If
you were to ask the average patient in the UK how much their healthcare cost
them the answer would probably be “Nothing” for as far as they are concerned it
is completely free at the point of abuse.
The
total NHS budget is c. £ 100 billion and only 8.4% of this is spent on primary
care and general practice deals with c. 90% of medical consults in the UK. The
GP magazine called Pulse has done some calculations which you can read here.
If
you want to see how much the NHS pays to your own individual practice then
there is a link here.
Please
be aware before you start jumping up and down and saying my GP gets X million
pounds a year that a GP’s income will be this figure MINUS
what
it costs to run the practice in terms of staff wages (c. 70% of expenses),
heat, light, telephones, repairs etc. etc. which results in something called profit
which
when tax, national insurance etc. is deducted from this profit will be divided
between partners to give your GP their own individual income and this is
decreasing year on year. The figures in the article per patient are
considerably less in many parts of the UK almost half in some cases.
So
the average figure is £ 136 a year or £ 2.62 a week or 37p a day. Now the
average patient consults 6 times a year which means that the cost of the
average consultation is about £ 22.67 but remember dear reader this is the cost
to the Party the cost to the patient is exactly £ 0 everytime, however many
times they consult and the amount paid to a GP for each consultation will be
even less (see above).
Now
some might think I never ever see my GP, in the same way that no one ever has a
home visit, so they are getting paid for nothing as far as I am concerned but
we are sure no GP practice in the land has any patients who will consult 3
times a week every week of the year so it is a case of swings and roundabouts
here comrades but if you never see a GP never fear for the service is still
there free at the point of abuse should you ever need it.
The
article does make a distinction between the different types of practice. The
lowest cost per patient is for those practices that have a (n)GMS (new GeneralMedical Services) contract which on average receive £ 131.45 a patient.
The
Party also has practices with PMS (Personal Medical Service) contracts where
the practice can negociate with the local health authority or equivalent a set
of specific services and receive more gelt
for doing so at £ 140.52 a patient.
The
third type of contract is the APMS (Alternative Provider Medical Services)
contract often referred to as ones with the private sector which are more
generously funded at £ 192.85 per patient which is the result of a political
bung to encourage private interest in general practice and a reflection of the
fact they tend to have fewer patients.
Most
general practice is provided by self employed contracters so in fact most, if
not all, general practice in the UK is provided by private enterprises. However
the difference in funding in some areas leads to resentment between practices
who may be treating patients who live in the same area but receive different
amounts of payment per patient for doing so.
You
will be pleased to know that the Party is working to correct this imbalance
which may result in winners and losers and a possible lack of interest from the
private sector that might result in workload “gains” to certain practices in
areas so affected. APMS contracters will be able to take the money and leave
the work while remaining GPs with other contracts will be dumped upon with
extra work and expected to cope with the same workload for less money than the
APMS contractors received before they left.
The
article goes on to give examples of what £ 136 a year won’t buy you and here
are a few others:
A
colour TV licence which costs £ 145.50 a year.
A single NHS outpatient appointment with
a consultant (allegedly) under the NHS Soviet tariff payment system (2014-5) unless
it is for a colorectal surgery first attendance multidisciplinary attendance
comrades at £ 118, an upper gastrointestinal surgery at £ 134, trauma and
orthopaedics at £ 124, ENT or paediatric ENT at £ 136, ophthalmology at £ 106, plastic
surgery at £ 124, anaesthetics at £ 125, paediatric dermatology at £ 133 or
gynaecology at £ 131 a punt.
3
weeks of average expenditure on food by a person (patient) in the UK £ 160.20.
12 weeks of average
expenditure for alcoholic drinks, tobacco and narcotics.
The
cost of gym membership c. £ 300 a year as told to us by our medical students.
An initial
single private medical consultation at £ 200 with follow ups at £ 125 a time.
The cost of an hour of a solicitor with four years post qualification experience time
in 2010 (GPs have a minimum of 5 years post qualification experience now).
Praise
be to the Party for valuing each patient in the UK so generously for the bulk
of their health care and then slagging off GPs for not being able to meet
demand for the cost of less than a TV licence per patient. Anyone slagged the
BBC off for providing television for more than the cost of a GP per year?
.JPG)
