Economics -
National Health Service
Everyone
in Britain will get a “health passport”
allowing them to pick and mix private or NHS
hospitals under Tory plans. The state will pay
the cost of NHS ops and up to 70 per cent of
private treatment. Patients would pay the
difference out of their own money, or from
private “top-up” health insurance.
Tories reckon the move would free up hospitals to
deliver faster treatment for poorer families.
Shadow Health Secretary Liam Fox said, “For
the first time, the patient will be given the
freedom of choice.” Anyone who needs
hospital treatment will be able to select where
and when to have it. Charges for all procedures
will be set out in a price tariff. This
“Health Entitlement Licence” is
designed to reduce abuse of the NHS by asylum
seekers. Anyone unable to produce one would be
investigated by immigration officials. But why go
to all this bother? We all have a National
Insurance number. If you cannot show proof of it,
you get no treatment. Simple.
Patients
will have to pay £16 a month for the right to
see a general practitioner under plans being
drawn up by the British Medical Association. The
proposals amount to a wholesale privatisation of
the GP service, with thousands of family doctors
potentially leaving the NHS. The BMA's General
Practitioners Committee is drawing up the plans
as a result of grow ing frustration with
intransigence from the Department of Health,
which is trying to impose a new contract. GPs
insist they are having to deal with far too many
patients, with the average appointment time now
down to seven minutes, and that their pay is too
low. Morale among GPs is at rock bottom, with 86
per cent voting last month to leave the NHS if
negotiations over the new contract failed.
The proposals, based on the system in Guernsey,
are aimed at boosting recruitment, improving pay,
increasing the amount of time they have with each
patient, cutting paperwork and reducing
interference from the Department of Health. Under
the new system, adults would have to pay £16 a
month in insurance to cover visits to a private
GP, who would refer the patients to NHS hospitals
or consultants if further treatment was needed.
Insurance for children would cost £8 a month,
and it would be free for those on low incomes. If
they wanted, patients could choose 'pay as you
go', paying for each appointment to the GP.
The plans are being developed by a new BMA
committee, the Special Advisory Group, which is
looking at alternatives to the NHS. A draft
report on the plans said: 'There is a radical
alternative to the UK method of providing general
practitioner services which already exists within
the British Isles. The Guernsey option would
allow the General Practitioner Service to expand
once again. The UK would no longer have the
unhappiest GPs in Europe.'
Dr Jonathan Reggler, the member of the General
Practitioners Committee who originally proposed
the Guernsey option, said: 'I've received very
favourable support from colleagues. The majority
of the General Practitioners Committee believes
it is viable to run an alternative to the NHS
system.' The GPC is responsible for negotiating
on behalf of GPs with government, and if it
formally recommends the Guernsey system, it will
be a critical blow to the government.
It is certain that Alan Milburn, the Health
Secretary, who has promised to keep all
healthcare free, will refuse to co-operate with
the new system, but doctors believe they may be
able to force his hand. 'If a sufficient number
of GPs in an area resign from the NHS, it will be
impossible for health authorities to reallocate
all their patients to other doctors. The
Government will have to step in,' said Reggler.
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