Do you not think this already goes on? GPs, consultants, etc etc, receive payments from pharmacutical companies, and other lobbying perks, to encourage uptake of drugs. To blame it on the French system is absurd. If you want to know the real scandals look at the NHS…survival rates, care of vulnerable, hygiene, attitude of some staff to patients, utter incompetence, foreign doctors with poor English, the food, the primitive open wards devoid of privacy, the union power putting staff before patients, no discharge at weekends, no doctors on wards at weekends or nights, illegally low staff levels, staff not having flu jabs, pointlessness of complaining.

ROLL ON REFORM!

@1

As a cancer patient who just got his 1-year “all-clear” CT scan results following excellent treatment from the NHS this time last year, all I have to say is “go **** yourself with a ***** *****”.

The NHS is famously the third largest employer in the world – after the Chinese Army and the Indian Railways, so there are bound to be the odd horror stories. However, compare it to the US system – where the rich seem to get the best healthcare in the world, but the middle-class and below are increasingly expected to go away and die quietly if the insurance company decrees it – and only a Friedmanite Kool-Aid drinker would think Lansley’s “reforms” are a good idea.

@2….what he said, what ever ‘go **** yourself with a ***** *****” means. Its bound to be bad, which is good.

ROLL OFF DAVID!

@3 – I intended it to represent the most painful experience he can possibly imagine, not unlike dying slowly from a completely treatable form of cancer, which is what the NHS saved me from last year.

[deleted]

Drug companies pushing ineffective or even harmful drugs is a problem for any health service. Centralized drug authorization is not immune to it, but it’s probably true to say that it’s a greater problem in a decentralized system with the additional potential for drug companies to pay GPs, one way or another, to prescribe their drugs. But I don’t have data to back that claim up.

Anybody who knows anything about markets can tell you that they don’t work terribly well when the customer cannot easily observe the quality of the good in question. This is (one of the) fundamental problems with market-style health care.

Talking about individual scandals and individual cases is not enlightening and gets us nowhere fast. There is much to admire about the NHS; but what is admirable is achieved despite, not because of, its structure. And, excelllent though it may be in parts, the fact remains that the NHS is inefficient and second rate.

As a 2010 OECD report makes clear, NHS inefficiency is the third worst among 29 peer countries. Only Greece and Ireland’s healthcare sectors had more scope for efficiency savings, and the UK came out well below the OECD average.

It is interesting how reactionary and conservative many self-styled progressives are in matters of healthcare and education. It does not matter to them whether the change leads to better outcomes for more service users. The monolithic interests of those who work in the NHS must take priority over those of service users. The result is that many British people are condemned to suffer longer and die earlier. Frankly, that is deeply immoral.

Never mind the much-better-than-ours average outcomes in France (including cancer of course).

Just look at this bad bit over here.

Luis, so any thoughts as to why no other country copies our approach?

cjcjc

what, our approach to deciding what drugs are prescribed or our approach to healthcare generally? I don’t know enough about how the former is done elsewhere (or how it’s done here, really) and as to the latter, aren’t some other countries reasonably similar, if not in every respect? But you’re asking the wrong guy if you want a defense of the NHS as is: I’m not rabidly opposed to involving private suppliers in the NHS or other semi-privatized bits and bobs, I just think that many market mechanisms don’t work very well in healthcare.

I’m sat over the road from this lot, where I get most of my info/ideas on healthcare:

http://cmpo.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/price-competition-to-be-reintroduced-in-the-nhs/
http://cmpo.wordpress.com/2010/09/17/healthcare-competition-saves-lives/

Enough abuse on this thread, already (eg @ 5.)!

How do your commentators think Mr Lansley’s “reforms” will improve the position stated in the Daily Telegraph on 23 October 2010: “The number of patients waiting months for tests to detect cancer and other killer diseases has almost doubled since NHS waiting targets were scrapped, according to the Government’s own figures.”?

I’m not sure many (any?) countries go for centrally directed state provision (as opposed to state funding), do they?

In any event, not that you are doing it obviously, screaming “OMFG we might end up like….FRANCE!!!!” is not likely to prove a very effective tactic.

@5

But everyone knows the NHS fails many thousands of cancer sufferers.

Really? Where’s your proof? Daily Heil/Express articles about “NICE regulations refused my husband/wife wonder drug” don’t count.

Incidentally, even if it failed thousands (I think we’re actually talking more like tens, or maybe hundreds) – the fact is that it saves tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, every year.

Finally, you misrepresent what I was saying (but then, as most of your posts have tended towards sneering whataboutery occasionally backed up with free-marketeer dogma, I’m not surprised). I was saying that these “reforms” are hurting the people who saved me – *that’s* what I’m pissed off about.

I know it’s far from perfect, but reforming the NHS along European lines is not what the Tories and their free-marketeer backers want – they want a US-style insurance-orientated private system, and the attendant windfall that will provide for their backers in the insurance industry.

cjcjcjc As usual shrilling for his corporate masters. Pathetic.

Just Another dishonest tory troll who has not got the guts to admit is political allegiance. Why are so many tories so ashamed of the party they support?

bluepillnation @12:

“Really? Where’s your proof?”

An international study reported in The Lancet in December 2010 compared survival rates of cancer patients in Canada, Australia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and the UK (not including Scotland). The UK had the worst bowel, lung and breast cancer five-year survival rates of any of the six countries.

You have to pay to access the original Lancet article, but it has been widely reported, e.g.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1560849/UK-cancer-survival-rate-lowest-in-Europe.html

“A second article, which looked at 2.7 million patients diagnosed between 1995 and 1999, found that countries that spent the most on health per capita per year had better survival rates.

Britain was the exception. Despite spending up to £1,500 on health per person per year, it recorded similar survival rates for Hodgkin’s disease and lung cancer as Poland, which spends a third of that amount.

An accompanying editorial said the figures showed that the NHS Cancer Plan, published in 2000, was not working.

“Survival in England has only increased at a similar rate to other European countries and has not caught up with the absolute values seen elsewhere,” it said.”

5 “So it’s okay for you, because you survived, but damn all those others who die?”

Well done troll you have just described the American health care system that you support so much. Have you any idea how many die because they can’t afford drugs and treatment?

I am sure all the people who will die because their health insurance won’t pay out will be delighted with the support you will give them. Except you won’t, because you don’t care a dam about the sick and the dying. You just like smashing things up , and pissing off liberals.

The modern tory in all his reptile glory.

Ah yes, that EVIL US system with, erm, the world’s highest cancer survival rates.

Carry on.

David T Breaker: “…survival rates, care of vulnerable, hygiene, attitude of some staff to patients, utter incompetence, foreign doctors with poor English, the food, the primitive open wards devoid of privacy, the union power putting staff before patients, no discharge at weekends, no doctors on wards at weekends or nights, illegally low staff levels, staff not having flu jabs, pointlessness of complaining…”

None of which would be addressed in any way by the proposed reforms, since they create no quality incentive.

As in the railways, the profit incentive for the corporations brought in by these reforms will not be to provide a better service. The more profitable strategy will be to (A) reduce quality and staffing costs as much as possible while (B) endlessly bombarding the government with demands for increased subsidy and less onerous contract terms. They know they have the government over a barrel: it can’t allow a hospital to fail. It’s a sure-fire recipe for falling quality and rising costs.

(It’s also a sure-fire recipe for guaranteed profits and lucrative jobs for ex-ministers.)

cjcjc: “Ah yes, that EVIL US system with, erm, the world’s highest cancer survival rates.”

Yeah, if you only count those that can afford to be treated…

@14, 15

Lies, damned lies and…

The problem is that what that report does not take into account is the British tendency to put things off until later, or take screening for granted. We had a an incredibly high-profile case of the latter in the case of Jade Goody.

What I’d like to see is a table that matches those figures with a percentage showing at what stage patients presented. I’d be prepared to bet that the UK had more patients presenting at stages 3 and 4 than the other countries.

The other thing you’re not taking into account is that in countries where quality of healthcare provided is based upon ability to pay – many (especially the poorest) will die of cancer that goes undiagnosed. I suspect that if these figures were somehow collected, the US would get a rude awakening.

Just to make a couple of things clear – no, I’m not claiming that the NHS should be left exactly as it is, or that it is far better than the French system; nor am I so naïve as to think that no collusion of the pharmaceutical industry and drug commissioning happens in Britain. My point is that this massive scandal in France has shown up one fundamental problem with its system – the easy access that pharmaceutical companies have to individual doctors and hospitals – and people are realising, belatedly, the extent to which what led to a public health crisis was in fact systemic. This isn’t an isolated case (indeed the refrain from the French press has for the most part been ‘yet another public health scandal’), but now there seems to be a critical mass in public and specialist opinion for a far closer regulation of pharmaceutical companies’ access to doctors and research, and setting up an independent regulatory and pricing body along the lines of NICE (although this is unlikely to take place under the Sarkozy-Fillon government). It is, ahem, ironic that all this coincides with the British government’s move in the other direction.

If we want to learn from the French, we could start with more qualified pharmacists for minor diagnoses, say, or GPs being encouraged to refer possible serious cases at the earliest oppportunity (as far as I can tell, they’re loath to do it in Britain because it costs so much, and yet it transforms the chances of people with cancers and such diseases). But the insurance model that France uses would go down like a lead ballon in Britain, where we’re so wedded to ‘free at the point of use’, a principle that necessarily involves a lot of inefficiency. Imagine the outcry if GPs’ surgeries were made part-private, as is the case with opticians and dentists, even if we could subsequently claim all fees back from the state. But that’s an entirely different question, and not one I can quite face getting into.

12 “but reforming the NHS along European lines is not what the Tories and their free-marketeer backers want – they want a US-style insurance-orientated private system, and the attendant windfall that will provide for their backers in the insurance industry.”

DING DING DING We have a winner…..

All this bullshit about France and Europe is not what the long term goal of the tory party. They are owned by big business, and would sell this country out to the US if they got the chance. The tories want a system based on wealth, as they always do. That way workers are more likely to be obedient to their corporate masters. Nobody wants to lose healthcare for their family.

Remember the motto of all tories…..I’ve got mine, fuck you.

The problem is that the Lie Dems are not very good at playing 3 dimensional chess. They only see 1 move ahead. They don’t see 4-5 moves ahead.

20 Yeah, if you only count those that can afford to be treated…”

But in tory troll world it is only those with money that count.

We also have a very bad diet here, compared with other European countries. But of course if you try to push healthy eating that is the nanny state at work in troll world.

@21 – brilliant. So it’s nothing to do with the system. It’s just our own laziness.

Right.

@27

Statistical evidence with Telegraph spin, which isn’t helpful.

As has been stated, the numbers don’t take into account things like relative dietary health (note that Scotland came even lower than England + Wales, despite having nominally the same system), undiagnosed cancer deaths in countries where healthcare is privately funded or the stages at which patients presented.

Even in the Telegaph article, it is stated that the problem with the UK is not the treatment or the system that provides it, but the number of late-stage diagnoses, which could be related to the system, but can also be related to takign screening appointments for granted (I’ll try to dig up the stats for missed appointments later).

Anyways, work to do now (lunch break over). Carry on – but be prepared to be called out for heartlessness yourself (isn’t it funny how all the people advocating supposedly free-market solutions happen to be fairly wealthy already?).

It is also funny to see “liberals” who might otherwise be quite interested in what European social democracies have achieved in this area screaming warnings against them.

Well, it’s not funny. But it is weird.

29 Oh dear , you are a bit thick.

It has noting to do with Europe. Your tory party only wants a US model. You obviosly don’t understand who owns you.

. To blame it on the French system is absurd. If you want to know the real scandals look at the NHS…survival rates, care of vulnerable, hygiene, attitude of some staff to patients

And cutting its funding while putting it through a massive reorganisation is going to help that is it?

Outcomes at the NHS have improved and waiting lists down because the previous govt actually started funding the NHS properly. If you want to blame someone, then blame the one before that for underfunding it.

If the government wanted to improve the NHS and reduce the cost of administration it would do away with the internal market and simplistic targets. More quality and outcome-based targets make sense now that the consequences of decades of under-funding have been remedied.

New Labour control-freakery and the particular stupidity of John Reid have much to answer for, but the internal market is responsible for most unnecessary (for patients) burocracy.

It’s a pity New Labour didn’t trust good managers and bought into the popular guff that markets and monetisation cure all ills. I have learned to trust Luis Enrique’s opinions (@6 & 9 ). I’m surprised cjcj hasn’t. He’s been trolling around here long enough.

As usual New Labour has opened the door for the destruction of the NHS that the Tories have always wanted.

David Nowell Smith @ 21: I don’t agree with you, but your response is nuanced and thoughtful.

**********************************

Accusations of trolling abound on this blog. Wikipedia defines a troll as:
“…someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages…”

cjcjc hardly fits that definition, though Sally might.

@8. cjcjc

Never mind the much-better-than-ours average outcomes in France (including cancer of course).

who spend much more money on healthcare than we do!

UK 8.7% GDP $3129 per person
France 11.2% GDP $3696 per person

Until you tell us where the extra money will come from, you cannot compare the UK to *any* higher spending country!

Instead, compare the UK with Greece, Italy, Spain who spend less than us.

Luis, so any thoughts as to why no other country copies our approach?

Because private healthcare can make so much profit with every other system. Remember how good lobbyists are?

Until you tell us where the extra money will come from, you cannot compare the UK to *any* higher spending country!

Instead, compare the UK with Greece, Italy, Spain who spend less than us.

If it’s invalid to compare the UK with higher spending countries then it is equally invalid to compare Greece, Italy and Spain with the UK, as a higher spending country. We must find a country that spends an identical amount to us, only that way can comparisons be made. Apparently.

@17. cjcjc

Ah yes, that EVIL US system with, erm, the world’s highest cancer survival rates.

Only for some people. The US has the worst health inequalities in the OECD.

The UK, of course, is in the centre, about average.

Oops cannot post an image, here is the link

http://www.oecd.org/vgn/images/portal/cit_731/23/6/46518186Figure_1_7__Inequalities_in_health_status.eps.png

Brilliant.

We’re worse off than the rest of Europe but at least we’re all equally well off.

Phew.

Er, badly off…

Well, that would require inclusion of the private figures, wouldn’t it? Which does rather beg the question of whether private treatment figures were included or not, as it would pretty much invalidate the use of these figures to bash the NHS if they were.

The choice we have in the UK at present is simple – if you believe that private healthcare is better, put your money where your mouth is and get insured. If not, the NHS will happily treat everyone – with pretty decent results bearing in mind limited spending. What the Tories are proposing is to either make the NHS worse, thus forcing concerned people to migrate en masse to the private sector, or effectively privatise the NHS as a whole by stealth, meaning free-at-the-point-of-care will become a thing of the past.

@33. Tim J

If it’s invalid to compare the UK with higher spending countries then it is equally invalid to compare Greece, Italy and Spain with the UK, as a higher spending country. We must find a country that spends an identical amount to us, only that way can comparisons be made. Apparently.

Oh you think you are such a clever boy, don’t you? LOL!

Let me try again for those Tory Trolls who suffer from hard of understanding: healthcare costs, if you don’t want to spend more, don’t wish for what the money would buy.

Me? I want more spending on NHS, but we have a government who is:

1) cutting hospital income by 1.5% from April (Operating Framework 2011/12 5.31), this means there will be real cuts in treatments when we were promised at the election that there will be no cuts
2) top slicing PCT funds by 2% to pay for the unnecessary re-organisation (Operating Framework 2011/12 5.5 to 5.11) that’s money that could be spent on treatments, but it is being used to tickle Lansley’s vanity.
3) notwithstanding the other two points, for the first time in its history the NHS will sustain flat funding for four years. In the past flat funding (or cuts) of a single year has always lead to a financial crisis requiring potloads of money to be spend in subsequent years to make up for it.

I want more money spent on the NHS. You don’t.

39 You are wasting your time. The tories want to destroy the NHS, and the trolls only do what their masters want. They have no idea what damage they are going to do, and if the did they don’t care.

Politics is like a football game to the troll. Winning is all that matters. outcome of policy is not important. If the trolls want to go private, then fuck off then and go private. Nobody is stopping you, but please don’t mess up our system.

@31 paul ilc

I presume your not familiar with LC as you’ve only recently posted.

Many of us enjoy sally’s contributions for their no-bullshit pithiness. For me she is a cross between LC’s immune system, spotting and attacking trolling bullshit without hesitation, and a sort of Jimminy Cricket, leftwing’s conscience embodied.

On the other hand cjcjcj merely snipes snidely at anything anyone posts without contributing anything constructive. He is tolerated because he obviously has a severe personality problem to want to behave in this way.

RB @39

“cutting hospital income by 1.5% from April (Operating Framework 2011/12 5.31), this means there will be real cuts in treatments when we were promised at the election that there will be no cuts”

A budget cut of 1.5% should not necessitate any cuts in treatments at all! Efficiency savings could easily be identified: there are very few large public sector organisations (and many private sector ones, too!) where 10% efficiency savings could not be made. Meanwhile, rest assured, the NHS bureaucrats will look after their own interests…

Compare the position of Sweden in the WHO rankings and compare the UK.

Sweden: World’s Top 10
UK: World’s Top 30 (just)

Sweden spends 9% GDP on its healthcare system
UK spends 8.7% on its healthcare.

Doctors hold the funds in Sweden
So will the UK

Sweden has a mixture of public and private provision for all patients
So will the UK.

Sweden has some of the world’s highest cancer survival and detection rates.

Sweden has some of the fastest treatment times.

Sweden encourages competition between providers.

Sweden has accountability and transparency for each hospital in the locality it serves.

Labour did not ringfence the NHS
Labour could not commit to higher health spending.
Labour botched CHfIT – a £40bn waste of money
Labour presided over a 3% fall in NHS productivity since 1997.

It reformed the NHS three times, every reform was ineffective.

And for 32, you want a 100% public provision for health, just like North Korea and Cuba. Also, NHS funding is at least matching OBR figures for inflation. To speak of cuts to the entire budget is a LIE.

Priceless reading all the tories boast about how much they are spending on the NHS.

These would be the same tories who opposed every massive spending increase in health over the last 13 years.

I don’t think they have any idea what the state of the NHS would be if Johnny Major had been able to keep running it down.

@43

Sweden has a fraction of the population of the UK – any figures would require normalisation to get a useful comparison.

And I understand that stocks of anti-retrovirals for treating HIV infection have run out at a number of pharmacies in France in the past year. This is potentislly catatrophic because HIV has the ability to mutate into drug-resistant forms relatively quickly in such situations.

Mike Thomas

It is not a lie to talk about real cuts. The goverment cut the NHS budget in june from 101billion to 98billion, is this not a real cut.

Even if the goverment do go with OBR inflation figures what if inflation is higher?

@43. Mike,

Sweden spends 9% GDP on its healthcare system
UK spends 8.7% on its healthcare.

Doctors hold the funds in Sweden
So will the UK

Sweden has a mixture of public and private provision for all patients
So will the UK.

Sweden has some of the world’s highest cancer survival and detection rates.

Interesting; from the BMJ last year:

If the first months or years of the illness are never traced, the earliest event registered may be some aspect of cancer recurrence. The date of this recurrence would then be taken as the date from which “survival rates” are calculated. This makes short term survival look misleadingly worse in the UK than in countries such as Sweden where, in contrast to the UK, cancer registration is compulsory and death certificates are not used for case finding. Because recurrence and death are often separated by less than a year, such biases could substantially reduce the calculated one year survival rate in the UK, but not in Sweden; and the main difference between UK and Swedish cancer survival estimates arises during the first year.

Beral, V. and Peto, R. (2010) UK Cancer survival statisitics are misleading and make surival look worse than it is. BMJ. 341:c4112

AFZ

AFZ

That BMJ line was hard to fathom:
> If the first months or years of the illness are never traced, the earliest event registered may be some aspect of cancer recurrence.

‘Recurrence’ means the cancer came back. So why are they measuring survival rates from the recurrence, and not from the date of first treatment?

Am I missing something?

bluepillnation:

> Sweden has a fraction of the population of the UK – any figures would require normalisation to get a useful comparison.

Those figures were already % of GDP – so ‘normalised’: as a smaller nation has (on the whole) a smaller GDP.

What other normalisation had you in mind?

Cherub 41

> Many of us enjoy sally’s contributions for their no-bullshit pithiness. For me she is a cross between LC’s immune system, spotting and attacking trolling bullshit without hesitation, and a sort of Jimminy Cricket, leftwing’s conscience embodied.

Sorry mate, but there are some of us here who are embarrassed over Sally’s monotonous tory bashing /brown shirting / content free posts. She dilutes the meaningful debate and gives LC a bad name to the fleeting visitor.
(Just count how often she accuses others of being trolls)

> On the other hand cjcjcj merely snipes snidely at anything anyone posts without contributing anything constructive.

Well, based on the evidence of this thead – you’re wrong. He was the first to bring up the fact of better cancer outcomes in France – that contradicts your ‘without contributing anything constructive’ line.

> He is tolerated because he obviously has a severe personality problem to want to behave in this way.

Ah – I get it -you Are Sally yourself! Under another name! Because character assasination, without any facts in your posting are exactly Sally’s modus operandi.

@49

My apologies Just Visiting.

Unfortunately the entire article is only available to BMJ subscribers and my attempt to quote from it probably was very informative.

The way cancer deaths are recorded varies enomously across countries. The article was arguing that because of these differences, the relative estimation of UK survival rates is misleading.

Hopefully this will help, with reference to the UK databases:

Information in cancer registries on deaths from cancer is virtually complete because every death certificate that mentions cancer is automatically sent to one of the regional registries that, between them, cover the UK. That cancer is then registered, and further information is sought (not always successfully) from medical records. Death certificates have for decades played an important role in the way UK registries identify people with cancer. Without this source of information, many such cancers could have been missed; even with it, many people who die of cancer may have no record other than the death certificate ever traced by the registry (“death certificate only” cases) or may have had only the later phase of their illness traced by the registry.

If the first months or years of the illness are never traced, the earliest event registered may be some aspect of cancer recurrence. The date of this recurrence would then be taken as the date from which “survival rates” are calculated. This makes short term survival look misleadingly worse in the UK than in countries such as Sweden where, in contrast to the UK, cancer registration is compulsory and death certificates are not used for case finding. Because recurrence and death are often separated by less than a year, such biases could substantially reduce the calculated one year survival rate in the UK, but not in Sweden; and the main difference between UK and Swedish cancer survival estimates arises during the first year

Beral, V. and Peto, R. (2010) UK Cancer survival statisitics are misleading and make surival look worse than it is. BMJ. 341:c4112

AFZ

Oops, that should read “probably not very imformative”

(blushing)

AFZ

@Mike Thomas

As a person who has family in Sweden I can tell you that using those figures on their own is completely misleading. Of course Sweden only pays a bit more than us and has higher survival rates, its the obvious effect of having a strong welfare system and high taxes (plus a minimum wage which equates to about £15 an hour). Beer and cigarettes are incredibly expensive which has a massive effect on general health. They are generally a happier populous than the UK which has huge mental and physical effects on treatment. So its obvious that they aren’t going to have to spend much to get better results. Now if your advocating that the UK becomes like Sweden in general I have no problem… however I’m sure you were just cherry picking in an attempt to justify a ring wing ideology.

I have fifteen years experience of the French health service and amazed at the degree of ignorance in the comments. The blogging commentariat who like to present themselves as experts, yet you know jackshit. Over-prescribing by doctors happens on an industrail scale, driven by the big pharmaceuticals and apart from a discerning minority, unfortunately too many people take all the medication prescribed, no questions asked. The French must be the most doped up nation on earth, all to the profit of the big pharma companies. As for GP commissioning, I can attest that it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever regarding patient choice for the simple reason that users place their trust in the GP and do whatever they say, just as they do with prescriptions. When referred to a specialist, never was I offered a choice of providers with information on them so I could compare and opt for the best – not that I or any other user would have been able to come to a fully considered, accurate decision anyway, not being medical experts. And what time are you going to get make that decision in emergency situations. None, and as always, your life is in the doctor’s hands. If he sends you to a private company offering loss leaders, unbeknown to you, it will be too late to hold him accountable if it goes awry. This occurs on a far too regular basis in France and it is notoriously impossible to get legal redress because it is little you up against the armies of lawyers of the giant healthcare providers. Exactly the same thing will happen here. The more choice for the patient argument is pure bunkum.

@53,

Just to explain:

In the UK, all cancer deaths are registered in the cancer databases. In some cases, the diagnosis of cancer occurs very close to patient death. Patients who don’t present with their symptoms or who have no symptoms have a date of diagnosis and a date of death that are very close to each other.

Because the survival data is calculated retrospectively these cases will skew the data. This is important as other European countries don’t do this and hence the cross-nation comparisons are potentially very misleading.

In addition to this there are lots of other factors that affect cancer outcomes. And it is well documented in the literature that relative to our European neighbours, UK patients present later with their cancer.

AFZ

@54,

And my wife is a Swedish neurologist who has worked in the NHS. I lived in Sweden for a few years so I don’t need to be told about Swedish society.

High taxes do not correlate with good healthcare for a start. Neither does high welfare payments.

Swedes take far more responsibility for their own health than we do in the UK. There is a lower incidence of obesity for a start. Their diet is very good, so good they have to advertise on TV to tell women to eat dairy products. They also drink like fish (everyone knows someone who has homebrew moonshine) and rather than smoke (which is banned indoors) they use a tobacco product called ‘snus’.

What they do well, is penalise unhealthy foods, have you seen the price of a McDonalds in Stockholm?

Finally, the proposed model of healthcare from the coalition is precisely the same kind of system as much of the EU27 in terms of commissioning and competition.

How does that become an ‘ideology’?

The main difference between Sweden and the NHS is they organise their healthcare to their principalities and charge a local income tax to pay for it.

The UK organises this centrally.

@54 so you agree with my points about high taxes on cigarettes and beer (forgot to mention junk food) then completely disagree that it effects medical health. Great logic there. Since you claim you know Sweden it’s a shame you are just plain ignoring the fact that their society has massive bonuses due to their strong welfare state, which do have long term effects on general health. You claim high taxes don’t correlate with better health? Maybe on Mars? If you can see the simple difference between the high taxing nations of Europe and the USA then you aren’t using the real world as a starting point. Societal health is effected by so much more than just the structure and funds of it’s healthcare system and the healthier it is in general the less that people will have to pay.
And from what I’ve read from the bill suggests that it takes as much from American healthcare than sweden, especially since NICE is loosing it’s power to test drugs, which can only lead to bad drugs entering the Market at inflated prices. Very sad time for Britain.

This piece contains an interesting mini-documentary that shows how private healthcare lobbyists see Lansley’s “reforms”. http://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/01/andrew-lansley-private-healthcare-supporters/

It’s notable that all the comments by lefties on this thread more accurately reflect the opinions of the lobbyists than those of the trolling tory apologists.

@58.

Please discuss how Singapore’s ‘socialised’ healthcare system works in that case?

Low taxes, excellent healthcare system. Also, a lower level of welfare spending.

And again, better outcomes for its populace and they live longer than us.

Like I said, absolutely no correlation.

You are stuck in the collectivist, social planning and social good mindset.

Also NICE does not test drugs, that it managed outside of NICE. What NICE does do is place a value on a person’s life and decides whether that life is worth it.

That is bluntly put a centrally planned death panel.

Let the doctor’s decide they are by far more qualified.

@60 do you read what I say before posting…obviously not. I specifically said that other factors effect the costs of healthcare. It would be stupid for me to try to explain to a guy who is cherry picking bits off the net without comparing all factors of the society. I was making a comparison between western countries in terms of lifestyles, food availability and diet compared to oriental countries. You never explained the USA tho did you, thought I wouldn’t notice ey? I would go into detail about this however in your comment about NICE you have revealed yourself to be a right-wing hack. Death panels! Honestly read up about your services and stop copying Sarah Palin. You think GP’s will have enough time on their plate to test every drug and fend off huge amounts of lobbying. I blame myself in the end though I fed you, I never learn to just let right wing nuts spout their nonsense.

@60 And the death panels? Oh please…

@60 death panels? Honestly are you a member of the british tea party? Not much I can say to a person who has no understanding of how out services work. Plus you ask me to discuss without acknowledging America at all. you explain america and how its different from the things that the torys impose and i then I can explain why it’s stupid to compare western and oriental countries. However from the extreme right wing rhetoric I can see I am probably wasting my time. Death panels? Wow…