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An Insured Alternative To The Service


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My experience of NHS via GP has been very good but - needing to use it to see a consultant after I retired, and my private medical insurance cover lapsed - it hasn't been good. 

Co-inciding with a merger of two trusts and a changed computer system didn't help - but my experience was, frankly, dreadful - and my neighbour advises that she has had similar difficulties. 

The NHS - in a properly -funded, well-administered persona could still be very good, but it is difficult for me to envisage that happening. 

Perhaps we might work to having an Insured health welfare system like the Germans have?

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6 hours ago, taurean said:

Perhaps we might work to having an Insured health welfare system like the Germans have?

That's not the answer, the answer is to protect and campaign for an improved NHS... to quote the NHS website...

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The NHS was created out of the ideal that good healthcare should be available to all, regardless of wealth. When it was launched by the then minister of health, Aneurin Bevan, on July 5 1948, it was based on three core principles: that it meet the needs of everyone. that it be free at the point of delivery.

Many, many people in the UK struggle to pay for rent/food even when working on low incomes, so asking them to pay for a compulsorily health insurance will simply mean the poorer are harder hit again by having to contribute about half of their sickness fund they are subscribed to.  The German system will also hit small companies having to pay too the other half of their employees sickness fund. At some point that's going to impact on how many staff small to medium sized companies employ.

 

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I really think 'well administered' is the key!!  David had an appointment at Highlands House, the home of mental health services in our area.  The morning of his appointment I phoned dead on the dot of 9 Monday morning to cancel.  Had a long chat with someone, they said they would pass the message on.  At 12 noon, David had a message to say he had failed to attend his appointment.  Rang again to say it had been cancelled.  Now on Friday, a message to say his appointment with Sarah has been cancelled as she is ill.  He hasn't been informed of any appointment with Sarah!  

My daughter had very good treatment on the stroke unit at Tunbridge Wells Hospital.  Told she needed an MRI after 3 weeks and the consultant had been informed of that.  Absolutely nothing, not on the list anywhere.

Someone in our village was due to have a triple by-pass.  She developed a chest infection and it had to be cancelled.  As hard as she tried she couldn't get through on the phone.  How much money was wasted  that day?  So it goes on and on!!

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This is exactly the point. I experienced real distress because I was unable to talk to the consultants secretaries to find out what had happened re an appointment. They just let the phone ring and ring and there was no answerphone. 

In the end I was forced to write a complaint letter. 

Another time, and the secretaries failed to send me an appointment time. 

I couldn’t be bothered, I gave up. 

On one trip I was told to go and get a blood test. Blood testing unit refused me, I needed a certain docket printed off from the computer.

Back to outpatients - the computer system had just been changed - no one knew how to get this document and print it off.

Another occasion - message up - appointments running at least an hour late?  Why? Had someone overbooked, had there been any emergency?  No explanation. 

 

 

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