It's old but proves to me why we need to keep the profit motive out of health care. What what do others think? Prominent Michigan Cancer Doctor Pleads Guilty: ‘I Knew That It Was Medically Unnecessary’
There are plenty of people who work within the NHS who also have a profit motive: "GPs have always been self-employed practitioners who mix private practice with contracted work from the NHS. When the NHS was set up in 1948, GPs kept their independence but agreed to register all patients and provide 24-hour care. This established universal access to family doctors for the first time in the UK. GPs were paid on the basis of the number of patients on their books and also received payments for specific activities, including out-of-hours visits, maternity care and vaccinations". Also,if you go to see a Consultant at an NHS hospital/need treatment/are advised there is a waiting list,you may well be offered earlier treatment if you are able to pay. If you are able to pay,that same consultant will very likely become available to treat you,on the quick!And it's all perfectly above board! Terms under the 2003 Consultant Contract The right to undertake private practice is an essential part of the flexibility and freedom built into the national consultant contract. The 2003 Terms and Conditions of Service for Consultants (the Consultants Contract) therefore does not limit consultants from undertaking Private Practice, where those services are defined as 'Private Professional Services', including: The diagnosis or treatment of patients by private arrangement (including such diagnosis or treatment under Sector 65 (2) of the National Service Act 1977), excluding fee paying services as described in Schedule 10 of the Terms and Conditions. Work in the General Medical, Dental or Ophthalmic Services under Part 2 of the National Health Service Act 1977 (except in respect of patients for whom a hospital medical officer is allowed a limited 'list' e.g. members of the hospital staff). Should the above-mentioned Consultant require a place to carry out the private treatment,NHS facilities are at his disposal! Use of NHS Facilities 3.3 NHS consultants may not use NHS facilities for the provision of private services without the agreement of their NHS employer. This applies whether private services are carried out in their own time, in annual or unpaid leave, or – subject to the criteria in paragraph 2.8 - alongside NHS duties. 3.4 Where the employer has agreed that a consultant may use NHS facilities for the provision of private services: • the employer will determine and make such charges for the use of its services, accommodation or facilities as it considers reasonable; • any charge will be collected by the employer, either from the patient or a relevant third party; and • a charge will take full account of any diagnostic procedures used, the cost of any laboratory staff that have been involved and the cost of any NHS equipment that might have been used. It's called,"having your cake and eating it",a dining experience not available to most of us mere mortals. Remember that when you see the bleeding hearts from the BMA protesting about private companies schnumming in on the gig. Now there are reports are that Nurses are leaving the NHS and signing up with employment agencies,and then being hired by the NHS to do exactly the same job,but at much higher rates.So much for the NHS not being privatised....
I take your point - but would you ban all private medicine because of your concerns? And do you think UK doctors could inflict pain and suffering for profit on anything like the scale the American in the newspaper article did?
Wrong end of the stick,friend. If the NHS was run like a business,(even a non-profit making business),I doubt it would look like it does today. The point I was making is this:many of those who are trying to prevent the profit motive creeping in to the NHS are unaware that many of those doing the bleating are already making a profit out of it,they just don't want you to know about it! I've had a cursory look at other European healthcare systems,and I've got to say some of them look far more attractive than ours,at first glance anyway.But they are not,"free",(the NHS isn't "free either-we all pay for it out of our taxes),in the respect that the patient has to make a direct financial contribution.
OK, I see, but the link between profit and patient care is not as direct as it is in the US healthcare system. I assume you are not advocating that as an alternative to our own? And if we were to adopt something similar do you think it would be as open to abuse as theirs turned out to be in this appalling case. I know, I know, there have been Harold Shipman-type characters in the NHS - but introducing an overt profit motive might increase their number?
I don't know what the answer is,but I don't think the NHS is sustainable in it's current form. It's just not feasible to give everyone everything without strings attached.
You could raise a lot of money and free up GPs' time by charging £10 per consultation - maybe those with chronic illness and children could be exempt?
That is true but it wasn't quite the same. He was not able to make money directly from healthcare by prescribing courses of unnecessary treatment. I am sure he would have do so if he could have though and that thought is what troubles me!
The cases of Harold Shipman and Fred West shed an interesting light on the statistics for the number of murders committed each year. It turns out that were apparently dozens, or even hundreds, of murders committed each year which were never recorded as murders at the time because no-one knew about them. And those are just the murders which subsequently came to light. For all anyone knows there might be loads more murders which never came to light at all - or at least, not yet. The implication is that stats on this topic are totally unreliable, and any decisions based on those unreliable stats (such as those for supposed increases or reductions in the annual number of murders) are not soundly based.
Not entirely sure about that...if you recall, he was stealing huge amounts of diamorphine by false prescribing and overprescribing.... ...the amounts were far in excess of his own habit's demand and far in excess of what he needed to bump people off; so what was he doing with it? Selling it, maybe? Unless of course, the numbers he killed were far in excess of the number already speculated upon.
Here's a novel point....... About 5 years ago, my optician referred me to the Nuffield group with a view to having my eyesight corrected by either laser or surgery..... My neighbour is in fact one of the main eyesight specialists in the UK and he also works at Nuffield - He had already told me I would need surgery, which would mean lens replacement (Note that point for later). I received a letter from Nuffield to phone and make an appointment to consult a specialist. I duly phoned and mentioned the letter etc........ The very first question I was asked "May we have your insurance details, please? We require a consultancy fee" I didn't make an appointment, because that attitude immediately p*ssed me right off. It has now been discovered by her opticians, that Mrs AL has a cataract forming in one eye, which needs sorting out. The optician said there were two options as to where it could be done.......1) Nuffield and 2) a NHS Hospital. He said he was referring her to the Nuffield because A) It would be quicker and B) She would get a cup of tea and a biscuit when it was done. Of course, the operation to remove the cataract is a replacment lens............At no cost. WTF?
I suspect as a few others do that he killed far more than we know about. I doubt he sold it in any quantity. The quantity he would have at any one time would only be of interest to mid or lower level dealers they are used to handling purifies of 50% and less so to give them 100% purity and for them to cut it down properly would again be hit and miss. There would have been frequent OD by users and eventually even the Police would have got interested as to where the strong stuff was coming from
Agreed. And obviously what he did was wrong. But the American doctor case took prescribing unnecessary treatment to a whole new level I think.
Absolutely, we must never use the American model for healthcare, there is incentives to keep you sick (from the point of view of doctors and pharmaceutical companies) , and incentives (on the side of the insurance company) to not help you at all.
