UKC

Just seen an advert for a 'collaboration' between Channel 4 and Benenden Health to 'encourage people to get symptoms investigated'.

Funnily enough, the Channel 4 blurb doesn't mention the £11.90/pcm charge that the advert does.

This makes me rather queasy; further eroding the NHS and normalising private healthcare.

https://www.channel4.com/press/news/benenden-health-teams-channel-4-encoura...

youtube.com/watch?v=qaCT9DVQohs&

Benenden has been in existence for many years and has its origins in the Post Office Sanatorium Society/Post Office & Civil Service Sanatorium Society. It is not run for profit.

I know. But it's the normalisation of private healthcare that worries me. It seems to be preparing us all for the dismantling of the NHS.

The Post Office Sanatorium Society was established some 43 years befoe the NHS. I hardly see that as constituting a threat to the NHS or some sort of preparation for private health care.

My wife and I are members of Benenden and we consider the modest subscription worth paying especially when my wife was suffering considerable discomfort and pain and was told by the NHS consultant that she would have to wait a minimum of two years for surgery - by which time the suggestions were that she would be too old.

Given the way the NHS is mismanaged maybe that is what needs to be done. I believe there are quite a few public health care systems throughout the world that are run far more efficiently and at negligible extra cost to the "consumer"

Hasn't this been done to death enough on UKC forums? Give us your detailed evidence with sources then a reasoned debate can take place. Otherwise I can state the opposite e.g. "the NHS is a shining example of state-funded health care" and off we go into the washing machine of UKC debate!

BTW must be nice to get private health cover for a modest subscription. Of course, when your older or have a heart attack you'll be running back to the mismanaged NHS!

How little you know.

Benenden have just lost the Civil Service as a customer so I guess they are on the lookout for some new business

See: you're already accepting a two-tier health service.

Benenden Health provides A & E or you just know you will never need it?

Previous awareness campaigns indirectly drive people into private healthcare as there just isn't the capacity to deal with increased demand. Some local examples of the effect of awareness campaigns:

Adult ADHD - wait for assessment now 5 years

Endometriosis - wait for surgery 7 years

HRT - all the forms promoted recently either out of stock or severely restricted

Private healthcare is normalised, and it's the only way to get treatment in many parts of the country.

Have you a link for the above? I don't understand how the Civil Service as a whole is customer of Beneden.

Dave

It started years ago and is continuing. This excellent TED talk from 2014 sums it up well. Well worth the 18 minutes duration.

youtube.com/watch?v=Cz5dl9fhj7o&

Dave

Because of choices we, as a nation, have allowed politicians to make.

That's not a choice I'm happy with.

I assume because the Civil Service, like other employers, offer private medical care to their employees as part of their 'remuneration package'.

Indeed, or rather they did until 10 days ago. Not unreasonably it was suggested by government that public sector workers receiving private healthcare paid for by the taxpayer was not a good look.

More unreasonably, this benefit was removed without compensation or replacement by an equivalent benefit.

Tell us more!

I'm intrigued. Lets say you do have a heart attack, or similar major trauma, what will happen?

Kind if goes against my "normalisation" argument...

So I'm guessing the effective pay cut was the reason...

... or there's a new deal coming up with a for-profit chumocracy company...

The clue lies in the last sentence in my 10:11 post.

Benenden Health is a mutual society so this isn't private health insurance. It kicks in when the waits for diagnostics or a limited selection of procedures are beyond a threshold on the NHS, so it's more of an "add on" to standard NHS care which continues to provide for emergencies and the things that aren't covered. 

Really, in many parts of the country, it's a choice of either waiting for years for something or paying for it. Even the waiting time for a blood test locally is now 4 weeks.

Interesting! Do the Benenden guys do genuine, emergency care? 

Thanks. Seems an interesting idea. It's a shame it needs to exist though. 

It's not. Earlier posts explain this perfectly well.

I joined when I joind the Service in 1072 and it has been invaluable for me, for an operation that i had no chance of having for over a year, for my wife for a couple of treatments that neither the NHS or BUPA would cover and for our daughter for treatment for a distressing illness which the NHS declined to treat and recently for some exploratory work which her London doctor told her that no hospitals in London would do for the foreseeable future. 

As far as I'm concerned the many years that I have paid the subscriptios and continue to do so have been worth every penny when the NHS have been unable to respon for varions reasons. Five of ny immediate family work or have worked on the front line in the NHS.

It is under funded, staff are underpaid and there are way too many "managers".

But that's only my opinion.

So what if it doesn't support emergency? If I were a part of a scheme like that and I used it for a more minor treatment that otherwise would have (after a long long wait) been treated by the NHS then this has subsided the NHS.

There shouldn't be a need for private medicine agreed! but while it exists it reduces demand on NHS and so indirectly subsidies/supports the NHS by reducing load so when I or you have a heart attack the NHS has more resource to help.

The idea that the existence of any form of private inevitably means NHS is to be dismantled is an unsubstantiated opinion held (bizarrely) by both by the outer extremes of the left and the outer extremes of the right 

Ah, sorry, Bojo and others were discussing whether Benenden provide A and E type services and I just wasn't sure if that was the case. 

I genuinely was interested! 

I suppose private services supplementing the NHS is like private schools removing some of the burden from the state education system to a degree. 

My broader view is that I'm just sad that the NHS is being run down seemingly deliberately so as to make it not viable. I'd rather we were able to find a way of making it sustainable. The care my Dad got in the later years of his life made such a difference to us and. I know that we wouldn't have been able to afford that care privately. 

I think it's an emotional topic for many of us. 

Cheers, 

BB

I don't think I mentioned A & E. As was pointed out elsewhere Benenden provides a service in cases where NHS waiting lists are unacceptably long. There is also 24/7 access to GP advice.