UKIP - the real Tory party, just 1% behind official Tories

[LeMaquis 10]

They do not intend doing either.

 

Well if you read the links they actually do support NHS charges at A&E and GPs. When that gets publicised during an election campaign denial won't get them many votes.

[Itinerary 10]

Well if you read the links they actually do support NHS charges at A&E and GPs. When that gets publicised during an election campaign denial won't get them many votes.

 

Denial is a river in Egypt isn't it?

[altus 538]

They do not intend doing either.

 

Here's the article linked to by Nigel Farage written by the guy he describes as "A UKIP heath spokesman". Note the bits about charging.

 

---------- Post added 07-07-2013 at 22:49 ----------

 

Denial is a river in Egypt isn't it?

 

You ought to read the article before making comments about denial.

[retep 68]

Here's the article linked to by Nigel Farage written by the guy he describes as "A UKIP heath spokesman". Note the bits about charging.

 

---------- Post added 07-07-2013 at 22:49 ----------

 

 

You ought to read the article before making comments about denial.

 

Point out the parts you don't agree with,

 

 

We can solve the A&E crisis…by halving waiting times

 

We can solve the A&E crisis…by halving waiting times - written by Mr. Jonathan Stanley MBChB, MRCS(Eng), PG Cert. Health Economics and Management, Member of UKIP health forum

 

A&E waiting times have reached an all-time high and the worst of the bad old days of the 1990s are back. We should take no lessons from Labour on how to manage this. Its shambolic management of the NHS saw shake ups, break ups and the pointless disruption of training that led directly to staff shortages. An obsession with waiting times over quality has poisoned debate over how we can best deliver health care in Britain. UKIP’s common sense approach will give us back emergency care our country can be proud of.

 

This government correctly identified what doctors and nurses all know: universal waiting times are a political whim dressed up as an outcome. It is lunacy to compare a broken toe to a broken leg and insist that at three hours fifty nine minutes the toe must be treated before the leg, else the first patient will “breach.”

 

There are many tricks used to cheat the system. It is common for patients to be rushed onto acute medical or surgical units (set up in response to the four hour wait) with minimalist care provided while staff drop everything to see those who mistake superglue for ear drops before the clock times out. It is reasonable for some patients to wait longer than others and much work went into the Manchester Triage System that could ensure the NHS delivers its charter: health care based on need, not the vote winning slogans of career politicians.

 

When all A&E cases are treated within 4 hours but urgent cases are treated at a GP’s discretion it begs the question, what is an emergency? Where there is doubt the dice are loaded towards patients with easy access to A&E or won’t wait; the young and mobile with 24/7 lifestyles whose expectations are highest. In short, those least isolated in society receive the best prompt care available.

 

GPs have been innovative in trying to reduce A&E admissions and Acute Visiting Services being pioneered are an excellent example of how a more clinical and less political approach to emergency care can help patients and taxpayers alike.

 

Politicians proudly ignore demands and markets only to create a system that is definitely not needs based. How can the under 30s make up almost 40% of A&E admissions? At weekends this rises alarmingly due to irresponsible drinking. As our population ages universal waiting times will be viewed not as halcyon but dogmatic and wasteful. Large numbers of unskilled immigrants with poor language skills only add to this burden and in some areas this can be a major problem.

 

It is time for a British societal perspective. We should accept that if a triaging clinician feels we don’t need treating within two hours required for standard cases then we be either willing to pay or willing to wait longer so cases most deserving are treated best. People should pay a higher charge if they haven’t registered with a GP as being directed back to primary care avoids unnecessary A&E visits. Recent arrivals are overrepresented in this group and it is also only fair they pay for health insurance until they are paying both National Insurance and Income Tax.

 

Regardless of treatment cost, the prescription charge exempts those most in need and unable to pay for medicines. It raises money to pay for treatments that Scotland and Wales now struggle to afford and prevents overuse of an otherwise free system. A similar flat fee would allow an honest choice between waiting more than four hours, and paying. The same exceptions as for the prescription charge could apply unless the patient was drunk and disorderly or incapable. It is UKIP policy that the decision to charge for prescriptions is taken at a community level, not a national one.

 

In Britain we can expect better and faster service for Fido from our vet than we can for our parents and children from our local A&E. If minor injury units were part funded by the flat fee a much better quality of service and care could be provided, while keeping our health service away from huge multinationals so favoured by big government. They would relieve NHSDirect and walk in centres that often act as feeders to A&Es rather than replacing them. If cooperatives run pharmacies and GP collaboratives provide cover out of hours then professional owned mutuals can run minor injuries units.

 

The introduction of NHS111 further complicates matters and should be scrapped as a non starter. I have never seen anything introduced so shambolically into the NHS and that’s saying something!

 

In summary UKIP would:

 

• Scrap NHS 111 – it is a complete shambles

 

• Support profession led approaches in primary care that reduce admissions

 

• Keep A&E free of charge for those triaged as needing treatment within two hours

 

• Focus on two hour targets for standard cases: cases that wait four hours rather than two suffer worse than those that should wait four and wait more.

 

• Non urgent cases to be seen only when no standard and urgent cases are waiting

 

• Allow mutual providers, including GPs, to charge a flat fee to see non-emergency cases

 

• Ensure people can pay upfront fees off over a period of time when registered with a GP

 

• Apply the same clinical exemptions to the flat fee as for prescription charges in England

 

• The flat fee will only be discounted for those registered with a local GP

 

• The flat fee will not be discounted for those who are drunk and either disorderly or incapable

 

• Insist immigrants to the UK are not cleared for entry without evidence of valid health insurance.

[LeMaquis 10]

Point out the parts you don't agree with.....

 

The bit about charging at the GP and A&E for a start.

 

The bit about drinking alcohol as well. Let's suppose someone's had a few in a pub and is attacked for no reason. UKIP would charge them even though the victim is entirely innocent and alcohol has played no part in the injuries sustained.

 

Which is all a bit ironic given the number of pints Farage knocks back.

[altus 538]

Point out the parts you don't agree with,

 

 

The bits about charging.

 

He's also hypocritical - he does on about how important it is that the order people are treated in should be based on clinical need and not arbitrary targets set by politicians, which is a good point, but he undermines it by saying that people should be able to pay to jump the queue. It appears that UKIP thinks money is more important than clinical need.

[L00b 441]

Point out the parts you don't agree with,

The proposed workings of this 'flat fee', which make it sound more like a mandatory tax than a spending choice.

 

I don't disagree with the principle of it (and, anyway, it will come in sooner or later, no point putting our heads in the sand about it - the earlier it comes in the lower it will be), but the cumulation of conditions (between the article and the list, and within the list itself) is illogical in some respects, and therefore conductive of more problems to come.

 

E.g. these two points:

We should accept that if a triaging clinician feels we don’t need treating within two hours required for standard cases then we be either willing to pay or willing to wait longer so cases most deserving are treated best.

People should pay a higher charge if they haven’t registered with a GP as being directed back to primary care avoids unnecessary A&E visits.

do not have corresponding entries in the bullet-pointed list, which appear to make the flat fee pretty much mandatory unless you came into A&E on a stretcher strapped to a respirator/defib:

• Keep A&E free of charge for those triaged as needing treatment within two hours

• Allow mutual providers, including GPs, to charge a flat fee to see non-emergency cases

• Apply the same clinical exemptions to the flat fee as for prescription charges in England

• The flat fee will only be discounted for those registered with a local GP

It's just more populist soundbites by UKIP, unsurprisingly gaining favour with the public in the current socio-economic conditions (just like the last time populist parties were riding high in many/most places, in the aftermath of the 1929 crisis). They remind me of the French Front National ever more - same populist agenda and PR machine, no substance whatsoever when you check under the bonnet, and not the first clue about implementation (and, much more importantly, consequences of same) if they ever 'got in'.

Edited July 8, 2013 by L00b

[alchresearch 214]

Survation poll for The Daily Mirror / ITV Daybreak on Friday 5 July. Topic: Public attitudes towards the NHS. Fieldwork: 3rd July. 1,085 UK respondents.

 

Headline Voting Intention Details (changes since June 2nd)

 

Conservative: 23% (-2%)

Labour: 36% (nc)

Liberal Democrats: 10% (nc)

UKIP: 22% (+2%)

Others: 10% (nc)

 

I'll trust YouGov figures, they're much more accurate:

 

Latest YouGov / The Sunday Times results 5th July -

 

Con 33%,

Lab 39%

LD 11%

UKIP 12%

[Jeffrey Shaw 90]

It's not really about what I think or what you think. 90% of people in this country will not vote UKIP.

It's rare that more than 50% of people on the Electoral Roll vote at all- let alone the many people whom the E.R. does not even show.

[retep 68]

The bits about charging.

 

He's also hypocritical - he does on about how important it is that the order people are treated in should be based on clinical need and not arbitrary targets set by politicians, which is a good point, but he undermines it by saying that people should be able to pay to jump the queue. It appears that UKIP thinks money is more important than clinical need.

 

What about the bits concerning discounting.

[LeMaquis 10]

What about the bits concerning discounting.

 

What about them? The fact is UKIP propose to INTRODUCE charges at A&E. The discounts don't mean plenty of others won't have to pay.

 

Let's take the example of the soldier who was taken to hospital in Barnsley on Saturday night. The chances are he'd had a few to drink before he got badly beaten. Under UKIP's proposals he'd have to pay for his treatment despite being the victim as he'd drunk alcohol.

 

Keep encouraging UKIP to propose these policies, retep, and you'll encourage UKIP to make itself look stupid.

[retep 68]

What about them? The fact is UKIP propose to INTRODUCE charges at A&E. The discounts don't mean plenty of others won't have to pay.

 

Let's take the example of the soldier who was taken to hospital in Barnsley on Saturday night. The chances are he'd had a few to drink before he got badly beaten. Under UKIP's proposals he'd have to pay for his treatment despite being the victim as he'd drunk alcohol.

 

Keep encouraging UKIP to propose these policies, retep, and you'll encourage UKIP to make itself look stupid.

 

 

Then he would have come under this one,

Keep A&E free of charge for those triaged as needing treatment within two hours.

 

If he was drunk or not he was a victim of assault,

 

A poor and shameful use to gain political high ground on your behalf.