I like to think we’re special… 
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The UK population is 10x that of Denmark, I think it makes a big difference to how healthcare is organised and funded so obviously to the outcomes.
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Snail in ginger beer 
I like Rose v Miles and the delightful carbolic smokeball
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Oh Gawd.
Sunak showed his full improbable self today in his press conference.
Totally bleeding useless and so out of touch with reality.
What an embarrassing piece of uselessness.
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Exactly why the ERG gave him the job, he’s a nasty little rat
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perhaps he’ll slope off eventually
You are Jeremy Clarkson in disguise and I claim my £5!
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So do they in France, but you don’t pay for it all!
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He won’t go until he’s pushed, got his nose well and truly in the trough
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I have never been hospitalised in France apart from two cataracts removed within 3 months of each other in 2021 and even then was home by midday from arriving at 7am. Never saw the bills because I am CMU-C or whatever its called now and the CPAM pick up the tabs.
OH was admitted this afternoon for a knee replacment at midday tomorrow. First time either of us has been in hospital in France, and the financial side of things seems very complicated. Between the state and the mutuele, seems like we won’t have to pay anything ourselves, although we’re still not absolutely sure 
. Still, everything has happened fast, all seems very efficient and so if we do have to pay something, were quite happy to.
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I never had to even show my carte vitale when I had my 2 operations in hospital, never mind not signing any documents.
You are Jeremy Clarkson in disguise and I claim my £5!
There you go again, showing your true age, wasn’t that the White Tide Man, back in the 50s or 60s?
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“unhealthy and over-weight population,”
Would you like to give a reliable source for your statement. Sounds like Conservative propaganda to me.
When the purpose of the NHS was lost and it became a means for private profit rather than solely patient care. I remember a friend relating stories of offices being refurbished after only a year because they hadn’t used all their annual budget and if it wasn’t spent it would be cut the following year. Also office based staff being issued with new laptops with mobile data every year, even though they were office based with their own office desktop computers. He gave his to his son!
Whilst we are on a similar subject, it sickened me that another friend and his wife were taken out for an evening meal by their friends- all paid for on the company credit card- a large mental health charity!
I know this practice existed in the 70’s and 80’s in the NHS and it was not popular with right thinking managers. It also existed across other disciplines across the Govt spectrum as well as the NHS.
Prudent budget managers knew how best to exploit the system to the advantage of their service. With approval, it was often possible to reallocate unspent, unallocated capital budgets to revenue so they were not lost to the following year.
Moreover, experienced Managers with their heads screwed on would have a prepared “hot list” in the bottom drawer of their desk with quotations already in place and assurances that the items could be acquired and delivered before the 5th April deadline. Often, there was no need to spaff the money up the wall on unnecessary and unwanted redecorating schemes but instead to call forward capital schemes that would genuinely benefit the delivery of health care. In the case of capital to revenue movement, this would often be used to fund much needed short term non-recurring overtime and training revenue schemes which would not impact future budgets for which there was no allocation.
It is shameful that some Health Service managers didn’t understand or exploit the system sufficiently to properly manage their budgets but those that did act professionally within the rules often contributed significantly to the development of the Service provision.
I don’t know if this budgeting practice still exists today.
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A similar thing happened in the pre single market days with road transport in the EU. In order to do hire and reward haulage across borders it was necessary to have permits for each country passing through. These were hard to get and a company had to prove need, ie customers willing to promise to use them. Once got these were like gold and as drivers we were given a budget to bribe border officials not to stamp our permits, so they could be used again.
However when the annual issue time came round it was necessary to show these used permits to prove ongoing need while pleading for an increase. Thus towards the end of the year, instead of having single permits and bribing against stamping, because we had been so successful in doing that there was a lack of stamped permits in order to get a new supply. So then we were sent out with multiple permits and the budget then was to bribe officials to stamp them all. 
I had an extremely prestigious govt department ask if they would be able to return any “used” software early in their new financial year if purchased now.
Normally software can’t be returned. But as I was the engineer for the account and would have been responsible for delivering and commissioning the software on their machine anyway, I was able to arrange some sealed tapes with the software on, and accept return of the still sealed tapes on behalf of us as supplier on a visit in the new year after the software was found to be not needed. Whereupon they were refunded by us, putting that budget into their next year.
I learned a lot when they asked me…what set of software have you got that would amount to about £xx,000 [whether we need it or not].
As @graham says, this would quite probably have enabled some needed expenditure that the next year’s budget wouldn’t have stretched to. Plus there was the ‘use it or lose the same amount off your budget next year as if you didn’t spend it then you don’t need it’ that they explained to me.
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How odd. That is the first thing that they ask for. I have an appointment for a lung capacity test and then one with my specialist as an out patient and I am asked to be there half an hour early to complete my dossier.
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extremely odd indeed.
I have many, many regular appointments at various hospitals in various departments and I’m sure that, by now, they know me extremely well indeed but at each visit the CV and mutuelle confirmation certificate are demanded in exchange for the etiquettes (the small labels which the service attach to your record) and as for operations (of which I have had many interventions in recent years) at each and every one there are consent forms to be signed as well as visits to the anaesthesia department usually a week in advance of the intervention at which even more forms are signed.