Users of A&E healthcare have been charged in Ireland for some years.
However charges are made only to the population that are not entitiled to
free health care and they would also be charged (more in fact) if they
attended their general practitioners. The administration involved in
collecting the money has just about been funded by the revenues collected.
So it made only a very small impact on decreasing attendances to A&E.
(perhaps Pat Plunkett mght elaborate)
I do not think that people in the UK will ever tolerate being obliged to
pay for their health care. It seems to me that the NHS is now a sacred cow
which will never be disturbed and people would rather spend money on a brand
new car and tolerate a waiting list and poor service for elective care than
take out private health insurance so they can by pass the NHs when the need
arises. I think it is ingrained in the UK public after 50 years of the NHS
that all health care is free and it would take a major revolution to
introduce charges.
Unfortunately I think it will take a greater change in public attitude to
change the inappropriate use of emergency services, not only A&E and
ambulance services. This would have to start in schools with health
education where the opportunity for teaching even things like Basic Life
Support have been maximally underealised to date. So I expect it will be a
long time before the culture changes.
John Ryan
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