Charging for a&e attendance is inherently wrong

It has been proposed that 1/3 of GPs in England & Wales back the idea of charging a 'nominal' fee of £10 for a&e attendance which would be refundable f that visit were deemed to be for a 'genuine' reason.

http://web.orange.co.uk/article/news/a_e_visits_third_of_gps_back_charges

The whole concept is not only abhorrent, but also badly thought out and potentially unworkable.
How would one implement such a scheme we can only wonder?

Would reception staff or nurses be expected to take a deposit whilst assessments are made? Someone could present, for just one example, with something apparently innocuous like a cold symptoms, cold , cough ,chesty say which could be masking graver symptoms. Should these medical assessments really be delayed by fiscal considerations? One rather thinks not.

How would the refunding system work? At the point of delivery once a patient has been diagnosed? What if that diagnosis is incorrect? What if a patient later returns having been assessed as a needless attendance to then be admitted? (Let's not pretend such things cannot and do not occur - they absolutely do!)

We are told that attendance will be assessed for their validity. By whom on wonders? Will such an assessment be challengable?

How does patient education fit into this? Many patients may feel genuinely concerned, worried even scared by what to medics are rather minor symptoms. That doesn't make them any less worrisome to the individual concerned. Should they be effectively fined for having their fears allayed? One would hope not. It would be better to educate these patients as to the right things to do and people to see.

It could be argued that it is morally corrupt to potentially charge someone accessing their a&e 'free at the point of care' as they have effectively already paid for it via their tax and national insurance contributions. It would not be too surprising to see an organisation legally challenge the validity of such a system when you consider this.

Finally there is the moral aspect of all of this. To many £10 may seem like a pittance and potentially act as a deterrent to time wasters. The argument has logic. Yet it lacks a sense of care. There are those who will look upon £10 as a payment they can ill afford and thus make a judgement deciding not to be seen.

Unfortunately some who make that decision will be genuinely ill or injured. I, for one, would rather see people who don't need seeing and manage to see the ones who do  than see less people and miss the ones who don't need care.

We can see from other areas, like dentistry and optical care that people already make fiscally based decisions & in some cases miss the care they need; This would just be an extension of such a state of affairs brought on by an appallingly fiscally driven ideology.

In the words of Anurein Bevin, "Illness in neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune, the cost of which should be shared by the community".

Anyone with a shred of human decency cannot argue with such a compellingly justifiable truth.