Privatisation by stealth.
Posted , 6 users are following.
I found this forum because I wanted to raise a problem my wife met with today. She is 76 years of age and reasonably fit but has a problem with one of her feet. She saw her doctor who arranged for her to attend a podiatry appointment but it was not with the Podiatry department in the same grounds as our surgery but was 25 mile4s away.
When she got there she found that it was a private organisation called Healthshare sponging off an NHS establishment yet another example of the underhand selling off of the NHS.
She was seen by a podiatrist who recommended that she see a chiropodist which she would have to arrange for and pay for herself. So, after both of us had worked all our lives paying a hefty amount of our income in taxation we now find that the NHS can dump us. At the start of this forum I read the following. “In the UK we are very lucky to have the National Health Service (NHS), which gives us healthcare” Well of course, it gives us nothing of the sort and what it does give us is speedily disappearing and we are being given the bill. Bitter, your absolutely right.
0 likes, 5 replies
shirley96723 RSM
Posted
Do ask at your GP surgery ..because most NHS practices can arrange free treatment on the NhS ..with a chiropadist....either at their surgery...or one near by.....we have one at our surgery....and i know of others ....in the area... I feel sure that there will.beone somewhere...in your location...they are run on an appointment system.....my husband attends one...for treatment....talk to.the practice nurse...at the surgery where you go....and she will be able to give you all the details.....Best....Regards.....Shirley.
beverly52803 RSM
Posted
Sadly, this doesn't surprise me. What's happening in the US is worse. The price of medication here is skyrocketing and Big Pharma seems to call all the shots. The ultimate goal seems to be that only the wealthy survive. You are very lucky to have the NHS, but if it will continue to be what it was intended to be may very well depend on your political future. Our Affordable Care Act whose goal was to make healthcare available to everyone is under constant attack yet those that do have nothing to replace it with despite false claims to the contrary.
RSM
Posted
Many thanks, I will ask.
derek76 RSM
Posted
I’d not heard of Healthshare previously. They seem to be established in many parts of the country.
Healthshare say about themselves:
We are an entirely clinically-led team with a passion for improving the effectiveness of NHS care. Formed in 2009 from a core of ex-NHS clinicians determined to innovate and develop services built on the
latest evidence and exceptional care.
We run community-based healthcare and work only with the NHS to bring the best care to patients **closer to where they live **. We design services to get people to the care they need quickly, and
help them back to independence as effectively as possible.
I live in Sussex and there is a similar scheme here that GP’s can send patients to when NHS lists have longer waiting times.
There is another bigger semi privatised organisation all over the country called MSK ( Muscosketal and arthritis )
This was initiated by the last Labour government in 2006 and was left to the Conservatives to get started. They and the NHS had to tender for services in their areas and were given massive lump sums of hundreds of millions to run it on a non-profit making basis they say. Non-profit does not prevent those running paying themselves massive salaries.
As with yours they offer appointments more than twenty miles away. I always protest and eventually get a nearer home appointment. The same happened with a podiatry appointment that I managed to change to a local one but most people accept their appointments. Over four hours travel for
a twenty minute appointment is not on. One person I spoke to made the journey
and when he got there was told it had been cancelled.
RSM
Posted
Under Blair Labour was often a trifle difficult to differentiate from the Tories even to the extent of their support for PIF the Private Finance Initiative which is now costing our NHS a fortune in repayments. Old age has its problems and one of mine is that I actually remember when the NHS was initiated and can therefore have more intense regrets at seeing it being slowly destroyed.