NHS funding

Hi Kate,
I hope you are feeling okay today, I read with interest the above articles, as you know Tom and I are fighting the NHS about this very subject. Another article appeared in The Sunday Times today, where a builder was refused Sutent, and he has cashed in his pension to pay £3000 per month to buy the drug himself, The John Radcliff Hospital Oxford, has NOT withdrawn his NHS care, and states that they do not have any reason to do that, buying the drug for himself, does not give them any reason to withdraw his care. So it seems to me the Government/Dept Health is in disarray over this subject. It will be interesting to see what emerges in the coming months on this subject. Our PCT stated in front of our MP that they will withdraw care if we buy the drug for ourselves, which is quite amusing really as they are not giving Tom any care in the first place.I think Hamish Meldrum needs to be dragged into the 21st Century, unfortunately the NHS has not modernised with the times, the principle is good , but it is outdated and as the NHS keeps saying it does not have the resources to pay for new drugs, there has to be an alternative to letting people die because of their shortfall in cash, and if that means funding it yourself then so be it. We are at the bottom of the list when it comes to cancer treatment/care and success rates, France has 10 more drugs available than we do, and we spend as much as any other European country on Cancer. we must be doing something wrong somewhere.
Steffy

that ok, you pay insuarance, and it works, and if you have to have drugs for cancer you are not charged, i am not 100% sure but i think it is the same in Spain as well xxxxxxxxxx

"Dr Meldrum said the review, due to report in October, faced difficult questions: “Do we spend £250,000 prolonging someone’s life for six months, or should that be spent on saving 100 lives in another area?”

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I wish it WERE just a choice of which life-saving treatments to fund!

But that isn't where NHS money only goes, is it???

Because one thing's for sure - the NHS is haemorraghing money on management. Take a look at some of the jobs advertised recently in the Sunday Times Appointments section - I cut them out when I started cutting out the articles on the co-payments scandal (which may well affect my own husband soon).

Here's a sample.

* Chair of xxxx NHS Foundation Trust: "up to £45,000 for 2.5-3 days per week"

* Non-Executive Director, xxxxxx Foundation Trust: £12,156, 2-3 days per month

* Director of Strategy and Business Development, xxxxx NHS Trust: £120,000 "more for an exceptional candidate"

* Chief Executive, NHS xxxxxx: "£190,000 package"

Makes you feel really good, doesn't it?!

If I sound angry, it's because I am. Sorry if I'm upsetting people, but it's time the NHS (and the government) got its priorities right. Especially when it's us taxpayers footing the bill. And facing death before our time, and the devastastion of families.

All the best to all of us, Julie

I know there's going to be dirty work afoot from the Government (or Local Government). "Difficult" is their euphemism for "unwelcome". Patients (and their carers) are made to feel greedy or unpatriotic (look here, we can buy a couple of missiles, or a nice expense account bunfight with that dosh) for asking for drugs that will improve their quality of life, or extend their life. Politicians seem to need a reminder about the real world - I presume they and their famiies have all got private health cover: what about one of those Reality TV programmes, but with a politician or a member of their family foregoing this privilege and relying entirely on the NHS for a life-threatening condition? Any takers? Perhaps they could have a control group, with another politician going private - would make an interesting programme for the rest of us! Well done Julie for logging this collection of elitist salaries on offer - those job titles have a distinct whiff of sinecure about them. I would add The Choose and Book intermediary call centre (why not just go back to a GP/consultant writing a letter or making a phone call direct to the hospital? This is exactly what my GP's assistant had to do, as the call centre failed to generate an appointment for me). xxx Penny

The BBC website has a news story saying the BMA have (after a split vote) called for a review on the top ups/funding issue.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7496285.stm

One of the doctors arguing for the review has a wife in the final stages of bowel cancer. He said he could have afforded private health care, but hadn't taken it on principle, because he believed in the NHS - now see how his trust has been repaid.

By the way, I'd also point out that it isn't just the 'politicians and the fat cat managers' who have to take flack. A lot of the public abuse the NHS shamefully - think of all the drunks on Saturday night assuming a free ambulence will scoop them up, and a free A&E unit will patch them up. Not to mention those who just don't bother to turn up for appointments - and all those surveys that show people phoning their GP at midnight because they've got sunburn....

It's up to everyone to use the NHS prudently, and only when necessary.

But yes, it would be nice to have a government that didn't splash money around on unwinnable wars....

Julie

and I feel really sorry for staff in A&E. When my partner was stabbed outside our house by three youths who were never caught (they wanted him to let them inside once they had established there was a woman in here), I ended up sitting in our city's A&E at 2am. Talk about all human life being there! I saw women in their 60s crawling round drunk on the floor, and one younger woman come to consciousness after an x-ray and start punching any member of staff within reach. xxx Penny

I must say, I'm pretty heartless when it comes to people abusing the NHS - and their own bodies (and other people's bodies). Again, I just think it's a case of this country having the wrong priorities. Me, I'd be a lot, lot tougher on the kind of people you've described. Maybe they've had hard lives, but obviously whatever state they're in now, their behaviour just cannot be tolerated. Why should it be?

Hippocratic oath or not, I'm afraid there are people I just wouldn't treat if they behaved like that to the very people who are trying to help them.

warning that users who abuse or are violent towards staff are jeopardising their being offered treatment. I don't know whether they would instigate it though, as I'm sure these people would "know their rights" (although not their responsibilities, of course) and be back next day with a Legal Aid solicitor! xxx Penny

I have been on the Patient and Public Involvement in Health forums for my local hospital and the PCT. We must have been making some impact, as they have abolished us. The replacement organisation will be the LINks based on the Local Authority. Their Overview and scrutiny committees are supposed to be acting on the groups' findings. Around the end of September, they are supposed to be going 'live', and will be looking for recruits. If you are on your local Cancer support association, you should be included anyway.

Despite all attempts to run them 'top down' there will be enough bolshie people designing their own agendas.

One of the things I have in my sights is NICE, who don't seem to have done anything to help. They don't do any research of their own, and only look at the research reports done by the drug companies who want them to pay for drugs. So they are paying nearly double for GM insulin that has not had serious research done on its safety, than for animal insulin that worked fine for 70 years. I'm not diabetic, and I don't know all the details, but it is symptomatic of a quango that doesn't seem to justify itself in terms of better health. Just when you need to hold on to your marbles, you can't have the drugs you need until you've nearly lost them.

Not sure about Herceptin. A terminal friend of mine was able to have it because she was over 60. Maybe she also had the right postcode. Not grudging her at all, but why can't everyone have it who needs it?

If you can afford supplementary drugs and your medic agrees, you should be able to have any drug available whether the PCT will pay or not. If you need to pay for it, there's an end to it. Otherwise, they would withdraw treatment from people who have Acupuncture or Homeopathy to help with side effects.

Yes indeed - this whole top ups debate falls to pieces if you look beyond the 'expensive drugs' issue. And if some hospitals, like the Radcliffe, say they have 'no reason' to withold NHS co-treatment, then what 'reason' do any other hospitals have?

To send people 'home to die' for nothing more than political correctness seems no way to run a country.

But we know why this co-payments stuff is happening, don't we? It's because they know that the moment it's OK to top up, then, very very justifiably, those who cannot afford to will say 'how come we're dying of poverty then?' (which they will be), and then of course the government will be under more pressure to fund life-saving/extending drugs on the NHS itself....(instead of hiring yet more 'Strategy Consultants'!!!!)

Even on a brutal health economics basis, my husband has a good many years of working life left in him - putting it bluntly, in tax revenue terms, he's worth a lot more to the Treasury alive than the cost of keeping him alive would take! And if I have to stop/reduce work as well to nurse him, then that's even more tax revenue lost.

So, where's all this 'joined up government' then, when it comes to assessing the true cost of ill health/premature death in this country?? Maybe the Treasury should speak bluntly to the Department of Health and remind them that ill/dead people don't pay taxes!!!

All the best to all of us - Julie

Saw your post in chit-chat. Great news! Hope it all works out. Best, Julie

So sorry - I posted this in the wrong thread. It was for Steffy.
Julie