Tim Worstall

NHS Rationing

It’s taken them 60 years to admit this?

British doctors will take the historic step of admitting for the first
time that many health treatments will be rationed in the future because
the NHS cannot cope with spiralling demand from patients.

Of course there will be rationing, just as there always has been. The only interesting question is what sort of rationing we’ll have, By waiting list, by price, by income, by procedure, what?

Something that it free at the point of use will always have to be rationed somehow.

In

4 responses

  1. Bob B Avatar
    Bob B

    But in October 2005, that nice Patricia Hewitt went public to say that women with early stage breast cancer could have Herceptin regardless of cost:
    “The new and expensive breast cancer drug Herceptin will be made available on the NHS to any woman who can benefit from it, the health secretary announced yesterday.
    “The announcement by Patricia Hewitt follows the victory of Barbara Clark, the 49-year-old nurse who persuaded her local health authority to pay for her to have the £20,000-a-year drug and threatened to go to the European court of human rights if they did not.
    “At the moment the drug has not undergone any independent scrutiny. It is only licensed for the treatment of advanced breast cancer, and it has not been assessed by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice), which is charged with assessing whether drugs are value for money.”
    http://society.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,,1585924,00.html

    Reply
  2. Kay Tie Avatar
    Kay Tie

    “Something that it free at the point of use will always have to be rationed somehow.”
    Not necessarily. AOL CD coaster anyone?

    Reply
  3. dearieme Avatar
    dearieme

    The interesting question isn’t so much how, as who whom.

    Reply
  4. AntónioCostaAmaral (AA) Avatar
    AntónioCostaAmaral (AA)

    So-ci-a-lism

    Reply

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