Viva For Your Health

According to a recent study by the Cato Institute of Britainâ??s National Health Service (NHS), there is no perfect scenario when it comes to health care.  On one side of the spectrum is the desire to have unlimited medical care to extend oneâ??s life as much as possible, and the other end of the spectrum is to ration care to control spending.

The NHS is a centralized government version of the one-payer system in England, and it pays directly for health care and finances the system through general tax revenues.  Most physicians and nurses are government employees.  Below are some key statistics to keep in mind when looking at a government system without competition.

• Waiting Times. Presently as many as three quarters of a million Britons are waiting to be treated in Britainâ??s hospitals. Cancer patients, for example, will wait as long as eight months before being treated. A byproduct of that wait is that maybe 20 percent of colon cancer patients who were initially considered â??treatableâ? when first diagnosed, will become â??incurableâ? as a direct result of all that waiting. Even more alarming is the fact that as many as 40 percent of cancer patients have never even been seen by an oncology specialist.

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• 50-70% wait longer than 18 months to see specialists. In 2008 Britainâ??s goal was for a wait time of no more than 18 weeks.  The study showed that only 30-50 percent of patients actually received treatment within the 18-week time frame. Whatâ??s worse is that only 20 percent of orthopedic and trauma patients received care from a specialist within the18-week target window.

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• Rationed care. Not surprisingly, a direct result of Britainâ??s over-taxed system is that certain types of care for more expensive procedures such as open heart surgery and kidney dialysis are now â??rationed.â? Even more alarming is that patients deemed â??too illâ? or â??too oldâ? for a procedure to be â??cost-effectiveâ? are being denied treatment altogether. One government â??solutionâ? being proposed is that the NHS be allowed to refuse treatment to those with â??unhealthy lifestylesâ? such as smokers and the overweight.

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• Widening gap between NHS and private insurance. Another solution is â??competitionâ? in the form of private health insurance. Currently about 10 percent of Britons have private health insurance, and that number is growing, as more and more Britons seek to gain access to a wider choice of healthcare providers and avoid waiting lists.

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• Growing demand for private health care. Studies conducted on the British public indicated that 63 percent felt the need for healthcare reform is â??urgent,â? and another 24 percent believe that it is at least â??desirable.â? Even more telling, however, is that 60 percent of Britons believe that making it easier for patients to spend their own money on health care would â??improve quality.â?

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Things you will want to know about Britain before you visit

• The best times to visit are May, June, September and October
• Heathrow Airport handles 67 million passengers a year
• Britain is 35 miles from France
• 80,000 umbrellas are lost annually on the London Underground
• Britain receives on average between 20-35 inches of rain per year
• Nowhere in Britain is more than 75 miles from the sea
• Cars drive on the left hand side of the road
• Voltage is 240 â?? do not use your 110 American appliances!

There are many factors that are taken into account while considering necessity of a health service facility around the work place. It depends upon the type of work the organization is promoting and the health hazard associated with the work. For example, if the workplace is developing highly toxic chemicals and fertilizers, the organization would prefer a health services near or even within the organization in order to avoid any unfortunate incident when an employee develops some health issue and need immediate health consultancy and medical treatment. While there are few businesses that do not require extensive health facilities such as regular office jobs etc., most big budget businesses maintain a small health service department, which is equipped with basic medicines for common illnesses such as the common colds, coughs, headaches, etc. The reason why business offices maintain such health services and facilities around the work place is because they do not want the creativity and the productivity of the company to be altered by employees that are suffering from common illness. A quick trip to the medical consultant and taking medication from the health services and facilities around the workplace can help in solving this problem. In businesses that require hard labor and much manual work there is a great need of a medical facility near by. In hard labor work it has been estimated that nearly 650,000 workers suffer from work injuries and if they are not given immediate medical consultancy then this could lead to serious health problems. There have even been cases where workers death have occurred due to the unavailability of a proper medical and health service facility near the work place. Keeping these factors in mind the business association and factories tries to maintain health facility within the organization or to setup the industry at a site which has a hospital or health service near by. There are many advantages of having health services and facilities around the work place which includes the following: * Medical facilities would help the business to avoid economic losses due to employer health issues. * It would enable the employer to get health consultancy when require. * The employer health interest would be safeguarded. * The medical compensation can be added as a benefit the company is offering. There are many other reasons and advantages of health service and facilities around the work place. But more prominently establishing your business near a health facility and providing medical assistance to your employees is consider as a healthy and friendly gesture which would help you in bringing in more employees to the business.