Health Core
As I said over a year ago in my Blogspot incarnation, I'm an advocate for NHS reform (though without an entirely thought-out position of my own). I'm glad to see that the BMA has a new report advocating some reforms. I'll have to read more than the executive summary, but my instinct is that a return to 'core' values and services is a good idea. I'm more sceptical about independence for the service, or at least about how that can be realised without replacing current problems with new ones.
Still, it's gratifying to see a stab at good strategic thinking.
Via the BBC.
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Comments
Nick Rogers:
If 'core values' means NHS treatment free at the point of use, then yes it's about time we got back to that. Politicians of all parties routinely trot out this mantra when they know perfectly well it's no longer true - we pay for dentistry, for eye checks and glasses, for prescriptions, and for private tests and consultations to avoid waiting lists. Where's the 'free' in that lot?
Ciarán:
I think it might mean that some services will remain free at the point of deliver and some - by implication - will not be free. There's always a lot of deciding to do on what's free and what's not in such a system, but I'm not automatically hostile to the idea.
Nor am I hostile to wealthier people paying health insurance in return for which they might get a bells and whistles service, though that leaves aside what bells and whistles we might decide were optional in a civilised societies healthcare system.
Let's put it like this. I'd settle for a system where services that had no impact on people's mortality or morbidity rates were charged for, and services that did have an impact remained free at the point of use.
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