Tax-funded NHS "unsustainable"

Saturday, 13 August 2005 12:00 AM

A tax-funded National Health Service, free for everyone, is unsustainable and should be scrapped, Britain's most senior doctor has said.

Bernie Ribeiro, the new president of the Royal College of Surgeons told the Daily Telegraph health care in the UK should be paid for through a social insurance system, similar to schemes used in France and Germany.

Under such a system, patients would take out insurance to meet the cost of a proportion of their treatment.

But Mr Ribeiro insisted the poorest people would pay nothing at all, as such a system would be means tested.

He said the rising cost of technology and medical staff in the NHS were making a tax-funded health service unsustainable in the medium term and pressed the government to provide additional investment for the NHS through a system of insurance.

"If we are to provide health care free at the point of need all the time for patients, then I don't think that's achievable in the present structure. We will have to look hard at an alternative system," Mr Ribeiro told the Daily Telegraph.

"If we're going to have a health care system suited to the future, we've got to be prepared to invest in it. I don't personally believe that can be done out of pure taxation."

He added his belief that asking patients to fund part of their healthcare would encourage them to value the treatment they got.

"People value what they pay for. The NHS isn't free but people don't see a link between their money and the service," said Mr Ribeiro in reference to the current system of taxation that funds the health service.

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