Unequal access to Parkinson's services

A damning report has highlighted severe inequalities in access to Parkinson's services across the UK.

Thursday, 09 July 2009
http://new.u.tv/News/Inequalities-in...5-43d44168299e

The report says many sufferers face problems such as limited information, lack of respite for carers, and poor access to expert nursing and therapy.

The report - Please Mind The Gap - shows that NICE [National Institute for Clinical Excellence] guidelines on Parkinson's disease are not being followed, despite potential savings of nearly £3m for the NHS.


'Please mind the gap: Parkinson's disease services today'

http://www.parkinsons.org.uk/about_u...pg_report.aspx

The All Party Parliamentary Group for Parkinson's disease (APPG) has published a report in July 2009 into access to health and social care services for people affected by Parkinson's disease.

'Please mind the gap' report coverThe report - Please mind the gap: Parkinson's disease services today (PDF, 1.3MB) - reveals major inequalities in access to information and services for people with Parkinson's and their families.

The report is the result of a parliamentary Inquiry which has run since November 2008.

Over 360 people with Parkinson's, their carers, individual health and social care professionals and organisations helped shape the report by submitting written evidence

Can anyone from the UK explain this? Specifically if or how it is a result of socialized medicine? I admit I didn't read yet; it would be much appreciated if someone could explain. Having enough challenge trying to follow the changes and what they could mean here. Could we be headed for anything like this?

thanks,
paula

Services for people with PD in the UK are primarily affected by location, which also affects anyone with a disease/condition that is less well known or cannot be provided for locally. Specifically for PD sufferers that can mean limited or no access to PD nurses, and/or no referral to a neurologist, especially with elderly people. Some PD nurses are funded by the Parkinsons Disease Sociiety and they are a much valued part of the PD care team. As the majority of centres of excellence in medicine are in highly urbanised areas there are many rural areas that miss out on key services that would be seen as essential elsewhere. In recent years there has been a move towards more centralised services, leaving rural areas without the same kind of coverage. Some of the other things that come into this are occupational therapy, who also deal with disability needs in the home, physiotherapy, care services, and respite care for people whose carers need a break/assistance.

In practice this means very patchy services, with the South being better served than the North, and different provision strategies in Wales and Scotland. Historically services have followed this pattern, and this has to some extent been exacerbated by political will (centralisation, cost cutting exercises, etc) and changes in the rural population. It is a complex issue, and frankly those who shout loudest (urban city areas) get the most. In principle socialised medicine is very beneficial, but like all things someone or another comes at the bottom of the heap, i.e. smaller and more isolated populations. I guess that is probably true no matter what the means of delivering health care happen to be.

yes we are headed for rationing etc. I saw the British PM on TV the otherday saying, " we have 30 years on you with socialized medicine, DON"T go down our road, a disaster awaits you!"
There are better ways to fix it than giving the federal government control of our health care. I do not feel especially predisposed to give the millions of illegal aliens health insurance in any event!

What would you like to happen to people that cannot afford Health Insurance? What would be your solution? Suppose P.D prevented you earning a good income and thus not be able to afford private health care should you have second rate care? Our N.H.S, despite its faults, is very popular in England because overall it is excellent.I cannot imagine our P.M knocking it as he would lose the next election if he did.Could you please give me the reference for this remark and the context in which it was said.

i thought it was your ex-PM, Tony Blair and it was a sound bite, thats all I know about it.

Call me selfish, but A. I don't feel ANY responsibility for insuring 1. all the illegal aliens in our country are covered and 2. those who decline coverage simply because they can afford but do not want coverage. I worked hard for my insurance 30 years for it, and I don't want it destroyed.

IT doesn't make any difference where I live and there are no quotas on drugs and treatments. I know of several English folks who went to Chris Van der Linden's Ghent Belgium DBS program because they could not even secure a date for surgery or their surgeons the government had selected for them, had such an abysmal record that they made their own arrangments. Now that their is the EU, it is my understanding that one can go to any EU country for treatment, but preference is given to that countries citizens, so thats a crap shoot too.
Sorry but nationalized health insurance doesn't sound appealing to me. I have one of the best surgeons and MDS's available anywhere 20 minutes from my front door. Care without peer a phone call away. 10 excellent MDS's within a 45 min drive.
Can you make the same claim?

Charlie

actually ECD and myself have Stephen Gill at Frenchay less than an hour away and I have a world class Neuro less than half an hour away.

Despite your usual words of wisdom your sound bite quote was unfortunate and undoubtedly wrong as any such attack on the NHS by a British PM would be political suicide and force instant resignation.

I agree with your quote re. treating "aliens", we have NHS "tourists" who take advantage of the system but have not paid in.

As I said earlier, "cradle to grave public healthcare" is an anathema to the USA and I would not expect you to support it. For my part I support the NHS, am proud of it and believe the standard of healthcare is excellent. I am pleased that you are getting the best you can out of your system.

Take care,
Neil.

I am glad for you. I am glad you were able to build up enough years working to be able to afford the best care. I only hope those with Young onset have been able to do the same. I prefer our system.I would still like to have a reference for that statement, as any politicion,even Tony Blair, that knocked our health system would be asking for big trouble. I cannot understand how I missed it, as the newspapers would have had a field day. Come on back up your statement,give us a reference. We are not a third world country we have a very sophisticated system, which is certainly not an inferior system to your own.It has it faults but then so does anything
There are people in this country who choose to go private and there are some who have private health insurance but the point is that they do not receive better medical care.They may jump a queue, if it is non urgent.They certainly would have more luxurious accommodation in that, they would would have expensive wallpaper on the walls not paint and smoked salmon for their meals, but the medical care would not be any better.Where our NHS is good is when you have a life threatening illness;then the whole weight of it swings into action and very quickly. This last week a friend who has been found to have aggressive bladder cancer has seen a number of experts in this area and the whole of the South West, now he has been sent to a centre of excellence and will be under the the top man in the country, without having to worry about paying ,or his insurance company kicking up. We all moan about the NHS that may be part of the English character, in the same way as we moan about the weather, but I doubt if anyone would want to get rid of it. I would still like to know what happens in your area to those people who, through no fault of their own,perhaps they have young onset P.D, who do not have private health care.Do they have an inferior service? I suspect they would only get basic care.We may have many misconceptions about each others healthcare system and I think you have about ours, but that goes both ways because I would not want to be poor and need healthcare in many other countries including the U.S.

So please reassure me that if I lived near you and because I had not had the life chances you have had, so had not been able to afford health insurance or not had your intelligence to realise its importance I would get top notch care. People can be poor or get ill for all kinds of reasons often not of their own making. Please do not tell me you worked hard and anyone can do that because you must realise that some people, through fault of their own cannot do that.Come on show some compassion. Self righteousness has no place in this discussion.

As a resident of a western US state that borders on Mexico, my state is overwhelmed by the growing cost of health care for Mexican citizens who enter our country illegally for health care. States are mandated by our federal government to pay health care costs for non-US citizens who go to hospital emergency rooms - but the fed gov't doesn't reimburse the states for these costs. It is an economic burden locally and shameful that Mexico doesn't take care of its own citizens.

http://www.mapsofworld.com/usa/usa-s...pital-map.html