NHS GP charges: Switzerland shows why charging to visit a doctor needn’t be politically toxic September 7, 2015 The economic case for user charges in healthcare is easily explained. A well-designed system of charges for people accessing services can encourage cost-consciousness and reduce overuse. If people had to pay a share of their healthcare costs out of pocket, they would start asking their GPs (and other sources of information) about whether a [...]
Boozy Britain? When it comes to tax, drinkers are not only paying their way, they are subsidising teetotallers too September 3, 2015 There is a persistent belief that drinkers are a burden on the British taxpayer. In the narrative of ‘Booze Britain’, Accident & Emergency departments do little else but patch up the victims of drunks and it is often claimed that taxpayers foot a bill of around £20bn a year to deal with the effects of [...]
NHS orthodoxy is dying: Here’s how to put patients at the heart of healthcare September 1, 2015 Surveys often suffer from what is known as “social desirability bias”: when people sense that an opinion they hold, or a habit they engage in, is unfashionable, they are unlikely to be entirely honest about it in a survey. Instead, they may simply tell the interviewer what they think they are socially expected to [...]
Does NHS Survival have patients in mind? The only way to truly save the NHS is to liberate it from state control August 17, 2015 The summer is ebbing, football is back, and this weekend saw the launch of yet another campaign to “save the NHS”. The dramatically named NHS Survival – an “umbrella group bringing together patients, public and professionals” – echoes previous dire warnings that we had “24 hours to save the NHS”, or “14 days to save [...]
Why the NHS needs old-age reserves to mitigate galloping healthcare costs August 3, 2015 Do you remember the time when healthcare professionals used to argue that the NHS was adequately funded, and that further injections of money were not needed? Me neither, because there never was such a time. The NHS has always been “underfunded”, and the solution to its woes has always been just a few billion pounds [...]
Price tag: NHS medicine to have price labels under Jeremy Hunt proposals July 2, 2015 A price tag is to be put on prescription medicines in the UK under a plan to cut waste in the National Health Service, along with a stamp reading “funded by the UK taxpayer”. All pharmaceuticals over £20 will have an “indicative cost” on the packaging once the scheme is rolled out next year, as [...]
NHS medicine will be labelled with prices July 2, 2015 A price tag is to be put on medicines in the UK under a plan to cut waste in the National Health Service, along with a stamp reading “Funded by the UK taxpayer”. All pharmaceuticals over £20 will have an “indicative cost” on the packaging, once the scheme is rolled out next year, as part [...]
The NHS isn’t unique – and we’ll never fix its many flaws until we realise this June 25, 2015 As an undergraduate student, I spent an Erasmus semester in a small town in Spain. During a flat viewing, the landlady who showed me around pointed at the microwave in the kitchen, and said: “This is a microwave. Do you know what a microwave is?” I got a bit confused by the question, which sounded [...]
Capita is awarded NHS England admin contract worth up to £1bn June 22, 2015 NHS England yesterday awarded Capita the contract to become sole provider of administrative services for primary care across the UK. The four-year sole provider deal to manage and deliver services in England has a maximum value of £1bn, with an initial seven-to-ten year contract worth around £400m. Capita, along with its subcontractor Anglian Community Enterprise, [...]
Queen’s Speech 2015: Everything we know so far including the EU referendum, devolution, Human Rights Act, income tax, housing and Scotland May 26, 2015 The Queen's Speech will unveil the Conservative government's policy agenda on Wednesday and having shed its coalition partner at the General Election, some pretty major shifts in policy are expected. Here are some of the top pledges expected to feature in the state opening of parliament tomorrow. EU referendum bill Having committed to holding an [...]