NHS Cuts Could See Rise in Private Medical Insurance
Public sectors have been facing budget cuts for years and even frontline services such as teachers, police and the NHS are not exempt. However the recession has affected the public sector more than anyone could have first predicted. Currently a serious crisis is occurring in the civil service.
Job Cuts
The NHS is facing some of the worst job cuts in history following an announcement that at least 10,000 jobs are to be cut in the healthcare sector. Ministers have supported this movement and promised that this drastic measure is essential to protecting the frontline services in the NHS. Although many of the job cuts will be achieved through recruitment bans and natural wastage if these targets are not met the next step could be redundancies.
Leading healthcare organizations such as The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) have raised serious concerns about how these cuts will be implemented and what affect they will have on healthcare in Britain. The General Secretary and Chief Executive of the RCN has publicly commented on the risk of significant job cuts claiming this ‘erosion of staffing’ cannot fail but to have a negative effect on the quality of national healthcare.
Patient Concerns
Patients should be concerned about what is happening in the public sector healthcare. Whenever the government starts talking about job cuts invariably it is the lower levels of staffing that get culled first. These are the frontline workers such as nurses, cleaners and clerical staff. These are the people who take care of everyday management of hospitals, health centres and clinics. The loss of staff at this level could have a significant impact on the efficiency of healthcare services and overall patient care. It is thought that cuts in healthcare could put the NHS back by years, taking us back to a time when waiting lists were counted in years and not months and rural services were almost non-existent. This is a very worrying time for patients that rely on public healthcare services for both basic and life saving treatments. Many people have started to think about alternatives to public sector services and are now more than every prepared to pay for their healthcare.
Private Healthcare
Experts have predicted a surge in patients turning to private medical insurance to provide them with the quality of services they want. Trouble has been brewing in the NHS for many years and private medical providers have seen a steady incline in patient numbers of the years. There are now more private health insurance policyholders in Britain than ever before, regardless of the credit crunch and high levels of unemployment. This is a trend which is set to continue as people turn to private hospitals and healthcare services for their treatment needs.
Medical Insurance Quotes or Private medical insurance comparison
