Half of the public believe that in ten years’ time they will have to pay towards some NHS services they need as a patient, according to new research published by the British Medical Association (BMA). The BMA commissioned researchers, Hamilton Lock, to conduct a survey of over 1,000 members of the public about the effectiveness of changes to the NHS over the past decade and to seek their views on commercial companies providing healthcare to NHS patients, as well as future funding of the NHS.
Just over half (51%) of respondents opposed the Government’s policy encouraging commercial companies to provide NHS healthcare to patients. Almost two in three (58%) disagree with commercial companies making a profit (for shareholders) from providing NHS care.
Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the BMA Council, commented: “Although the public strongly supports the principles of the NHS and wishes to preserve it as a tax-funded system, they are clearly worried about the future funding of the health service and the Government’s direction of travel on health policy. It is possible that the English Government’s increasing use of the commercial sector in providing NHS services is fuelling patients’ concerns that the NHS will begin to charge for some care in the future.”
In his keynote speech opening the BMA’s annual conference in Edinburgh, he called for “an NHS untarnished by a market economy, true to its beginnings,” and “not a service run like a shoddy supermarket war.”
