Further NHS Cutbacks

[Sparklingsunshine]

Came across a news story today about yet more NHS operations and procedures which are facing the chop. Saw thyroid nodules got a mention. nottinghampost.com/news/hea...

[mrskiki]

I saw those stories, interested that thyroid and diabetic issues are classed alongside cosmetic procedures. I don't know if I have nodules as not had a scan, but I read they are common as you age so I wouldn't be surprised, but I can't imagine anyone having them operated on if they don't need to?

[Sparklingsunshine in reply to mrskiki]

As far as I'm aware the NHS has never treated "cosmetic" problems as they aren't deemed medically necessary. So boob reductions are only carried out if the woman has shoulder and back problems. Which are a medical issue or if something is causing deep psychological trauma, like certain facial disfigurements or birth defects. So I think its a bit disingenuous really.

[humanbean]

Just wanted to ask questions on a few of them :

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) use in diabetic retinopathy referral

What is this used for, and what happens to someone who needs it but doesn't get it? I thought diabetic retinopathy caused blindness if left undiagnosed and untreated.

Glaucoma referral criteria

What does this mean? No more glaucoma treatment? People are just allowed to go blind if they are too poor to pay privately?

Thyroid nodule referral and investigation

If thyroid nodules were causing no problems patients wouldn't know they had them, and wouldn't ask for a referral just on the off-chance that they had a nodule. But what happens if nodules are causing problems? Affected people are just going to be allowed to choke to death slowly? People with nodules that excrete thyroid hormones aren't going to know it's the nodules causing problems? I'm guessing that doctors are just going to use RAI to destroy the thyroid? (Does that even work? I know almost nothing about nodules.)

Management of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs)

Okay, letting patients bleed to death internally is a great idea - think of the savings on pensions, hospital care, heart surgery etc...

Needle biopsy of prostate

Won't this increase the risk of prostate cancer?

[humanbean in reply to humanbean]

If newspapers are going to report things like this they need someone to actually explain the ramifications!

[Jazzw in reply to humanbean]

I thought the same, HB.

Hard to believe we’re living in 2022.

A huge part of why things are so expensive is Big Pharma are profiteering from human misery. Yet they’ve got us all in hock, haven’t they?

I’m not just talking about drugs. I’m talking about the cost of infusion pumps, dialysis machines, life support machines, the accessories for those machines (giving sets, bags of fluid, oxygen). The introduction of “competition” and bidding for contracts seems to have done the exact opposite of bringing us cheaper prices—it’s driven prices up instead.

And let’s not get started on how much is charged for surgery. Many of the consultants we see now aren’t officially private but they’re employed pretty much like subcontractors.

We’ve gone so far down this path now I don’t know how the heck we could turn back. I know there’s a risk of this sounding like a political comment so I’ll be careful because that’s against forum rules.

The thing is, the concept of “saving the NHS” is now a complete myth. It’s long gone already. It’s a whole load of privatised services packaged up in an NHS wrapper.

[humanbean in reply to Jazzw]

Yes, I agree. And private companies use the NHS logo when they get a private contract to try and fool people into believing they really are run by the NHS.