The Jersey Evening Post reports:
THE cost of going to doctors and dentists is now so high that more than half of Islanders are not having routine health checks, says a major new study.
It costs £32 to see a GP in Jersey.
The shape of things to come under the Tories in the UK?
I suspect so.
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When the Tories had just lost power I remember a friend whose husband was a Tory (so obviously she was too!) saying that a fee of, say, £10 would deter people from all those unnecessary visits to the GP, which is making the NHS so expensive. She had absolutely no conception of ordinary people not being able to afford £10 or, for that matter, that most people do not go to the doctors for fun.
I’m sure the Tories have had this one hidden up their sleeve for years.
It’s not necessarily a bad idea. My experience of the legal aid system may shed some light on this. In Jersey, legal aid is state funded: if you are poor you don’t have to pay for a lawyer. This leads to people being willing to spend tens of thousands on legal fees which have no prospect of success.
On more that one occasion I have know clients’ circumstances to change such that they were required to part-fund litigation themselves. If they are asked to contribute a nominal sum – say 5% of the costs, or on one occasion £25 per month – they ask that the action be ceased. But they would quite happily spend tens of thousands of public money on something they wouldn’t spend any of their own cash on and on which they have been advised professionally that there is no realistic prospect of success.
Of course, nobody should be put off from having health checks because of costs. But why not have a system that allows everyone to have 3 or 4 visits a year free of cost and then a £10 fee thereafter unless the doctor confirms the person has a particular need for more visits? Would that not be in the interests of both doctors and those who clog the system with visits that are unnecessary?
And how would the doctor confirm need without seeing the patient?
And do you honestly think they could take the risk of saying they did not need to see a doctor?
Don’t you think they manage enough risk already without deciding that a person does not need to see them without seeing them?
You chose mad as a moniker with good reason, didn’t you?
hmmmm, have you tried getting onto an NHS dentist’s list recently?
Unlikely. Primary care is much more cost effective than secondary care, so catching ailments early is increasingly recognised as the most efficient way of managing costs. Even the Americans whose medical system is based almost on specialist care with very few general practioners have recognised this.
@mad foetus
Legal aid is NOT state funded in Jersey. There is no legal aid system, not in the same sense as that in the UK.
http://www.cab.org.je/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=106&Itemid=66