Doctors To Breathalyse Smokers Before Allowing Them NHS Surgery (bbc.com)

Smokers in Hertfordshire, a county in southern England, are to be breathalysed to ensure they have kicked the habit before they are referred for non-urgent surgery. From a report, shared by several readers: Smokers will be breath-tested before they are considered for non-urgent surgery, two clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) have decided. Patients in Hertfordshire must stop smoking at least eight weeks before surgery or it may be delayed. Obese patients have also been told they must lose weight in order to have non-urgent surgery. The Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) said the plan seemed to be "against the principles of the NHS (the publicly funded national healthcare system for England)." A joint committee of the Hertfordshire Valleys and the East and North Hertfordshire CCGs, which made the decisions, said they had to "make best use of the money and resources available." Patients with a body mass index (BMI) of over 40 must lose 15% of their weight and those with a BMI of over 30 must lose 10%, or reduce it to under a 40 BMI or a 30 BMI - whichever is the greater amount. The lifestyle changes to reduce weight must take place over nine months.

Comments

Everyone mocked Sarah Palin's "Death Panels"

[Nutria]

but this is a big step towards them.

Re:Everyone mocked Sarah Palin's "Death Panels"

[mean pun]

What do you think the phrase 'non-urgent' means?

Re:Everyone mocked Sarah Palin's "Death Panels"

[Anonymous Coward]

They're denied everywhere for financial reasons too. Or do you think Steve Jobs and an uninsured person had the same odds of a liver transplant?

Re:Everyone mocked Sarah Palin's "Death Panels"

[Gavagai80]

We've always had "death panels" in that we've never been able to afford to keep treating people with every last-ditch expensive possibility and always need to decide when it's better for the patient's comfort to just give up.

Re:Everyone mocked Sarah Palin's "Death Panels"

[slack_justyb]

I don't think this falls into slippery slope territory. Smoking and obesity aren't things that increase risks in your surgery by something small value, they increase it by large values. Acting like this is some slope that leads us to "death panels", is much like saying, "The Federal government mandates seatbelts, next thing you know they'll be installing cameras in your car and watching you every minute you're in your car." or my personal favorite, "You let your barber cut your hair, next thing you know they'll be lopping off your limbs."

It might be just me, but I think we're really reaching here thinking that this is a gateway to death panels in any country.

Re:Everyone mocked Sarah Palin's "Death Panels"

[Anonymous Coward]

The baby died because its condition was untreatable, no matter what some dodgy US quack says.

When you've stopped being the place that Andrew Wakefield legged it to so he could continue spouting lies about mercury and autism and profiting off three-jab vaccines, come back to us.

Re:Everyone mocked Sarah Palin's "Death Panels"

[ardmhacha]

We already have death panels in US healthcare.

They are called medical insurance claims processors, or adjusters.

Re:Everyone mocked Sarah Palin's "Death Panels"

[Richard_at_work]

It wasn't "up to the government".

The child had rights independent of its parents - the doctors and hospitals are required to protect the patients rights, especially when they are being violated by the parents.

It was the hospital that went to court to fight the issue - not the government.

The government had no involvement in the case.

Of course, you do know all about the case, right? A few points for you to consider:

1. The US doctor, Professor Hirano, pushing the treatment had massive financial interest in his own treatment

2. He had never actually tested his treatment on the condition Charlie Gard had, not even in animals

3. International experts were consulted for second opinions by the hospital all the way through the case

4. Professor Hirano was invited to consult on the case in January 2016, but did not take up the invitation until July 2017

5. Professor Hirano stated in court that he had supplied opinions to the court without examining the patient, reading his notes or studying any scans taken of the patient. He basically admitted to the court to "guessing" without being in possession of any medical facts about the patient.

Re:Everyone mocked Sarah Palin's "Death Panels"

[Shotgun]

Slippery slope does not apply when there is a clear, inevitable path from point A to point B. If I tell you that if you keep increasing the pace of your binge drinking it is going to ruin your liver, I have not made a slippery slope argument. I've told you that A must lead to B. There is not enough money to give every person every medical service that they would like. At some point, someone would have to decide who gets what. In a western culture, that decision maker would most likely be a panel ('cause that's how we roll). That panel would be deciding who lives and dies, i.e. a Death Panel.

Re:Everyone mocked Sarah Palin's "Death Panels"

[AmiMoJo]

What about people who like running or sports? They are putting extra stain on their knees. Should they be required to give up running for good to get that knee fixed?

Maybe the queue could be ordered based on an evaluation of each patient's risky behaviour. Do they drive? Do they live in an area with bad air quality? What is the criteria?

What about people who gained weight as a result of the thing they want fixed? Bad knee, less exercise... Weight gain is not an uncommon symptom of many ailments. What if it's due to some other health problem unrelated to the knee, does that count?

Non-urgent

[Translation Error]

Now the big question is will this result in the patients improving their health before surgery or will surgery just get deferred until it's urgent?

Re: Take care of your body

[w3woody]

Which wouldn't bother me if we had private-funded healthcare as a viable option. But since we don't, I guess it's up to Big Brother, since the moment a third party pays, it's no longer just about me and my doctor, right?

Re:Take care of your body

[tsqr]

It's not society's job to do it for you

Unless you have socialized medicine, then it is. At the same time, if "society" is footing the bill for your medical care, you shouldn't be surprised when "society" puts constraints on your behaviors.

Makes sense to me. Now tell us how you feel about drug tests for recipients of public assistance.

Re: Take care of your body

[fahrbot-bot]

Which wouldn't bother me if we had private-funded healthcare as a viable option. But since we don't, I guess it's up to Big Brother, since the moment a third party pays, it's no longer just about me and my doctor, right?

That third-party being either the Government or private insurance - so how are they different? I private insurer can deny you coverage or payment for treatment and can have their own rules for access to care/procedures.

Re: Take care of your body

[markdavis]

>"In the UK? Yes, we have private-funded healthcare as an option - go take out any one of the dozens of private healthcare plans "

And you can get back the money you "contributed" to the NHS?

Re: Take care of your body

[Richard_at_work]

No - you are voluntarily choosing not to use the NHS, thats your choice. The NHS will always be there to scrape you off the road after a car accident, to treat your cardiac arrest when you fall over in a shopping mall, to reset your broken leg when you fall down stairs after a boozy night out.

It will always give you treatment - just not on *your* terms alone. And thats perfectly fine.

Re: Take care of your body

[mattmarlowe]

Bullcrap. It's just like public schools in the USA. In the name of equality, we replaced local control of school standards and funding with one size fits all -- And, for the last 100 years of this experiement in public education, average education performance has declined. Any parent who cares about his/her kids has to pay to private or homeschool. All the funds for public school are wasted and there are no refunds. The only thing you can be sure about with public educated kids is that they've been programmed to be obediant to authority, know enough math/science to be useful enough to get low wage jobs from major employers, and know absolutely nothing about history, economics, civics or anything practical...other than the fact that they have 'rights' and the government should provide a minimal living for all (self reliance not required).

Absolutely not surprised to hear about whats going on with the NHS....the public will be programmed to accept healthcare that is only minimally useful to those that meet the governments definition of a good citizen, anyone else can die off. I love the distinction made between urgent and non-urgent...and who determines what is urgent...the bureaucrats.

Re: Take care of your body

[bestweasel]

Socialized medicine inverts the usual relationship and gives an effective monopoly to the consumer who can then dictate the terms, not least because they collectively (and with the help of surgeons, statisticians etc) know how much knee operations do and should cost.

Of course there are other reasons why the US spends twice as much as everyone else on healthcare, for instance the amounts each physician, insurance company, health scheme, hospital and drug company takes out in profit and spends on advertising, billing, lawyers and other extra administration.

The consumer of course pays the costs of this immense added complexity and if they're insured have the extra benefit of spending hours working out what's covered and worrying about how much they'll still have to pay (and then the insurers say no that's not covered).

There's also the human cost to those who can't afford the right healthcare or even the copay and have to wait till they're sick enough to qualify as an emergency.

This isn't the first time you've got something this wrong, not just ordinary wrong but completely backwards wrong.