NHS Reform: Let them not see a consultant!!!

Unless you are private.

Is it really that difficult to grasp!

Most people in well paid jobs (including those at the GMC) have health insurance. GPs have traditionally been gatekeepers and asked for specialist help when needed. If we are honest about private insurance it is not about Primary Care, that most of us have quick access to; it is about Specialist Care, from IVF to Caesarian Section ( and there are no Nurse Specialists doing that yet), from Appendectomy to Colonic Cancer treatment (and Bare Foot doctors in the Mao era cannot do the latter either), from keyhole knee work for Cricketers to full hip-replacements, from Stents to Heart Transplants, from Anorexia Nervosa to Schizophrenia, from Trigeminal Neuralgia to Multifocal Glioma, from prostate cancer to kidney transplant and I could go on and on. China realised in 1986 you need well trained Specialists to do those. We do not seem to learn from the mistakes of others.

When there are not enough specialists to go round in any country money is used to ration care.

So we are going to but in a peculiar manner as the NHS used to be state run and free. Reform is needed!!! Enter GP commissioning. If it is your GP doing the rationing it is no longer the State's problem.

Some very clever people indeed are working for the government. 

Is it Conspiracy or Cockup? You decide.

But strangely they thought there is still money to be made.

That is why many GPs in the consortia have links with private providers.

It is a sure way of directing patients to secondary care.

Great Barracuda waiting / ©2009 Am Ang Zhang

The AWPs are already there and many specialists are working for them. It really does not need a genius to work out that Foudation Hospitals if they fail will be bought up by private firms.

So there are not enough Consultants and shortage creates demand and you can name your price. Consultants do not really want to waste time in consortia arguing about the price of hips or knees. 

Private patients will now have priority and NHS patients will fill in the slack. Very clever indeed. The notion that one should “let them eat cake” does not apply here.

More like: “Let them not see a Consultant!” And if you do, we will make money.

Reform will not save any money but it will make a few City people very rich, very rich indeed.

David Cameron, it is not too late. We will believe you if you legislate against private involvement. Yes, legislate and we would hopefully not have another Southern Cross.

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