I believe the broad lane walk in center have decided not to be cunts and abuse the 'letter of the law' and have now started going with the spirit of the law after media pressure, i.e. not charging up front.
Also, re:Sheffield, the Northern General was bankrupt for half of last year. As a result, certain department or procedures were turning away non-urgent or non-essential patients unless they were private.
Why? Well it's hard to tell without getting into shitloads of financial breakdowns, but basically the government is putting on financial pressure to privatise by playing about with funding systems (just like with schools being forced financially to become academies). This is obviously far worse with anywhere paying off heavy PFI debt.
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Did you hear this one?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/9499177/A-global-NHS-What-a-shameful-idea.htmlPatients are neglected, while companies count the penniesIf further evidence was needed of the pitfalls of opening up the NHS to private contractors, then the story of Colin Boulter is a chilling example.
He was suffering from flu-like symptoms and attended the Tollgate Lodge Health Centre, in Stamford Hill, north-east London, hoping to use its walk-in service. Unbeknown to him, however, Care UK, the private company that runs the centre on behalf of the NHS East London and City Trust, had an agreement not to treat more than two per cent of the practice’s registered patients each month, when operating the walk-in centre for unregistered patients.
As the “threshold” for treating patients had been reached that day, he was turned away without being seen by a doctor. He went back home, where he became increasingly unwell. Eventually his wife was so worried that she called an ambulance, and he was taken to Homerton Hospital. He had meningitis.
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I'm sure privatisation is solving this one too:
“Significant and worrying gaps” in the way some NHS walk-in centres operate risks child abuse going undetected, a study has warned. http://www.nursingtimes.net/child-abuse-risk-at-walk-in-centres/5048571.article------
Some commentary:
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/lines-of-battle-in-the-nhs/-------------------
Sign petitions:
http://www.38degrees.org.uk/campaigns------------
My opinion:
The shit they're getting away with is mental, and they're doing it by breaking up the NHS piece by piece. It's all localised and there's so much shit just not making it to national press, like when a new private NHS trust decides to build a luxury hotel on NHS land.
We no longer have a national health service. We have a localised and semi-privatised one.
