A hospital visit

[Keith at Tregenna]

So you could ask the question !

[Rodney Mills]

Thank you Lewis for your complimentary thanks for my post...I think? First, all senior citizen, get exactly the same coverage and the same treatment as we received. No questions asked. If someone cannot pay the difference it is written off by the hospital in the theory you cannot get blood out of a stone I guess. Isn't there additional private insurance offered in the UK that moves one to the front for say elective surgery?

True I can afford the best of insurance, part of my premium is an additional fee I am willing and able to pay to guarantee I will never...never see a medical bill. Clerks put in wrong code numbers, insurance companies refuse to pay the claim, the bill gets kicked to the patient and a side show begins. I'm able and willing to pay for the insurance company to clear up any messes in billing.

The average senior (with ordinary financial means) has the same coverage as me and usually can pay the additional 20 percent insurance gap, those that can't and are underneath an income cap, can have the 100% paid for by the gov.

There is a government prescription drug insurance plan too. We need it. Our drugs are off the wall expensive. In your country, the government sets a price it will pay for prescription drugs and the pharmaceutical companies get in line (this is true of all other countries too). This makes us mad, as a large percentage of todays wonder drugs are developed here in the USA, in medical universities and paid for with government grants, and as you are aware, government income comes from the employed. So I as a tax payer am underwriting research and paying high retail to boot.. World-wide pharmaceutical companies are soaking us way beyond what the rest of the world pays.
This is not the fault of other governments, they play it smart. Our senators and congressmen takes massive handouts from the pharmaceuticals to pay for their re-election prospects...bastards!.

I hope this helps answer your questions.

In closing the streets of the USA are not paved with gold, neither are there sick and dying people laying in the gutter either. Sure we have homeless people living rough...a lot are sadly mentally ill and are there by choice. Are there not people living rough in the UK and Europe, there was the last time I was across the pond.

I'm looking forward to a farewell tour of Poland and Germany next year. We have many friends there and have had such truly great times, can't wait, but don't want to wish my life away.

With respect to the US citizens (who live close to the border) who go to Mexico for dental work, why not, the word gets out about a good Mex. dentist, in a border city, easy drive, trained in the U.S., office is of U.S. hygienic standards, price is half, who wouldn't take advantage? Many who live near the Canadian border drive to a Canadian town or city, take their prescriptions to a drug store and have them filled again at half the price...exactly the same drug! There are organized bus trips, which include sight seeing killing time while a bus load of prescriptions are filled. A nice day out.

[vic mcclymont]

So you could ask the question !

A non answer, from a non person!!!!

[Keith at Tregenna]

You had an answer your question deserved.

[Red Lead Ted]

The truth is lads the end is nigh. If you read this report from the guardian news paper if this government dont raise wages and working conditions for all N.H.S. Workers i am afraid the writing is on the wall.
NHS staff 'quitting to work in supermarkets because of poor pay'
Policy of limiting rises to 1% is damaging health service and must not be pursued into next parliament, say NHS leaders
A doctor in an A&E department


NHS staff are quitting to stack shelves in supermarkets instead of caring for patients because they are so demoralised by years of getting pay rises of only 1% or nothing, hospital bosses have warned.

The health service is now so understaffed that patient safety is being put at risk and people with mental health problems are experiencing delays and setbacks as a result, NHS leaders say.

The intervention in the general election campaign comes from NHS Providers, which represents almost all of England’s 240 NHS hospital, mental health and ambulance trusts. They told ministers bluntly on Monday that the government’s longstanding policy of holding down NHS staff pay is wrong and is damaging the service by deepening its already severe staff shortages.



“Years of pay restraint and stressful working conditions are taking their toll,” said Chris Hopson, NHS Providers’ chief executive. “Pay is becoming uncompetitive. Significant numbers of trusts say lower paid staff are leaving to stack shelves in supermarkets rather than carry on with the NHS.”

He urged Theresa May to abandon her plan to limit NHS staff’s pay increases to 1% a year until 2020 and not pursue it during the next parliament as a way of making the NHS’s books balance.

He added: “Trust leaders tell us that seven years of NHS pay restraint is now preventing them from recruiting and retaining the staff they need to provide safe, high-quality patient care. The NHS can’t carry on failing to reflect the contribution of our staff through fair and competitive pay for five more years.

“Pay restraint must end and politicians must therefore be clear about when during the lifetime of the next parliament it will happen and how.” He repeated the organisation’s demand for £25bn in extra funding to help the NHS in England get through until 2020 and warned that staff are also leaving because they are exhausted from having to work so constantly to keep up with the unprecedented demand for care.

Hopson added: “We are getting consistent reports of retention problems because of working pressures in the health service causing stress and burnout.”

Medical royal colleges, health trade unions and health charities such as Cancer Research UK have been highlighting in recent months the damaging effects on patient care of widespread shortages of doctors, nurses, GPs, paramedics and many other NHS staff groups.




Norman Lamb, a former coalition government health minister, said NHS pay restraint – which had operated since 2010 – was “stupid” and had gone on so long that it was proving counterproductive.



“The Conservatives expect NHS staff to take year-on-year real-terms pay cuts in order to try to stave off financial disaster in the NHS,” said the Liberal Democrat health spokesman. “You can’t possibly justify this over such a long period. It is also stupid because great staff will vote with their feet and leave.”

He contrasted his party’s plan for a 1p increase in income tax to generate extra funds for health and social care with May’s refusal to commit to any tax increases for that purpose. With the Tory majority set to increase, “this guarantees a bleak future for the NHS and for its staff under the Conservatives”, claimed Lamb.

Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, repeated his pledge of more money for the NHS if the Tories are re-elected and said that nurses’ pay should go up. Responding to a question from the BBC interviewer Andrew Marr about some nurses going to food banks, Hunt replied that average nurse’s pay is £31,000.

“Is that enough considering the brilliant work that they do? I think many people would say they want to pay them more. I think they do an incredible job. If you want more money to go into the NHS – and this government recognises we will need to put more money into the NHS and the social care system because of the pressures we face – then the question is how you get there,” said Hunt.

He also insisted that key NHS waiting time standards, such as the four-hour target in A&E and 18-week wait for planned hospital care, were not particularly useful measures of true NHS performance. Lives saved from cancer and heart disease as a result of better care showed the service was doing well, he added.

Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s health spokesman, said Hunt’s agreement that it was unacceptable that the A&E target had not been met in England for more than two years was “an admission of failure straight from the horse’s mouth: the Tory-made A&E crisis is simply ‘not acceptable’”.

Responding to Hopson’s comments on NHS pay, Ashworth added: “This is a stark warning from NHS Providers about the Conservatives’ catastrophic management of the NHS workforce. It is incredible and disgraceful that NHS staff are leaving to work in supermarkets instead because NHS pay has been squeezed so far. The country’s shortage of paramedics, nurses and consultants now threatens a raft of NHS strategies to provide better services for patients.”



NHS Providers are also warning that understaffing is so serious in mental health services that patients are now suffering delays in receiving treatment, taking longer to recover and having a bad experience of NHS care. “We are particularly worried about the pressures in the mental health workforce,” said Hopson. “These are resulting in delays in treatment, people are taking longer to recover, and as a result their care is more expensive and their experience is worse.”

A Conservative spokesman declined to respond directly to Hopson’s warning. He said only that: “As NHS England say, outcomes for every major disease in this country are now better than they’ve ever been. But the truth is that in order to continue to invest in the NHS, grow staff numbers and pay, and improve patient care, we need to secure the economic progress we’ve made and get a good Brexit deal. That is only on offer at this election with the strong and stable leadership of Theresa May.” Not looking good for any of us who rely on the N.H.S. Terry.

[Captain Kong]

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[Red Lead Ted]

Brian, I am more baffled than you ???????????????????????

[Captain Kong]

Hi Terry ,
there are some things in that Guardian report I disagree with.
My sister is a Nurse in the Queens Medical Centre Nottingham, her daughter, my niece, is also a Nurse in London, Not one of them has had any need to visit a Food Bank.
If a Nurse is on £31,000 a year why do they need to go to a food bank, or pack it in and be a shelf filler in ASDA or Tesco for £7,30p an hour.
My son is a Consultant in a Hospital, he also has no need to visit a food bank or even stack a shelf in ASDA.
The Guardian is a mouth piece for Corbyn and is always full of crap.

Hands up anyone who knows a Nurse that goes to Food Banks?????????

I have always had EXCELLENT service from my visits to Hospitals and my Doctors. Absolutely no complaints at all, They have saved my life several times and they were always cheerful and professional.
Salford Royal Hospital Is one of the very Best and is at this moment having Two Hundred Million Pounds spent on it. So what is the Problem.
Stop reading the Guardian and be Happy. I do not read any newspaper, I get my information from the Real People. who Know the Truth.
The only problem with the NHS is politicians and newspapers trying to stir people up for political gain.

Cheers
Brian,

[Red Lead Ted]

Brian, My sister has worked in the N.H.S. For 20 years take it from me mate the feedback i get from her is unbelievable N.H.S. Staff are devoted people and work. . beyond there shift many many times to care for people. I am not making a political football out of the decline of the N.H.S. Its there for all to see operations getting cancelled for weeks not only is there a shortage of nursing staff but the nursing profession has 1,000s of vacancies that know one is interested in filling we both may have received the best of health care in the past but i fear for the future and my kids and grand kids you dont have to read the guardian or any other news paper just observe the current news its happening and that is fact not fiction Regards Terry.

[Lewis McColl]

Who reckons Les Firth is torry and some one else who keeps hacking the site????