Friday, September 04, 2009

NHS, the solution - separate private health care from centrally funded health care


The love of money is the root of all evil. Perhaps not all evil, but of the evil that runs this country. When the NHS was set up, consultants were allowed to boost their NHS income with private practice. 60 years later, that flaw has fatal consequences. Only a lack of imagination and insufficient greed limits an ambitious doctors' income. Click here

We cannot "afford" the health care we need, no country on this planet can. Yet during the late twentieth century, the NHS was as close to being able to afford better health care for less money than anywhere else on the planet.

How did we manage it? How did the NHS achieve the impossible? How did a quart come out of a pint pot?

Working for love not money

Workers in the NHS, from the senior consultants to the porters and all between were paid less than they were worth and worked harder for their money. NHS employees worked because they
loved the job. Instead of money, there was respect, a living wage and job security.

The solution

Take politics out of health care.
Stop NHS consultants doing private practice within the NHS
Stop GPs making extortionate profits from their government funded practices
A living wage and no more, from the top down
Reinstate the ideals of service

Yes, people still work in the NHS and serve this country for less money than they could earn elsewhere. This is no longer true of the doctors. Greed amongst doctors is endemic. From consultants fighting over private practice to GPs who do anything and everything the Department of Health says, as long as they are paid.

The NHS came out of the unique system of voluntary hospitals that existed in the 1930s and 1940s in this country. A tradition where doctors and nurses worked for less than they might otherwise have earned. In return, medicine, nursing and working in a hospital earned respect in the community

The NHS has kept the worst of the charity culture - a system where patients are expected to feel grateful for what they get and combined it with the worst of 21st century greed and hypocrisy. It is a lethal mix.

Money does not solve the problems of poor care, lack of respect and lack of leadership. Money leads to fear and greed. Fear that someone else is getting more than you and greed for more. Both are rife in the NHS.

If you want to earn respect and show true leadership, work for less than you are worth. Give your talents freely to people who need them.

We need independent healthcare - independent of government, its monetary policies and politics and independent of the greed of big business. Other places to go for different perspectives - click here for Dr Grumble and watch his short video

As I said earlier "You can tell what God thinks of money, by the people he gives it to"

Copyright (c) Dr. Liz Miller
http://www.lizmiller.info/




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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

While I agree greed should not be allowed to flourish, please remember different generations find themselves in different financial predicaments. Let me explain. If I earned my salary and was aged 50 with a house purchased many years ago and with no debt, I would be very comfortable. As it is I'm less than 30, am struggling to pay off my student debts, contribute to a pension fund, and I'm nowhere close to raising a deposit for a property. The reality is I earn twice the national average and I buy reduced food in Sainsburys at 7pm.

Dr Liz Miller said...

I have no problem with twice the national average, I have a problem with people who earn more ten or twenty times the national average and manipulate the system in their favour

Keep up the good work - it does get better!! :-)