The Lemon Fool

Reading in the paper this morning of an 86 year old resident of the village of Braemar, about 60 miles or so west of Aberdeen in the foothills of the Cairngorms. She needed to get to hospital in Aberdeen and was told no ambulance would be available for about 6 hours, so a local councillor drove her to hospital in Aberdeen. Even then she had a two hour wait before being seen. As a result of this, a local business has offered to buy an ambulance to service the local community. The only local GP, who is to retire soon, currently runs his own out of hours surgery to save patients having to travel 40 miles to the nearest out of hours clinic. Presumably NHS 24 does not cover Braemar and/or it takes too long for them to get there.

That reminded me that in the days before the NHS, health care relied on philanthropy to a very large extent, not just for this sort of care, but for entire hospitals. In my nearest teaching hospital there is a whole wall dedicated to remembering those benefactors of old. I am sure that it helped bring communities together and also helped indicate that these resources have to be paid for one way or another. Health care is such a basic need that I cannot help feeling that this needs to be explored again, not necessarily for the provision of hospitals but certainly for peripheral services. Charities such as religious orders are very prominent in places like say Hong Kong and no doubt other places where there is no national health service and I am sure that many charities would be happy to provide say an ambulance and help with maintenance costs. The name of the donor could be displayed prominently on its side if the business or charity wanted it. But we seem so set on our 'wonderful' NHS that it would seem almost disloyal to encourage this sort of thing. I do not know if private health insurance premiums are tax deductible or not but I think they ought to be.

New thinking is so urgently required. We will not get it from Labour if they gain power so it is up to the current crop of politicians to get a grip on this.

Dod

Dod101 wrote:Reading in the paper this morning of an 86 year old resident of the village of Braemar, about 60 miles or so west of Aberdeen in the foothills of the Cairngorms. She needed to get to hospital in Aberdeen and was told no ambulance would be available for about 6 hours, so a local councillor drove her to hospital in Aberdeen. Even then she had a two hour wait before being seen. As a result of this, a local business has offered to buy an ambulance to service the local community. The only local GP, who is to retire soon, currently runs his own out of hours surgery to save patients having to travel 40 miles to the nearest out of hours clinic. Presumably NHS 24 does not cover Braemar and/or it takes too long for them to get there.

That reminded me that in the days before the NHS, health care relied on philanthropy to a very large extent, not just for this sort of care, but for entire hospitals. In my nearest teaching hospital there is a whole wall dedicated to remembering those benefactors of old. I am sure that it helped bring communities together and also helped indicate that these resources have to be paid for one way or another. Health care is such a basic need that I cannot help feeling that this needs to be explored again, not necessarily for the provision of hospitals but certainly for peripheral services. Charities such as religious orders are very prominent in places like say Hong Kong and no doubt other places where there is no national health service and I am sure that many charities would be happy to provide say an ambulance and help with maintenance costs. The name of the donor could be displayed prominently on its side if the business or charity wanted it. But we seem so set on our 'wonderful' NHS that it would seem almost disloyal to encourage this sort of thing. I do not know if private health insurance premiums are tax deductible or not but I think they ought to be.

New thinking is so urgently required. We will not get it from Labour if they gain power so it is up to the current crop of politicians to get a grip on this.

Dod

The village where I grew up and where my mum and sister still live, in Cambridgeshire, have a voluntary service where people will drive villagers to the hospital. My mum is one of the few retired people in her street still driving so is often called upon. She doesn't mind at all. It usually involves a stop somewhere for elevenses, afternoon tea etc so all are happy.

To be honest, she drives too bloody fast for my liking!

Steve

A not insignificant sum of about £320 million per year is donated by one of about 250 charities.
https://www.imperial.nhs.uk/about-us/bl ... n%20assets.

stevensfo wrote:

Dod101 wrote:Reading in the paper this morning of an 86 year old resident of the village of Braemar, about 60 miles or so west of Aberdeen in the foothills of the Cairngorms. She needed to get to hospital in Aberdeen and was told no ambulance would be available for about 6 hours, so a local councillor drove her to hospital in Aberdeen. Even then she had a two hour wait before being seen. As a result of this, a local business has offered to buy an ambulance to service the local community. The only local GP, who is to retire soon, currently runs his own out of hours surgery to save patients having to travel 40 miles to the nearest out of hours clinic. Presumably NHS 24 does not cover Braemar and/or it takes too long for them to get there.

That reminded me that in the days before the NHS, health care relied on philanthropy to a very large extent, not just for this sort of care, but for entire hospitals. In my nearest teaching hospital there is a whole wall dedicated to remembering those benefactors of old. I am sure that it helped bring communities together and also helped indicate that these resources have to be paid for one way or another. Health care is such a basic need that I cannot help feeling that this needs to be explored again, not necessarily for the provision of hospitals but certainly for peripheral services. Charities such as religious orders are very prominent in places like say Hong Kong and no doubt other places where there is no national health service and I am sure that many charities would be happy to provide say an ambulance and help with maintenance costs. The name of the donor could be displayed prominently on its side if the business or charity wanted it. But we seem so set on our 'wonderful' NHS that it would seem almost disloyal to encourage this sort of thing. I do not know if private health insurance premiums are tax deductible or not but I think they ought to be.

New thinking is so urgently required. We will not get it from Labour if they gain power so it is up to the current crop of politicians to get a grip on this.

Dod

The village where I grew up and where my mum and sister still live, in Cambridgeshire, have a voluntary service where people will drive villagers to the hospital. My mum is one of the few retired people in her street still driving so is often called upon. She doesn't mind at all. It usually involves a stop somewhere for elevenses, afternoon tea etc so all are happy.

To be honest, she drives too bloody fast for my liking!

Steve

Yes I used to do that and it works well but in Braemar the idea is to not to have to rely on the national ambulance service for emergency calls which would need stand by crew available at all times and I assume that they would need to be on some sort of retainer since they would need to be qualified to some degree.......or maybe they could be like the RNLI and the head person only would be on a retainer or even employed full time and the rest would be volunteers.

Dod

redsturgeon wrote:A not insignificant sum of about £320 million per year is donated by one of about 250 charities.
https://www.imperial.nhs.uk/about-us/bl ... n%20assets.

I was thinking of something more specific I suppose. In fact I would imagine that all hospitals have some sort of charity(ies) behind them. For instance, when my first wife was on kidney dialysis, I made a contribution each year to some charitable fund for the provision of items to make patients' (or staffs') lives a bit more comfortable and I am sure that most of their departments did this sort of thing. But any additional help would surely be welcomed and were it to be more widely encouraged maybe we could keep some of these modest cottage hospitals going.

Dod