More advertising of Private Medical Care.
Take your choice from these and others |
I am becoming increasingly irritated or even annoyed, with the seemingly growing number of adverts on social media pages, search engines and numerous web pages urging me to buy Private Medical cover. Now,I have nothing against private health care as an option, provided that it is done exclusively in private custom built hospitals and nursing homes, with private hospital staff, and does not overlap NHS facilities in NHS hospitals and does not as is the case now, lead to a two tier standard of service where NHS patients and staff are somehow reduced to a second rate status. Private wards, restaurants, special facilities or other "special treatments" have no place in our NHS hospitals.Mixing the two in the hope that nobody will notice is wrong and it is unfair.
The common feature of these advertisements, is the statement or implied suggestion that by taking out insurance with these companies, policy holders can "jump the queue" and obtain
treatment much quicker than waiting for NHS. This may well be the case,but it is facilitated due to the private and public sectors being to a great extent, intertwined and private health being in many instances reliant on NHS staff and facilities.
NHS Hospital with private facilities |
It would be interesting to see what the prices charged for private health cover would in fact be, were the cash subsidy from the NHS and the use of all NHS facilities completely divorced from the private sector. (I am already carrying out some research to establish data on this point) I would guess even now, that the premiums charged by the private health cover companies, would be significantly higher and only the very rich would be able to afford the fees.
Private medical care is an integral part of health care in this country, but has no place operating within the NHS. It would not be an easy task to divorce private from public, but the overlap between the two is a contributory factor in the shortfall on HNS funding.
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