Have you visited your GP in the last 5 years?
Patients could be struck off GP surgery lists after five years of no contact.
Patients face being removed from GP surgery lists if they do not contact their doctor for five years as part of an NHS drive to save money.
A patient who has been out of touch for that long will receive two letters, and if they do not respond, they will be taken off their GP’s list.
NHS England bid to save money on ‘ghost patients’ is criticised by GP leaders saying key groups could lose access to a doctor.
NHS England says the scheme will ensure that it does not waste vital funds by paying GPs about £100 a year for looking after “ghost patients” – those who have died, moved away or no longer want their local surgery’s services. But GP leaders have asked for the initiative to be scrapped and warned that it will lead to patients being excluded for no good reason and deprive surgeries of money they need to keep running.
What are your views on this proposed initiative? Will this affect you or your family? Does this potentially penalise the fortunate healthy ones? When did you last visit your GP?
What are your views?
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We don't tolerate swearing, and reserve the right to remove any posts which we feel may offend others... let's keep it friendly!
You are right in believing that people over 60 and those with certain other chronic health problems such as diabetes, COPD, on medications that can affect their immune system etc. are advised to have a 'flu jab each year to try and prevent the severe complications (including death) of the strain of flu predicted for that year but there are a number of people who don't take take up this free offer for what ever reason. I'm more in favour of prevention.
This is sold to us as a cost saving exercise, to make the NHS leaner and more efficient. It's nothing of the sort. It's another bureaucratic lie! This will cost more to implement than will ever be saved.
Think about it. Within a month of each doctor's surgery or medical centre being polled the list of 'missing' patients will be growing again. So next year, Capita will need to be employed again to repeat the exercise. And it will roll on. Year after year. Nice little earner!
Let's look at Capita. They were contracted alongside ATOS to weed out malingerers claiming incapacity benefits. What did they do? An example from the UK press. Tell a man with no arms he could use a computer keyboard! I did say let's get some reality in this discussion?
This exercise is about reducing the income of doctor's surgeries and medical centres. If that happens there will be fewer doctors, fewer practice nurses (I wouldn't mind that in our local practice, as the practice nurse is an absolute dragon!). But if their income diminishes, then so do the services they may offer us. We'll get NHS but lite. Is that what we want?
I say again on this thread, if we want cradle to grave, round the clock medical care, then we must pay for it. Continuing health throughout life doesn't come cheap. If we're over fifty, and most of us are, then our needs increase as the years roll by. We demand more from the NHS.
All of us, those just entering the work place and those of us departing it, must pay more.
I think it was Dorothy Parker who said, 'there's no such thing as a free lunch.' Given her riposte was more about bedding the person offering her a much, she spoke a truth, none the less.
One get's what is paid for, well, in this life. We're all going to have to pay more and that way give Capita the boot and we remain on doctor's rolls.
I too have the usual aches and pains, and some arthritis from years of farm work. We run three Border Collies, and I manage a very large food garden. We eat lightly, but well. We also boost our diets with vitamin supplements. Apart from from wife having MS, the early stages, we're fit and well.
Neither of us see a need to bother a doctor. We're quite sure there are others out there who need them more than we do, well, at the moment.
The payment system for them is pretty ludicrous anyway, so why should they be paid for patients who no longer require their services ?
GP's are no different from anyone else in the NHS - money is tight, so they too must be accountable.
I have a number of years experience of trying to discharge patients who have recovered from a serious illness only to find they are not registered with a GP to monitor their post-discharge needs. If NHS England introduces their scheme this could increase problems if a patient is removed from a practice because they haven't required a GP practices service for over five years.
I fully agree that GP's should be accountable for what happens in their practice which is why they employ practice managers. They are already accountable in law for their actual medical practice!
I too have many years experience of working in the NHS & whilst not suggesting that all 35,561 gp's are being fraudulent, all of them must be accountable for their practice, financial or otherwise.
We should have confidence, then. The GP lists are to be in good hands!
When are we going to realise a National Health Service on the cheap just isn't going to happen.
No amount of nips, tucks, penny pinching or slash and burn policies will make the least bit of difference. If we wish the NHS to once again be a world beater, then we're going to have to pay for it. I'd willing pay a little more tax if for one moment I believed any government would apply the entirety of that extra take directly to the NHS. But they won't. It would end up in the General Taxation pool. That's the nature of the Exchequer.
We all now have too high an expectation of the NHS. Yet it seems we are unwilling to pay for that expectation to one day be met.
Perhaps the most efficient solution to all the NHS funding difficulties would be to divorce it from government, along with Education and the Police Service. Let each set a budget for the coming year and it must be met by the State, no matter what! But it won't happen any time soon. Whitehall needs political footballs which are in effect their whipping boys!
It was St Mary Abbot's hospital in Kensington, then a large cottage hospital. My father could well afford private medical attention, and arranged it. Within a month my mother, a feisty lady at the best of times, put herself back in the care of St Mary Abbott's.
Some of my experiences with the NHS have been less than satisfactory yet I cannot easily this evening say a bad word. Except perhaps, to reflect on Prince Philip's words when asked by a reporter, how he managed to reach ninety four? 'Kept out of the way of bloody doctors.' For my wife and I that means much self help and taking responsibility for our own welfare.
But the NHS is in the background.