Some Labour councillors don’t want the NHS to be free at the point of use
Via the Manchester Evening News:
Should the NHS be able to make people pay for treatment when they turn up at accident and emergency units with alcohol-related injuries? That novel suggestion is being kicked around by Manchester city council…
Coun Glynn Evans [Labour], executive member for adult health and well-being, says: “If you drink irresponsibly, you should pay the price.”
There’s both a policy and a political problem with the idea. The policy one is simply that if turning up drunk risks generating a fine, what will that encourage people to do? To stay away until they sober up. And if they are sober when they arrive, how do you tell if it is an alcohol-related injury for sure? Even if they do turn up drunk, what happens to people who are the innocent party, and even for whom the injury may be unconnected to them having been drunk? There is a massive minefield of complaint and administration awaiting here.
The political problem is one of Labour hypocrisy. When politicians from other parties suggest changes to the NHS that would not touch the “free at the point of delivery” principle, Labour still often descends on them ferociously as if the end of the NHS is nigh and anyone who wants to touch the way in which its services are delivered is an appalling extremist who wants to end the NHS.
If it is so awful to make changes which still leave the NHS free at the point of delivery, how should changes that involve charging people for using NHS A&E services be described?
Charges for hospital car parking should be eliminated, as they have been by devolved governments. They are a tax on outpatients and a tax on friends and relatives visiting inpatients. The first may at the margin discourage attendance for tests and treatment and the latter at the margin reduce the faster healing benefits of such visits and unhealthily increase the stress on, and worry of, friends and relatives.