open wide and say aaahhhh
Nothing for you to worry about but I went to the doctor’s yesterday. I’m thankful that it doesn’t happen often, as evidenced that my own GP, the fabulously titled ‘Dr Craze’, had apparently left the surgery without n’er a ‘by your leave’ over ten years ago. Notwithstanding this rude oversight by the medical fraternity, I have to say the bedside-manner I received was second to none and, not a couple of hours later, I was leaving the local hospital having undergone a couple of X-Rays. NHS crisis? Pah, what crisis!
Yes, I know I was lucky but why are GP surgeries under such pressure? According to the Local Government Association, over 50 million GP consultations are about minor, trivial ailments that warrant no more than, at best, a trip to the chemist and it’s these hypochondriac time-wasters that are helping place the NHS resources under unprecedented strain. Over five million appointments took place for nothing more sinister than a blocked nose, forty thousand for dandruff and twenty thousand for travel sickness ferchristsakes. WTF. Factor in a further four million similarly ludicrous A&E attendances for life-threatening conditions such as insect bites, flu, colic and tummy-grumbles and you’ve a recipe for disaster.
Having made my appointment over a week earlier, I was happy that the practice texted me on two separate occasions reminding me of my commitment. It was unnecessary as I’m one of those rare beasts that still invaluably use a proper diary, but it turns out that in certain parts of the country up to 50% of patients fail to show for these pre-booked, and over-subscribed appointments. Something radical, and this is difficult terrain for a committed left-wing-leaning liberal, has to be done and it has to start with us all, as a society, needing to stop thinking of the NHS as ‘free’. It isn’t ‘free’ and every visit, every appointment, every scan, every referral, costs us all considerable dosh in the form of tax and comes out of the nation’s collective coffers.
I’ve commented at length on the early development of the welfare state elsewhere so I’m not going to go over old ground other than to say this is not as it was initially conceived or planned. The 1940s ‘Cradle to Grave’ society never envisaged today’s exploitation of the term ‘free at the point of delivery’ and Aneurin Bevan is undoubtedly spinning six feet under. We need something akin to a national campaign to draw attention to how much drugs, treatments and particularly, missed appointments, actually cost. If we fail to change our frivolous ways then charges for GP appointments, additional direct ‘service’ levies, enforced medical insurance, even a pre-determined annual fee or an additional ‘health’ specific tax cannot be too far away.
