Sir Keir Starmer hints at banning private healthcare

[Borchester]

Nonsense, private health care does not even carry out a lot of what the NHS does. There are no private casualty departments for a start, and if you do develop serious issues in a private hospital you get moved to an NHS A&E.

In which case the private hospital or insurer pays the NHS for the bed that it (the NHS) had available. That saves the NHS money.

Mod edit
Cromwell

[Borchester]

I was present at both my mum and dad's deaths - neither had been capable of speech for a few days whilst actively dying (as it was explained to me)and were certainly not interested in or up to making political utterances about healthcare.

Pretty much my experience. Sir Keir's response was so flat footed and clearly begging for a kick in the wedding tackle that I wonder if Tommy had not written it.

[papasmurf]

Every person choosing private healthcare releases a bed/funds for those who use the NHS

Nonsense, private health care does not even carry out a lot of what the NHS does. There are no private casualty departments for a start, and if you do develop serious issues in a private hospital you get moved to an NHS A&E.

[Ratcliff]

Rubbish, it has to do with people not being ripped off by private healthcare.

What utter rubbish, the NHS is run for the benefit of the staff, not the patients
If it was so great why does it need 'protecting' against patients with a virus to the exclusion of standard diagnostics , cancer diagnoses, Alzheimer's diagnoses etc?
All the nurses I know pay private health subs for their own health needs. Private healthcare subs and self pay care are far from being a rip off.
Every person choosing private healthcare releases a bed/funds for those who use the NHS through need or political dogma
From reading the link it seems that Sir Keir reckons that whilst on her deathbed, breathing her last  his mother was only interested in his father not having private treatment. Very hard to believe.
I was present at both my mum and dad's deaths - neither had been capable of speech for a few days whilst actively dying (as it was explained to me)and were certainly not interested in or up to making political utterances about healthcare.

[Borchester]

More to the point I regularly check on what the NHS treatment, regular tests and medication would cost me if I had to pay privately.
I could not afford private health care.

That is the bit that pisses me off Pappy. We paid for my daughter's medical treatment. No worries. That is what parents are for. But it also meant that the NHS had extra funds to treat ................................................................. I really wish there was some way round that part.

Mod edit - Barry

[papasmurf]

Have you ever worked out what the NHS had cost you personally? 

More to the point I regularly check on what the NHS treatment, regular tests and medication would cost me if I had to pay privately.
I could not afford private health care.

[johnofgwent]

Why do you think that would be a vote loser?

The labour party have run the NHS unoposed unhindered and unchallenged, in Wales for twenty two years.

By any measure it is a cat arse trophy

Some of us have no option but to endure this.

Those who have alternatives, I think, should take a long hard look at the shitshower the NHS has become here and think VERY carefully is this what you want to lumber yourselves with.

The Welsh Ambulance service never met its callout target for twelve years straight. Welsh Labour fixed this by abandoning the target and replacing it with one that said as long as they picked up the corpse before the stink became noticeable, that was OK.

[T00ts]

True Toots.

I have made a very rough cast and reckon that it works out at about 1,600 pounds a year. Washers if you have open heart surgery, but still a long way from Pappy's idea that it is all funded by a magic money tree growing in Keir Starmer's back garden

As to private healthcare, my daughter (ex branch secretary of Edinburgh University Socialist Worker Party) needed an operation on her neck. She was in screaming agony so the NHS proscribed painkillers and said that there was a good chance that something could be done in 9 months. My wife said bollocks to that, contacted her private healthcare and the daughter was operated on within a couple of weeks.

..and that's the point. The problem is they can no longer provide proper care in a way that patients expect. It is now a second or even third class service costing an extortionate amount of money. There are better systems around the world providing better and more up to date care. The medics know it, the nurses know it but management is only interested in plush offices and their pay packets. I defy anyone to get a handle on the NHS. It is so big that it can hide its waste and inefficiency too easily. People have tried in the past from decent food to better care but the malaise is too entrenched and the only way is amputation. 
Years ago I turned to private care because the NHS hadn't got the expertise and my career depended on it. It has got worse since. My daughter's experience has been barbaric.

[Borchester]

Have you ever worked out what the NHS had cost you personally? In it's day it was well worth the money but very sadly it has lost it's way. Now those of us who have been on waiting lists for what feels like forever have taken to private medicine in desperation as much as anything else, only to find just how superior it can be. The NHS has become a self serving behemoth - no fault of the front line  - but they are finished.

True Toots.

I have made a very rough cast and reckon that it works out at about 1,600 pounds a year. Washers if you have open heart surgery, but still a long way from Pappy's idea that it is all funded by a magic money tree growing in Keir Starmer's back garden

As to private healthcare, my daughter (ex branch secretary of Edinburgh University Socialist Worker Party) needed an operation on her neck. She was in screaming agony so the NHS proscribed painkillers and said that there was a good chance that something could be done in 9 months. My wife said bollocks to that, contacted her private healthcare and the daughter was operated on within a couple of weeks.

[Barry]

My mother in law had two hip replacements, both were done at a private hospital, as she was not going to wait the time the NHS expected her to, in pain.
I don't know exactly how much she paid, but she seemed very happy with the price and the results.

The NHS were in charge of her warfarin doses and changed the regime from mg to tablets without properly explaining to her. This resulted in her taking 5 times the dose she needed resulting in a medical emergency.

She was on a pacemaker. When it needed changing, the NHS changed it for a cheaper version to save money. Shortly after that she called an ambulance in the night and left the door of her flat open so they could get in. There was a long delay before they arrived and found her dead.

She had the choice and paid for her hip operations, which were excellent, changing her life. Why shouldn't she have had that choice?

[T00ts]

Rubbish, it has to do with people not being ripped off by private healthcare.

Have you ever worked out what the NHS had cost you personally? In it's day it was well worth the money but very sadly it has lost it's way. Now those of us who have been on waiting lists for what feels like forever have taken to private medicine in desperation as much as anything else, only to find just how superior it can be. The NHS has become a self serving behemoth - no fault of the front line  - but they are finished.

[papasmurf]

Because it is the politics of envy  and mean spirited spite. 

Rubbish, it has to do with people not being ripped off by private healthcare.

[Borchester]

Why do you think that would be a vote loser?

Because it is the politics of envy  and mean spirited spite. It is Del Boy's definition of a communist. Someone who has nothing and wants you to have the same. It works with you because you don't want to improve the NHS, you just want other folk (ie Tories) to have a shit time. That is fine by you, but most voters want a better service and they don't think that it will be improved by shooting a few more kulaks.

[papasmurf]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10248915/Sir-Keir-Starmer-hints-BAN-private-healthcare-PM.html

Bless him. Boris is on the ropes and Sir Keir chooses this moment to shoot himself in the foot. I swear that Sir Glum is on the Tory party's payroll

Why do you think that would be a vote loser? 

[Borchester]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10248915/Sir-Keir-Starmer-hints-BAN-private-healthcare-PM.html

Bless him. Boris is on the ropes and Sir Keir chooses this moment to shoot himself in the foot. I swear that Sir Glum is on the Tory party's payroll