After my Warfarin experiences, I’d say don’t let a Doctor take blood, or do a Jab!
The nurses are much better at it.
tricyclists
I would trust my Doctor with my life…and frequently do. 
I think the thing is that these days everyone is ready at the drop of a hat to seek financial compensation for anything done by doctors with which they disagree, even if they have no evidence of bad practice.
It’s the way this country is now, I’m afraid.
I’m sure most of us have made mistakes at some point in our working lives, mostly harmless and minor. In the medical profession, any minor mistakes can have dire consequences. They certainly need some help to fight any claims on their behalf.
If a Doctor ever gets to ring me back, I can’t choose which Doctor I want to talk to!
Not sure I’d want a Witchdoctor! 
1 Like
The NHS?
It’s hardly worth crying about now!
That flogged horse may well be dead!
From the DT today:-
" GPs are being paid £100 an hour to work from home carrying out video and phone consultations, The Telegraph can reveal.
Firms which provide doctors to the NHS are offering the rates for those seeking flexible lifestyles, which mean they do not have to see patients in person.
It comes on top of a new NHS deal for GP services, which will see them paid extra for hitting targets to carry out more online consultations.
Campaigners for the elderly said on Sunday night that the sums involved were “eye-watering”, adding that GPs should not be able to attract such sums without having to treat patients in person.
It comes amid growing concern about the difficulties some patients are facing when they try to see their GP.
In May, health officials promised to abandon a system of “total triage” introduced during the pandemic which meant patients were refused face-to-face appointments."
I suspect that they may have a policy of quietly encouraging more and more people, who can afford to do so, to opt to pay for private medical attention.
This may not be as inaccessible to most of us as you might imagine, though.
I recently arranged for an initial consultation with a specialist. This did require me to obtain a referral from my GP, though in fairness that didn’t take long. My GP had just warned me that to wait for a similar consultation within the NHS would take a minimum of 6 months.
Having received that referral, a private consultation was arranged in two days. That cost me around £250; not exactly breaking the bank for many people, though further tests, etc. would certainly add more costs.
Not only do I expect to see more ordinary people taking advantage of private medicine, I believe it is already happening.
As an aside, the more people who ‘go private’, the more NHS slots will become available to the rest of us.
We trust our doctors as far as we pay them.
Perhaps you have inadvertently hit a point there!
If we could choose which GP to pay to see, in other words if they were working in competition with each other, I wonder whether they might be prompted to try a bit harder to attract ‘customers’!
It’s a thought. Is it workable?
@JBR This could be all part of a plan to re-privatise the NHS by stealth ??
After all, the Tories ARE in power aren’t they ??
Donkeyman! 
The NHS NEEDS restructuring AND privatisation introduced. Right now the NHS is beyond broken in all but some of the front line.
@Muddy,. But you would would probably be frozen solid by then Muddy ?
You would know nothing about it ??
It is a perfect form of re-cycling !!
Donkeyman !
How else are we going to continue to pay for the NHS, especially as it is overwhelmed with an increasing number of bureaucrats?
Then again, look at just about all other European countries’ health services. Don’t most or all of them require people to pay in some way towards their healthcare?
Compulsory health insurance? Compulsory private medicine?
Gone are the days, I’m afraid, when the NHS was a reliable and free for all provision paid for entirely by our National Insurance contributions. In the '50s and '60s, when there was no mass unemployment and overpopulation, it may have been feasible. Today, unfortunately, with an increasing population and addition of people from abroad coming here for whatever they can get for nothing, I think that is unsustainable.
The removal of that latter point alone could reduce our present problems at a stroke, but unfortunately the government seems oblivious to that possibility.
@ Artful Todger , Hi Todge! You back from your holidays??
So do you mean NHS should follow the example of the dental proffession ??
Wont that be going back to the eighteenth century ??
Donkeyman! 
If most of the GPs are “Private”, surely, they will fill up their schedules with private payers first?
i,e. NHS people at the back of the queue.
If this is the way it works, you can see that, if a crisis hits, the NHS patient will get nowhere near!
Letting Private thinking GPs manage who gets what is a catastrophe waiting to happen (well, not waiting any more!)
The only answer, in my simple opinion, is to get the NHS more GPs of their own.
@JBR Yes, l agree we have created a tangled web over the years JB, But in order to pay, people have
to earn enough money TO pay ? How many people are on zero hours contracts etc , do we have
to leave them to rot ??
But maybe things will come full circle soon? I see hgv drivers can now get £50,000 pa now due to
a shortage of drivers ??
UK appears to be over managed to me, in all spheres, the ratio of chiefs to Indians is top heavy imo !!
Another thing is the growth in multi billionaires over the last few decades that pay less tax than an
average citizen !!
Donkeyman!
I suspect it is a potential earning of fifty grand after bonuses and additional hours up to the legal limits are factored in. In any case fifty G isn’t really that much for what is a crap job, it’s only around a hundred quid for a shift of circa four hours after all.
In response to the last four posts, I’d be interested to know how well the systems used in other European countries work.
Certainly, I wouldn’t want to follow the American system.
I ask because simply I do not know. However, I suspect that they may be better off regarding healthcare than we are at present.
Perhaps those who know might enlighten me.