Winter is coming, as it always does, and the NHS creaks and groans. The chancellor will not tomorrow hand over the £1bn it needs to cover the cost of strikes,
The NHS doesn’t charge for, doesn’t get paid by, the number of treatments it gives. So, a strike which reduces treatment should not reduce revenue. But a strike should reduice costs – as it’s not paying the strikers.
So, what £1 billion cost of strikes?
Lower costs, same revenues, what costs?
I dunno, but have some people been given treatment in the private sector because of the strikes?
Well, BiND, I wouldn’t be surprised as they were using private sources the first year of lockdown. They sent my mum to a very swish private clinic for her eye treatment.
Or it could, of course, be a totally made up figure pulled from someone’s nether regions.
Stories abound of medics being paid small (or not-so-small) fortunes to cover for those on strike, so treatment has continued but at much-increased cost. Probably at greater risk to patients too, if long hours are being worked.
“Whose fault is that Chancellor”?
In the headline no less. I really didn’t think she was quite that stupid.
Waiting lists and poor service are likely to drive those who can afford it to go private. We aren’t rich by any means but we did, during our working lives, put a decent amount of money aside for our retirement. This does mean that we have access to various pots of money should the need arise. We also have a certain amount of health insurance but, because we were already quite old when we took it out, it doesn’t cover some of our pre existing conditions. There must be plenty of other people like us, I wonder what the figures are nationally for the amount of money spent on private healthcare? As I always like to mention on these discussions, our cats have health insurance and they get prompt and effective treatment whenever they need it.
Lady Bountiful preaches that people she doesn’t know should be taxed more to pay for a health service she doesn’t use.
Lady Bountiful is so charitable, you see.
See also the genius footballer Marcus Rashford and his principled stance that everything should be free gibs paid for by the government innit.
Marcus Rashford is very inspirational isn’t he.
Does the Guardian pay for BUPA for old farts like La Toynbee?
In the same vein: when an Oxbridge lefty is banging on about something ask him “Does your college pay for BUPA for you?” (The same question should be asked of all lefty Vice-Chancellors.)
Mine didn’t, the bastards. I paid from my own pocket for an operation for my wife to save her a nine month wait. Covid then came along which might have changed it to a wait-unto-death.
The NHS doesn’t charge for, doesn’t get paid by, the number of treatments it gives.
More’s the pity.
The whole point of waiting lists is to reduce costs within a budget period, by shoving costs into the next budget period, pushing costs onto a different budget, avoiding the cost by pushing it into private treatment, eliminating the cost by delaying it until the person dies.
It’s called the NHS and over 70 years has developed a high level of skill in avoiding costs.
Steve,
I will thank you to refer to his beneficence as Marcus 3-Rollers Rashford on here.
The NHS doesn’t charge for, doesn’t get paid by, the number of treatments it gives.
But those independent pharmacies, and in all probability the GP surgeries as well, are most certainly paid for every Covid booster shot.
One of the local GPs drove a smart Beemer ragtop with the plate JAB 86, after some long-forgotten vaccination campaign that paid for it.
Failing to treat someone can either save money or cost money depending on the ailment. In some cases, the condition improves, so money is saved, while in others it deteriorates, necessitating a more expensive treatment, and so costs money.
In the case of deferred treatment, it may save costs in one budget period only to incur them in a later period, and other people won’t magically need less treatment, so the later budget period will have much higher costs. Note that in most organisations money cannot in general be carried over from one budget period to the next, so deferring payments results in a period with unaffordable costs.