Tangent 21 - National Insurance/NHS idea

Posted by
Velvet Glove

Posted on
09:33
Apr 20 2002

National Insurance/NHS idea

I have been pondering this all week & I wondered if you guys could run your eyes over this idea I have had & see if there are any major drawbacks to it or if it is a good idea

I was thinking about how the NHS seems like such a sick beast at the moment with waiting lists (I can't have physio because of a 3 month waiting list!) & patients literally dying before they can receive treatment....

Do you think it would work if all hospitals received like a 'basic wage' for very basic running costs & then were given kind of monetary 'bonuses' for work completed? Let me clarify:

If a hospital performs a hip replacement operation it gets Â£xx then it does a C-Section it gets Â£xx so it would bill the government for work completed. Does that make sense?

In this way the hospitals will have an incentive to clear their books & stop the long waiting lists. The government wouldn't have to tax people so much. Perhaps waiting lists would reduce & people would get the treatments that they need.

Would this work do you think? The idea probably needs some polish & small print put in so that hospitals don't do loads of ops which are shoddy so they increase their funding, but as a basic premise....?

I look forward to your comments as this has been bugging the heck out of me all week as I have been thinking hmm would it work?!

2 Replies and 792 Views in Total.

Demona The London Underground is not a political movement.

Initial thought is would it encourage a fall in standard of care and recovery in hospital in order to get patients through quicker? What decrease is possible, I hear you ask...

I don't think the problem with the NHS is motivational. People become doctors and nurses because they want to help people, and will stay far longer than people in other jobs would put up with pay, treatment by patients, and working conditions. I consider it a vocation. The problem is the systems in place which get in the way of helping people. They need a management overhaul, not a reason for doing better.

EDIT for use of the wrong word. This is a first - editing a post while drunk that I originally wrote sober.

(Edited by Demona 22/04/2002 01:34)

Posted: 01:41 Apr 21 2002

White Hart So long, and thanks for all the fish.

I may be totally wrong, but I thought that that was pretty much how NHS funding worked these days? Perhaps not on a operation by operation basis, but certainly funding is allocated based on needs and activity levels.

A good explanation can be found here.

My feeling is that the waiting lists are due to chronic understaffing and lack of resources. I don't think a reorganisation of funding allocations will change this.

by Velvet Glove
In this way the hospitals will have an incentive to clear their books & stop the long waiting lists. The government wouldn't have to tax people so much.

I don't quite see it this way, I'm afraid. I think that to improve services more money is required and I don't see where that can come from apart from tax revenue unless we lose the whole concept of the NHS, which I still think would be a shame.

Posted: 10:52 Apr 21 2002

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