In Singapore the patient is the customer. More than that, the patient is the customer waving real cash money at the people thinking about treating them. As people like cash money, the patient gets treated in a manner that leads to the money flowing to the people doing the treatments.
Yes, it’s that foul idea of treatment not being free at the point of consumption. Except that foul idea does lead to what is seemingly desired — a joined up health care system that treats people efficiently.
Really good piece Tim but, as you say, most of our politicos are unlikely to understand the real reasons behind Singapore’s successful system.
embracing technology, data and population-level health interventions.
Do any of these twats realise how broke we are?
We’ve already thrown hundreds of billions at the NHS, and they still can’t effectively communicate with each other inside the same fucking hospital. Just stop.
Good stuff, but how to get there from here – assuming we had a government which had a clue (yes, I know) and a working majority?
Don’t know a lot about Singapore (although I am familiar with their HC system, free market types do like to point to it), but I wonder if some of this success might be cultural? My impression (based on very limited info, so feel free to correct me) is that they are a very disciplined, non-diverse nation who I would expect to be efficient and follow rules very precisely.
Singapore’s a mixture of native Malays and Chinese (imported by the Empire, along with quite a few Indians) – historically, at least, little love has been lost between these communities. There’s a non-trivial number of white ‘European’ immigrants, as well.