NHS will not meet future expectations say 500 hospital consultants in UK

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 25 Feb 2004 - 0:00 PDT

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According to 500 hospital consultants in the UK, raising taxed has completely failed to deliver the standards required for an adequate health service. They say that there should be compulsory health insurance to make up for the shortfall.

(In UK a Hospital Consultant is a senior physician, who works as head of a team of doctors).

A full-page advertisement appeared today in the Times newspaper (UK). The group of doctors who are calling for this belong to 'Doctors for Reform'.

One of them said that the time has arrived for a genuine debate on the future of healthcare in the UK.

The Labour party claims that Doctors for Reform is a Conservative Party front.

These doctors are challenging the Labour party who says that the National Health Service (NHS) should be fully funded by taxation. This was after an enquiry two years ago by ex-banker Mr Wanless. His new report on how the NHS could be improved is due to come out any day now.

The Doctors for Reform pamphlet says 'We aim to start and participate in a proper and informed national debate on the choices ahead of us. The issues are beyond party politics and we believe... we will make a profound mistake if we leave this debate to politicians.'

They say that other more successful health systems, such as the ones in France, Germany and Switzerland consist of a combination of mixed funding systems, including social insurance and private insurance.

The NHS is no longer the finest healthcare system in the world, they say. They recommend that the less well off could have their premiums subsidised or waived completely.

Despite more and more money being spent on the NHS, there always seem to be beds shortages, nurses shortages, doctors shortages, dentists shortages, long waiting lists for operations and treatments.