Should the NHS charge for treatments

Should NHS charge for treatment?

NHS (National Health Service) is another name of public health services of England. The value of working together for patients is the main guiding service provided by NHS. It focuses more on the interest of patients and gives first priority to their interest than institutional interest. According to past history, the UK does not charge its customers for providing most of the medical treatment. This health service does not take any charge from its patients as it believes that people must remain healthy in order to provide better productivity (Choices, 2013). NHS has to charge from its patients for providing various health services. The charge must be in the range of every person so that poor people can afford expensive treatment.

NHS has to spend £3 billion annually for providing the treatment of alcohol and smoking-related injuries. It is providing free services which include Accident and Emergency care, dental services and many more (Gallagher, Mctague, 2016). The main purpose of NHS is to meet the need of the public which is free in every aspect and it is not only based on payment ability but also on clinical needs. It is providing comprehensive service to everyone irrespective of age, gender, religion, marital, maternity or civil partnership status, etc. The services are designed to improve and treat mental and physical health. It focuses on providing high-quality care which is safe and effective for the patients (England, 2013). It aims to provide the highest standards of excellence and professionalism. It treats every patient and staff member with complete dignity and respect. This aspect ensures to maintain the hospital’s values and respect through considering various priorities, requirements, and aspirations of patients.

National health services have faced many problems to reconcile the expensive cost of knowledge and technology. In the year 2012, the healthcare budget was around £800 million which was made significant cuts to it by the Coalition government. Therefore, the ideas for charging patients for self- inflicted is seems to be correct and worth exploring (England, 2014). It is a national service which is funded by national taxation. Most of the decisions regarding the treatment and patients services is taken by itself or its local clinicians and also government sets some framework and it is accountable to parliament for its well-functioning. The decisions taken by them must be clear and transparent to the people, staff and its patients.

In England, NHS is putting profit for the public sector after making profits from its private patients. The income of NHS from private patients jumped from £408m in 2010 to £526m in 2016. Its overall profit increased by 30 %. It has been created to help people not to make profits but to provide the best treatment which is free of charge. But charging people for health services make the point redundant (Francis, 2013).

NHS is charging its patients for providing the best treatment to them. But sometimes it is very difficult for poor people to afford high and expensive treatments. Due to high costs, poor people cannot afford expensive treatments and avoid the small symptoms which are initials of big diseases and vulnerable to those diseases which sometimes leads to serious problems and death. It has to provide special relaxation to the needy and poor people so that everyone can afford treatment from the best doctors and experts (Jones and Loader, 2016). Also, the price of different tests and operations must be decided in a feasible range so that everyone can afford it.

In order to increase the revenue for the health care sector, the tax loopholes must be closed and should focus on increasing education regarding healthy lifestyles. This should be encouraged to make profits which will help NHS to provide the best quality of services to their patients. Another way to increase healthy life standard of the people is to reduce the burden of lifestyle diseases by increasing taxation for the inactive and providing hefty tax rebates for human beings which are concerned for themselves (Mid Staffordshire, 2016). It will increase the overall budget to plug 30 billion NHS. On the other hand, the main cause of the self-inflicted illness is socio-economic factors which are contributing to addiction and lifestyles.

One of the factors for which NHS has to take fees from its patients is squeezed on finance. The experts and general practitioners which came from foreign countries takes high expenses to provide their services to the people of UK. Hospitals have to pay more for their accommodation and services which leads to economic crises for NHS. Furthermore, NHS has to maintain the expenditure of all its employees including their wages, trainings and other technical equipment, resources to fulfil the demand of the patients as well as their staff members (Vernazza, and et.al. 2015). The main aim of NHS is to provide the best quality services to their patients at free of cost. In order to meet all these requirements, it has to charge some amount from their patients so that they can be able to provide the best facilities to their patients and other members. Every branch of the hospital in UK has to provide better quality of treatment so that patients will remain fit and healthy and get rid of their serious diseases.

National health services expenditure has increased in each year. One of the major factors of this is due to increase in alcohol and smoking based diseases which not only influences drinkers, smokers but they impact others as well. All the expenses for these diseases has increased the burden on NHS budget. For these reasons, NHS has to charge fair price for all its treatment so that people can become aware of serious diseases and their outcomes and take healthy measures to prevent from these dangerous results (Is charging a solution for the NHS?, 2017). This will help national health services to achieve its long term profits and objective of keeping people healthy.

Conclusion

Summarizing the study, it can be concluded that National health services have to charge fair charges from the patients so that it does not have to face the problem of economic crisis. NHS has to take minimum prices which are feasible for poor people for giving the best treatment.

References

Books and Journals

• Choices, N. H. S., 2013. The NHS in England.NHS choices website. Available at: www. nhs. uk/NHSEngland/thenhs/about/Pages/overview. aspx (accessed on 20 May 2013).
• England, N. H. S., 2013. The NHS belongs to the people: a call to action.London: NHS England.
• England, N. H. S., 2014. High quality care for all, now and for future generations.
• Francis, R., 2013.Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust public inquiry: executive summary(Vol. 947). The Stationery Office.
• Jones, D. and Loader, N., 2016. Should patients pay to see the GP?.BMJ: British Medical Journal (Online).352.
• Mid Staffordshire, N. H. S., 2016. Foundation Trust Public Inquiry (2013) Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry: Executive Summary.The Stationery Office, London.
• Vernazza, C. R., and et.al., 2015. Factors affecting direction and strength of patient preferences for treatment of molar teeth with nonvital pulps.International endodontic journal.48(12). pp.1137-1146.

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