UKIP leader Nigel Farage has endorsed an article by the party's health spokesperson which calls for people to be allowed to pay to skip A&E waiting times.
UKIP leader Nigel Farage has endorsed an article by the party’s health spokesperson which calls for people to be allowed to pay to skip A&E waiting times.
Last week Farage tweeted an article by John Stanley, a surgeon and UKIP candidate, referring to Stanley as a “UKIP health spokesman”.
In the article Stanley argues that people requiring urgent treatment should be seen within two hours, whereas those requiring non-urgent treatment should be given the option of paying to avoid waiting.
“We should accept that if a triaging clinician feels we don’t need treating within two hours required for standard cases then we be either willing to pay or willing to wait longer so cases most deserving are treated best. People should pay a higher charge if they haven’t registered with a GP as being directed back to primary care avoids unnecessary A&E visits.”
Stanley added that under UKIP people who qualify for free prescriptions would be exempt from the flat fee – but only if they haven’t been drinking.
“The same exceptions as for the prescription charge could apply unless the patient was drunk and disorderly or incapable.”
Drunk and incapable? Sounds like one of Farage’s MEPs.
In summary, among other things UKIP would:
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Scrap NHS 111
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Charge those requiring A&E treatment who don’t need treating within two hours
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Allow mutual providers, including GPs, to charge a flat fee to see non-emergency cases
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Ensure people can pay upfront fees off over a period of time when registered with a GP
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Refuse to discount fees for drunk patients.
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39 Responses to “UKIP wants to charge NHS patients to skip waiting times”
Brimstone52
It certainly will, because they will get quicker better care.
Brimstone52
I’m certainly not an “heir to Thatcher”, during Thatcher’s reign I was a trade union branch officer. Try facing up to reality, both the Tories and Labour have sold out the British people, even the TUC is in favour of our staying in the EU.
As a side issue I recently contacted the TUC and asked how membership of the EU benefited TU members and other ordinary working people. I haven’t had a reply.
Brimstone52
You really don’t get it do you? The Labour party (nor the Tories) give a stuff about the ordinary people of this country so there’s no point is telling them what they should or shouldn’t do. They’re not listening.
What “tough talk on the EU”? All three main parties are committed to membership and have been for decades (the Tories since the 1950s, Labour since 1983). Even the TUC is in favour of the UK being in the EU.
Wake up smell the coffee and support the one political party that has a hope of getting back control of our country. Unless you want to be controlled by the unelected bureaucrats in Brussels.
It’s not the UKIP agenda you need to worry about, that in favour of the people of the UK. It’s the self-serving people at the top of the three main parties who are selling us out that should be attracting your anger.
Brimstone52
All political parties steal ideas from their opponents, it’s nothing new.
NT86
What “tough talk on the EU”? – I was referring to UKIP’s tough talk. They slag off the EU, which is fine by me. Yet they have no problem earning nice salaries as MEPs. If they had any principle, they should refuse to contest elections in a Parliament they see as overbearing and undemocratic.