that when urgent medical treatment is required it will be supplied.
Recently my 83 year old father gave himself a hernia on a Friday afternoon. He went to see his GP on Friday evening and was immediately admitted into hospital. The hernia was pushed back in to prevent strangulation and it was planned to operate tomorrow Saturday. A major road accident on the nearby motorway (freeway) prevented the operation on Saturday as all the theatres were busy with higher priority cases. But the operation was carried out on Sunday afternoon and I took my father home on Monday afternoon. He is now under strict orders never again to lift his wallet (Sigh) But to be serious I do not think that one would get a better service than that anywhere in the world unless you were a millionaire. This treatment cost my father nothing.
Most of the UK population rely totally on the NHS system and it normally does not let them down
My mother lost a leg at 64 years old and relies on an artificial limb. She has 2 false legs and is forever breaking them. I would estimate she visits the limb centre at Sheffield about every 6 weeks or so for repair or refurbishment. So now aged 83 years old, and I shudder to think what this would have cost without the NHS.
I once visited with the old folk and found the spare leg in it's bag ready to be taken to the limb centre for repair. So when mum is busy elsewhere, I unzip the bag, place in a hand written note, and re-zip before she knows I have been there. On arrival at the limb centre, the technician finds the note and laughs out loud. Mum asks what is so funny, so he hands her the note which reads. "Please repair the leg, but leave the squeak as we can hear her coming"
Private health care is available to those who wish to pay the necessary insurance premium. This is often provided by the employer who typically pays £25 per month for each employee. So even private health insurance in the UK is far cheaper that the USA. Incidentally employers usually pay out for this insurance as their employees get a faster service, which means the man in question will take very little time off work. So this system more than pays for itself from the employers point of view.
Private health insurance runs parallel with the NHS and compliments it well. It is the same consultants treating Private and NHS patients alike using NHS resources. The resources and consultants time are provided "out of normal hours" and the NHS benefits from renting out it's resources to private medical care. We in the UK have got a very good balance between the state system and private enterprise, but it does require integrity at consultant level. Abuse of the system does take place, but it is not widespread.
I personally have come across top class consultants who are so dedicated to the NHS that they refuse to take private patients.
Our NHS system is a non-profit making organisation, which means the entire budget is spent on patient care. It also means that it is very rare for a clinical procedure to be carried out unnecessarily. Money can motivate private health care systems to carry out unnecessary procedures in their search for fat profits.
Salaries in the NHS for qualified Doctors & Consultants, have to remain in-line with the private sector otherwise we would be unable to retain the staff. After all this is a global market for qualified men.
At this moment in time, salaries for nursing staff have fallen behind, and there is a strong recruiting drive to attract qualified nurses back into the NHS
No system is perfect and ours can be improved. But no one in this system can get rich by exploiting the vulnerability of the sick. Patient care before profits and total peace of mind for anyone needing health care as cash is never in the equation.
The National Health Service (NHS) was introduced in 1948 to ensure that good quality health care would be available for all the population as and when it was needed, regardless of the wealth (or otherwise) of the individual.
The NHS is paid for by taxation so the concept of free health care is not strictly true. Anyone working and drawing a wage or a salary that was sufficient to warrant taxation, paid a certain percentage of taxation to finance the NHS system, in exactly the same way as we would for defence or education. Unemployed or sick people who were not working of course drew no taxable salary and hence paid nothing into the NHS system whilst ever they were unemployed.
So the normal person would pay in all his working life, only taking out when sickness or old age takes over.
So our health system, funded by central government, built hospitals in all major centres of population and set about training doctors, nurses and associated health service technicians. The concept of the University Teaching Hospital was born and even today some of ours are considered "Centres Of Excellence" within their specific specialisation's.
Primary health care starts with the local practise of General Practitioners (GP) who serve the population within a specific catchment area or district. Everyone registers with their local GP who draws a salary from the NHS in proportion to the number of patients registered with him
Therefore all visits to the GP are totally free to the patient. The GP will deal with a full range of minor illnesses prescribing drugs as he feels is necessary. There is a set charge to the patient for each prescription irrespective of the real price of the drugs prescribed. This charge is currently £6.10 (approximately $9) and this would normally cover one months supply.
Patients with chronic conditions e.g. Diabetics, Children in full time schooling, pregnant mothers and everyone over the age of 60, get their prescriptions totally free.
Anyone not in the above categories, who expects that they will require multiple prescriptions in the next 12 months can purchase a prepayment certificate. Currently this costs approximately £86 and ensures all prescriptions for the next year are free
To keep the costs of drugs to the NHS as low as possible, GPs will prescribe generic drugs if possible, but may if the medical condition merits it prescribe the latest "wonder" drug if this will give the patient a specific benefit. Most prescriptions are generic by definition.
So the primary health care GP operates and lives in the community he serves often striking up life long relationships with his patients families. The GP is very much respected within the community as he provides this service. Should a patient present a more serious illness, the GP will refer the patient to the correct specialisation consultant who normally operates out of the local hospital. This referral can progress up to the teaching hospitals if necessary
One of the "Draw-backs" of our NHS system can be the time waiting to see a consultant and or the time waiting for a minor operation to be carried out. It is often these time delays that are splashed across our newspaper headlines that produce the most criticism of our system. Sure these delays can occur, but the press is always too quick to publish the bad news, and would never dream of publishing the good news to provide a balanced view.
The system works well most of the time, and failures once identified can often be attributed to the human error element at that time. No system operated by humans will ever be perfect. I personally am very happy that when urgent medical treatment is required it will be supplied.
Recently my 83 year old father gave himself a hernia on a Friday afternoon. He went to see his GP on Friday evening and was immediately admitted into hospital. The hernia was pushed back in to prevent strangulation and it was planned to operate tomorrow Saturday. A major road accident on the nearby motorway (freeway) prevented the operation on Saturday as all the theatres were busy with higher priority cases. But the operation was carried out on Sunday afternoon and I took my father home on Monday afternoon. He is now under strict orders never again to lift his wallet (Sigh) But to be serious I do not think that one would get a better service than that anywhere in the world unless you were a millionaire. This treatment cost my father nothing.
Most of the UK population rely totally on the NHS system and it normally does not let them down
My mother lost a leg at 64 years old and relies on an artificial limb. She has 2 false legs and is forever breaking them. I would estimate she visits the limb centre at Sheffield about every 6 weeks or so for repair or refurbishment. So now aged 83 years old, and I shudder to think what this would have cost without the NHS.
I once visited with the old folk and found the spare leg in it's bag ready to be taken to the limb centre for repair. So when mum is busy elsewhere, I unzip the bag, place in a hand written note, and re-zip before she knows I have been there. On arrival at the limb centre, the technician finds the note and laughs out loud. Mum asks what is so funny, so he hands her the note which reads. "Please repair the leg, but leave the squeak as we can hear her coming"
Private health care is available to those who wish to pay the necessary insurance premium. This is often provided by the employer who typically pays £25 per month for each employee. So even private health insurance in the UK is far cheaper that the USA. Incidentally employers usually pay out for this insurance as their employees get a faster service, which means the man in question will take very little time off work. So this system more than pays for itself from the employers point of view.
Private health insurance runs parallel with the NHS and compliments it well. It is the same consultants treating Private and NHS patients alike using NHS resources. The resources and consultants time are provided "out of normal hours" and the NHS benefits from renting out it's resources to private medical care. We in the UK have got a very good balance between the state system and private enterprise, but it does require integrity at consultant level. Abuse of the system does take place, but it is not widespread.
I personally have come across top class consultants who are so dedicated to the NHS that they refuse to take private patients.
Our NHS system is a non-profit making organisation, which means the entire budget is spent on patient care. It also means that it is very rare for a clinical procedure to be carried out unnecessarily. Money can motivate private health care systems to carry out unnecessary procedures in their search for fat profits.
Salaries in the NHS for qualified Doctors & Consultants, have to remain in-line with the private sector otherwise we would be unable to retain the staff. After all this is a global market for qualified men.
At this moment in time, salaries for nursing staff have fallen behind, and there is a strong recruiting drive to attract qualified nurses back into the NHS
No system is perfect and ours can be improved. But no one in this system can get rich by exploiting the vulnerability of the sick. Patient care before profits and total peace of mind for anyone needing health care as cash is never in the equation.
Simply Steve
