Sunday, February 06, 2005

Bureaucracy in the NHS is wasting billions of pounds

Having seen the front page of to-day's Sunday Times with the headline "Doctors: cancer care is in crisis", I came across the pressure group, Doctors for Reform. DfD was formed a year ago by 500 hospital consultants from many different specialities as an independent, non-party group which believes that the time has come to look at new ways to supply and fund healthcare.

Their launch leaflet included statement that:

"Doctors are beset with political targets and central direction, distorting clinical priorities". Quite true.

They suggest that any reform of health care should adhere to the following core principles:
-The fundamental NHS principle of care being universally and equitably available must remain.
-The primacy of the doctor-patient relationship, which politicians have undermined, must be restored.
-Management and administration must be more effective.
-Politicians must be removed from the day-to-day running of the health service.
-Patients must be able to exercise real informed choice about where, how and by whom they are treated.
Again, I agree with it all.

DfD propose to fund these reforms by a changing to a social insurance system.

"Social insurance is the type of health system used in countries such as France, Germany and Switzerland. The systems differ but all have the same key characteristics. All citizens receive health insurance in return for contributions usually made from salaries or, in the case of the worst off (in some countries) from taxation. Social insurance is compulsory and universal, and everyone is guaranteed access unlike with the system in the USA where people can choose whether to have health insurance or not."

How social insurance differs from the current National Insurance scheme in the UK is explained as follows:

"Under social insurance, health contributions are made to insurance funds, not Governments. Those funds are under an obligation to serve patients as their customers, meaning that patients are truly empowered."

Such a system would have an effect on the NHS:

"Social insurance is a mechanism to ensure that money follows the patient. If NHS hospitals can respond best to patients, offering the best services, then they will receive more resources. In countries such as France and Germany, the public sector operates at least half of all hospitals."

I am not sure about this one. Isn't this privatisation by the back door and the dismantling of the NHS? Why not use social insurance to fund the NHS alone and thus cut out government interference and political dogma?

I need to think about it. There is a lot more information at the website (see Links on the right of this column.