Living With a Global Budget

This is the latest news about the British National Health Service:

Family doctors have been ordered to ration the number of patients they send for life-saving cancer scans to save money.

They are being told to slash the number they refer to hospital for tests including ultrasounds, MRIs and CT scans commonly used to spot tumours.

Last night experts warned the cost-saving measures increased the risk of patients being diagnosed too late and dying unnecessarily.

Britain has one of the lowest cancer survival rates in Europe, and experts say late diagnosis is to blame.

Comments (4)

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  1. Devon Herrick says:

    It’s rather scary when the NHS tries to save money by delaying diagnosing patients who may have cancer. This is especially bad considering that the money saved with less screening is partially offset by higher spending required to treat those who actually would have been found to have cancer.

  2. Virginia says:

    The only way to control your destiny is to control your dollar. Otherwise, someone else gets to call the shots, even if it’s you that suffers.

  3. Bruce says:

    This is Berwick’s favorite healh care system.

  4. Joe S. says:

    This is what most people call health care rationing.