A report prepared by consultants McKinsey suggests politicians may need to “challenge the principle that the NHS is free at the point of delivery” in order to fund healthcare.
The report explores a number of options based on abandoning that principle including:
- Patients paying to attend A&E
- Patients paying for access to primary care
- Patients paying for inpatient stays
- Enforcing tougher eligibility criteria for treatments, “e.g., hip replacements only for the over 80s, social care packages only for the acutely-ill, asking people who need it to buy their own equipment”
- Means-testing patients
- Denying “high-cost end of life treatments such as chemotherapy” and other treatments that are “high cost per Quality-Adjusted Life Year (QALY)” Continue reading