We are being played for fools in a game of chicken between ineffective NHS managers, greedy medics and dogma driven politicians. The tories with the help of unionist politicians here are facilitating the ramping up of private provision hugely. Just look at the expansion of Kingsbridge Belfast in just a few years. I go there because I can afford it; most can't. It's busy, clean, shiny they even serve good food in their hospital. NHS consultants flock there to get significant extra lucre as they are lucratively contracted to the NHS also to at least a quarter of a million quid a year. They always get great praise and usually deserved but let's not get too rose tinted as they with GP's are by far still the greediest of the professions. But there's a blue whale sized BUT. Private hospitals are no damn good in an emergency you need a functioning NHS for heart attack and stroke victims and road traffic accidents. We don't have a functioning NHS. People can wait 12 hours on an ambulance. Many die waiting. If you feel ill get to a main road and lie down as an ambulance is more likely to attend quickly. Sit at home and wait may kill you. I took someone to this dilapidated out of city NHS place for an x ray that took well under 5 minutes. We drove 23 miles past our local NHS hospital which is perfectly equipped to do the task and easily accessed by public transport. So a needless 46 mile round trip and 90 minutes. This is happening to thousands all over the country and the bean counters want simultaneously to take away free public transport for over 60's. They'd rather remove the benefit and see buses running at 15% capacity. This hospital isn't accessible by public transport either. As I waited I noticed how empty and quiet this place was. It's so underused it's truly scary with waiting lists for treatments exceeding eight years. The paint was peeling off some of the walls and it was last painted dozens of years ago. There were more staff than day patients. They were not busy, very far from it. I don't blame them but the NHS directors who couldn't run a bath. The staff were filing their nails and gossiping yet my private hospital is relentlessly crammed with paying 'guests'. When I attended my local GP (whom I've never met) for blood tests I noted here too how empty the surgery was. If my GP passed me on the street neither of us would know the other. Gone are the days when this place like thousands like it round the country were crammed with patients to a point where it was standing room only. GPs then had at least a dedication to their patients but now no we are just transactions - dollars on legs (or not depending on health). Now the norm is empty chairs with one or two patients brought in, like me, not to see a doctor but a nurse. This is on purpose. It's a work to rule in every sense. Yet literally I can walk across the street five minutes away to a walk in private GP with no waiting. They can immediately access your allegedly data protected NHS health records again facilitated by politicians and for a mere £75 you'll see an actual real qualified GP, maybe for as much as 10 whole minutes. But here's the sting. If the private GP gives you medicine then it ain't free as it's not on an NHS script. The medicine can cost you multiples of the private GP fee. So NHS GP's used covid to detach from the patients under their care and will not see them unless they absolutely must and even those who might afford one private GP consultation remain trapped in the wilful Catch 22 as they just can't afford to pay for the medicine they need to get well. It's on purpose for more money in their pockets to defy the equally lousy politicians who starve the public health system of resources on dogma so people continue to suck it up, suffer/die needlessly. A plague on both their houses. When the Labour Party created the NHS in 1948 one of their greatest challenges came from the many doctors opposed to it who were all doing very well financially with the existing arrangements. The noteworthy true observation at the time by Mr Bevan the founder of the NHS was that he had to fill their pockets with gold. This hasn't changed in 75 years but only the poor and the sick suffer. Ever thus. read more

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