Talking medical matters at the Newbury Business Group
The prospect of a talk about health did not stop members of Newbury Business Group from tucking into a full English breakfast this morning, although it was debatable whether a few more had opted for fruit.
Lorna Smith, (pictured left) is an appointed representative of health insurer WPA and as a member of the Newbury Business Group was delivering the educational slot at West Berkshire’s foremost networking organisation and illustrating best practice she did not try and sell, sell, sell, but instead she illustrated the history of the health service – and why private health insurance is needed.
Her presentation began with an artist’s realistic picture of amputation not so long ago in 1773, back in the day when doctors were colourfully referred to as ‘sawbones’, before thankfully moving on to a picture of an austere looking fellow, who one or two members recognises as Edward Jenner, the father of immunology and pioneer of smallpox vaccination.
We all recognised the lady with the lamp, Florence Nightingale, but did discover that when she went to the Crimea, she was initially only allowed to clean and not attend to patients. However, she pointed out that soldiers were dying not from their wounds but from the filthy conditions they were in and so began the legend, further enhanced when she came back to England and revolutionised nurse training and hospitals.
We moved on to a quiz and had to say what the importance of a list of dates was to the health service. We’ll share the answers here!
- 1929: Alexander Fleming Penicillin
- 1948: Birth of NHS
- 1952: prescription charges introduced
- 1954: Richard Dohl established link between smoking and Lung Cancer
- 1954: Children in hospital allowed visits from parents for the first time (Sundays only):
- 1958: Polio & Diphtheria Vaccination introduced
- 1960: First Kidney Transplant (there are now 1800 annually)
- 1961: Tetanus Vaccination introduced
- 1968: First heart transplant in UK (there are now 300 annually)
- 1978: Louise Brown was the first test tube baby
Lorna explained that Private Medical Insurance grew from social reform bodies of the 19th Century and the impact of the introduction of the NHS had virtually closed down most of the PMI organisations. BUPA and WPA has been two that continued and have thrived, with only WPA maintaining its not-for-profit status.
- Rhetorically she questioned why might we use PMI instead of the NHS?
- Get the BEST treatment available with NO budget restrictions
- See the specialist YOU want and WHEN you want
- NO WAITING for treatment or the results of tests
- PLAN your treatment to suit your work schedule
- Have your own private room - DIGNITY
- Don’t catch MRSA – or at least greatly reduced the chances
- Invest in your most important asset – your health!
It was time for some sobering statistics and she revealed that 1 in 3 people will be affected by cancer, 1 in 9 women diagnosed with Breast cancer per annum and more men overall die than women from all cancers.
She then listed a range of advanced therapeutics for treating cancer: Sutent®, Torisel®, Avastin®, Erbitux®, Tarceva®, Velcade®, Nexavar® and MabCampath®. All these drugs are licensed, but only the first, Sutent®, is authorized for use in the NHS by NICE. They are all available through private health insurance.
It was a sobering through to realize just how much viable treatment is necessarily unavailable on the NHS to ensure that free health care can be funded for all. Lorna concluded: “WPA has a single aim behind everything it does: To maintain its position as the most professional and highest quality provider of health insurance services.”
Questions about the future of the NHS swiftly followed and members left today’s meeting a little more focused on being healthy enough to ensure their business thrives... and with a good idea what to do if they want to be confident of receiving the health treatment they might require!