The Office for National Statistics (ONS), have estimated that
around 248,000 UK residents travelled abroad for medical treatment in 2019,
compared with 120,000 in 2015.
Before we left the E.U., patients could get the cost of surgery
reimbursed by the NHS if it was done in another country and the NHS were unable
to do it in a 'reasonable' time, around six months. Clinics in Lithuania,
Hungry, Spain and Poland, are all all reporting a rise in demand for elective
procedures like hip operations. They claim that NHS waiting lists are
"driving business."
NHS figures show that 7.19 million people were waiting for
medical treatment in England in November, with 406,575 waiting over a year.
Some people have launched GoFundMe appeals or are using crowdfunding to pay for
urgent medical treatment. Gym instructor, Samantha Barker, 25, launched a
GoFundMe appeal to pay for surgery in Romania, after learning that she would
have to wait 65-weeks to get treatment in Malvern, Worcestershire. Barker told
the Observer newspaper that she was suffering from agonizing pain brought about
by endometriosis.
In Europe, surgical operations can be as little as half the
price of the equivalent treatment in the UK, even after factoring in extras for
post-operative rehabilitation. The Observer reported on Sunday that a
grandfather of eight from Portsmouth, had travelled from Luton to Lithuania for
a hip replacement costing £6,146. He'd been quoted £15,000 by a private
hospital in the UK.
The Private Healthcare Information Network, say that the
number of people in Britain who are self-paying for medical treatment, has
increased by more than a third, compared with before the pandemic, with a 193%
rise in those paying for hip replacements.
The so-called crisis in the NHS, has been largely contrived
by successive British governments who have been privatising the NHS by stealth
and through the back door, for decades. Countries like France and Germany have
had to deal with such things as the COVID pandemic and winter flu, but have far
better health systems, with more hospital beds per patient than in Britain, and
more doctors and nurses per patient, than in Britain. A decade of
underinvestment in the NHS, appalling waiting times for ambulances and A&E
treatment, and elderly people left lying on hospital trollies, have led to more
people turning to the private medical sector to get urgent medical treatment.
Many NHS hospital trusts, are now telling patients, that they can jump the
queue if they can stump up some cash to pay for their medical treatment.
The Observer reported that the number of Britons using
crowdfunding to pay for private medical expenses, has surged in the last five
years. As more people begin to pay for medical treatment and grow accustomed to
doing so, we are likely in the long-run, to lose the NHS by default. The
Americanisation of health care in Britain, will also be a boon for the
insurance industry and will lead to a two-tier health service where those who
can pay, get priority medical care, and those who can't pay, get relegated to
the bottom of the queue.
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2 comments:
Two hundred thousand million pounds a year,and for every front line health worker there are two administrative staff.The budget in real terms has risen 40% since 2010.
TEN MILLION New people have registered with doctors for NHS treatments largely due to immigration,in the same time.
Labour privatised every hospital with pfi and cut 44000 beds,closed cottage hospitals for centralised treatment,effectively ending convalescent care taking up critical care beds.
The NHS is already privatised and has been for years.
The NHS is top heavy with overpaid bureaucrats and it does squander money on waste and wokery. The Kings Fund say the NHS going through its biggest financial squeeze in its history. Since 2010, the NHS has had an unprecedented funding squeeze. Between 2010/11 and 2015/16, the NHS budget increased by 6 billion in real terms - an average of 0.9% a year. This is significantly lower than the long-term average increase in NHS spending which is 4%. Demand for services is rising-referrals, admissions, and outpatient attendances, adding to pressures on hospitals. The NHS has long been a user of immigrant labour, well before the Conservative Health Minister, Enoch Powell, brought nurses from the Caribbean to work in British hospitals. In 2014, 20% of the NHS workforce was non-British. This rises to 30% of doctors when locums are included. There are areas of Britain which have high immigrant populations but nevertheless, rank high in terms of A&E performance. Other areas, have have low immigrant populations and have poor A&E performance in their hospitals.
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