Everyone knows the NHS is under immense strain but NO ONE, especially the NHS itself and associated journals like the BMJ dare allow free speech regarding sensitive and possibly controversial reasons that may be causing this. The BMJ recently posted a question, “Should patients pay to see a GP” but avoid any discussion about the problem of why the NHS is under pressure including the effect of "EU citizens open border migration" abusing our system because they the NHS and government are afraid of entering a debate that involves non PC opinions, a bit like the British Government in banning Trump because of his views on Muslims which are radical and do not suit the leftist segment of our society. Far too sensitive and emotive a topic to suggest some people should be treated differently to us British taxpayers.
I am pretty sure that back in the 1950's when Bevan proposed and was instrumental in setting up the NHS it was intended for British citizens only because at that point the EU wide open border system did not exist. Somehow along the way when we joined the EU in 1973 the matter of who can enjoy "free treatment" was not even considered, but today as we all know there are many millions of legal and illegal immigrants who use and in my opinion abuse our NHS.
The prime minister recently as much as acknowledged that European open border immigration is sinking our benefit system, and by implication sinking our NHS which is a composite part of that. Even more recently a respectable retired NHS specialist Professor Angus Dalgleish said and I quote "BRITAIN should leave the EU in order to save an NHS which is being overrun by migrants, according to a top cancer specialist."The NHS was created to provide free health service for hard working taxpaying BRITISH citizens, not the whole of Europe as is happening today. Little wonder our NHS is taking strain when we read from the Governments own “Office of National Statistics” (ONS) that for example 1/3 of all babies born in the UK are to non British born mothers and more recently that 1 in 6 of all babies born in the EU are born in the UK. Now that does not mean that some small percentage of mothers included in the figure are here married to British born men and entitled to free treatment, but we can safely assume a large percentage are here as foreign free border movement immigrants or simply Illegal Immigrants who in the main do not contribute to the system and often even use other benefits to supplement their income. The argument that these people "work and contribute" simply does not wash, most of these people are unskilled and earn below the tax threshold, pay no tax and supplement their existence through benefits and hand-outs. Why should our TAX pound pay for their free health care at the expense and demise of our treasured free health care system?
My personal
experience, having spent many months, if not years undergoing long term chronic
treatment can vouch that on most visits to the hospitals and or GP’s rooms it
is a VERY mixed bag of nationalities that are there, often as in the case of
some hospitals, because of the high incidence of non English speaking patients,
the need for permanent translators on hand. That is simply not
right. These people should be paying at least something towards their use
of our health care system.
I fully
understand the sentiment that to ask Doctors surgeries or for that matter
hospitals to try and manage charges on a visit by visit basis becomes very
unwieldy and simply not workable, but why not like in Holland, get all non
British people living in the UK to pay an upfront charge each year and carry a
card to prove that they have, or have a monthly charge before they can get any free treatment, or otherwise like in most other civilised countries pay before treatment or go elsewhere. I am sure
that will go a LONG way to solving the problem our NHS is experiencing.
As for allowing a private group like Virgin to run the NHS, one thing is for sure, any sharp business minded management will do nothing but good for the NHS. At a cursory glance, it seems the NHS is TOP HEAVY with fat cat managers consuming a large portion of the budget in salaries, but contributing very little to the productivity of the place. In a recent discussion with a reputable "high level surgeon in the NHS" he told me there are layer upon layer of "managers" sometimes "managers to manage the next level manager" and they all know once they have those positions their future is more or less secure till retirement because performance is simply not monitored and there is little if any accountability for what they do or do not do.
In order to avoid complications in managing the unwieldy organisation the management system has stripped everyone of any common sense and tried to replace it with sets of rules, what is allowed and what is not, resulting in a workforce of robots often not using their own common sense at the expense of the patients. Procurement of supplies has become seriously inefficient with suppliers ripping off the system because of the lack of accountability of officials who end up accepting bad deals and overpaying for goods. Again a private run NHS would be much leaner and sharper, watching costs and controlling expenditure in favour of the NHS itself.
Bottom line is in my opinion we need a mixture of "private and state" to get the optimum running of our beloved NHS and save it from eventual total collapse.
Many of the accusations / observations made in this last paragraph will have no tangible proof because to start with the whole management and running of the NHS is not transparent and in my opinion the government and the NHS itself have very carefully hidden budget and other costs to avoid scrutiny and criticisms of their inefficient running of the place.
1/3 of all babies born in the UK are to foreign born mothers :
As for allowing a private group like Virgin to run the NHS, one thing is for sure, any sharp business minded management will do nothing but good for the NHS. At a cursory glance, it seems the NHS is TOP HEAVY with fat cat managers consuming a large portion of the budget in salaries, but contributing very little to the productivity of the place. In a recent discussion with a reputable "high level surgeon in the NHS" he told me there are layer upon layer of "managers" sometimes "managers to manage the next level manager" and they all know once they have those positions their future is more or less secure till retirement because performance is simply not monitored and there is little if any accountability for what they do or do not do.
In order to avoid complications in managing the unwieldy organisation the management system has stripped everyone of any common sense and tried to replace it with sets of rules, what is allowed and what is not, resulting in a workforce of robots often not using their own common sense at the expense of the patients. Procurement of supplies has become seriously inefficient with suppliers ripping off the system because of the lack of accountability of officials who end up accepting bad deals and overpaying for goods. Again a private run NHS would be much leaner and sharper, watching costs and controlling expenditure in favour of the NHS itself.
Bottom line is in my opinion we need a mixture of "private and state" to get the optimum running of our beloved NHS and save it from eventual total collapse.
Many of the accusations / observations made in this last paragraph will have no tangible proof because to start with the whole management and running of the NHS is not transparent and in my opinion the government and the NHS itself have very carefully hidden budget and other costs to avoid scrutiny and criticisms of their inefficient running of the place.
1/3 of all babies born in the UK are to foreign born mothers :
Another link about that:
http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/642236/Expert-warn-EU-membership-damage-cancer-research-collapse-NHS-health
Immigration fuels baby boom: One in SIX of all new European babies now born in the UK.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/652882/Uk-baby-boom-crisis-one-in-six-european-babies-born-here
Immigration fuels baby boom: One in SIX of all new European babies now born in the UK.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/652882/Uk-baby-boom-crisis-one-in-six-european-babies-born-here
