UK: Time to Charge Binge Drinkers For Treatment

I agree with the Op's frustrations, as someone who has been under the NHS's care for the last 8 years. My brother once called up by an ambulance on a saturday night after I was stumbling round and being sick. The ambulance crew pressumed i had been drinking, but I hadn't touched a drop. It was infact the symptoms of a large tumour unbeknown growing in my head. It was very difficult to be taken seriously by the medics and took another 2 weeks to get a diagnosis of a brain tumour.

But I believe the whole concept of binge drinking needs to be tackled. Why do so many young men and women feel the need to get so out of their head on booze, that they lose control and end up in A&E in the first place. What is so wrong with our society that drinking is the drug of choice for blotting out reality. I just think its a bit sad that such a culture has developed in this country, especially with younger women.

I used to go night clubbing about 30 years ago, Spending all/most of my money on the weekend drinking........"Binge Drinking" .......So this is nothing new.

However, I think if you look at the total consumption of alcohol from the 80's to present, you will probably see a decline. But what this decline means to the Governments is a decline in revenue from taxes.

Its the same with Smoking, As more and more people pack it up so the revenue drops too.......Hence the rise in prices.

Simple economics.

Something along the line suggested by the OP is all but inevitable. The system we currently have cannot be sustained as our population continues to age. (by that I mean the proportion of old to young in society increases).

More and more people living longer but needing more care as they live longer.

None in politics will acknowledge it as its political suicide, but its no less true.

If we want to keep a fully state run NHS we will have to constrain something or the NHS will slowly eat the country:

1. Constrain spending limits per individual.
2. Constrain drug availability (this happens now to an extent) - with the ridiculous addition that even if you can afford to contribute the doctor still cannot give it to you. You'll have to suffer in the interest of fairness.
3. Constrain scope of ailments treated on the NHS to exclude those that can reasonably be avoided by lifestyle choice.

Of those options i'd take option three although it has complications. There is a link between poverty and obesity for example. Its immoral to punish the poor for being too poor to eat well.

I understand the frustration. It's extremely annoying and frustrating when you perceive a person you care about is not getting the care they need, for any reason.

Originally posted by justwokeup
1. Constrain spending limits per individual.

Very bad and unfair idea. If someone has cancer for 10 years you would basically cut off their treatment after they hit their limit.

Originally posted by justwokeup
2. Constrain drug availability (this happens now to an extent) - with the ridiculous addition that even if you can afford to contribute the doctor still cannot give it to you. You'll have to suffer in the interest of fairness.

Again a very bad and unfair idea. Also quite uneccessary if the NHS were properly managed.

Originally posted by justwokeup
3. Constrain scope of ailments treated on the NHS to exclude those that can reasonably be avoided by lifestyle choice.

Of those options i'd take option three although it has complications. There is a link between poverty and obesity for example. Its immoral to punish the poor for being too poor to eat well.

I agree that three is the way forward however i disagree completely with your idea that poverty is linked to obesity. eating well is cheaper than eating junk. I can whip up a filling meal whose serving work out to about 50 pence each. That's cheaper than the junk and will keep you fuller for longer. People forget to factor that in to the equation when talking about junk food costs vs healthy eating. With junk food you will be hungry an hour or so later and end up spending more anyway as you snack.

Originally posted by ladyinwaiting
I understand the frustration. It's extremely annoying and frustrating when you perceive a person you care about is not getting the care they need, for any reason.

No no don't get me wrong. The treatment my father has received is second to none. He's seen every specialist you can imagine, been given a very expensive and hard to get drug, receives regular visits from physical theapists etc etc. The treatment and care really has been fantastic and whn an ambulance has been called on other occasions it has arrived quickly and without fuss.

However it seems on a Friday and Saturday the hospital just stands still because of these absolute idiots drinking themselves into oblivion. that is my issue and so it needs fixing, the way to fix it is to discourage the behavior, hence massive fines. I'm not for big government usually but this is a public health system and therefore this issue should be solved by government.

reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984


Largely agree with you, but on the point that obesity and poverty are not linked, i think you will find that they are. I agree that it doesn't have to be that way if people cook their own food from raw ingredients, but the skills to do that have died out in whole sections of British society. It used to be taught as home economics in school as well as passed down in the family unit. Thats all been broken for a while.

Unfortunately the same people who lack the knowledge to make their own also cannot afford the healthier choices of the pre-prepared food available. We are now on the 2nd and 3rd generations of people wasting what little they have buying mass produced crap.

There has been and is a lot of advertising power behind the selling of the crap. It has had the desired effect.

The more affluent tend to be better educated and more able to make better choices with the greater spending power they have.

Originally posted by justwokeup
Largely agree with you, but on the point that obesity and poverty are not linked, i think you will find that they are. I agree that it doesn't have to be that way if people cook their own food from raw ingredients, but the skills to do that have died out in whole sections of British society. It used to be taught as home economics in school as well as passed down in the family unit. Thats all been broken for a while.

That's rubbish. It isn't just the poor who have forgotton how to cook, the middle classes have as well. Obesity is a problem in all sections of society caused by the lack of cooking skills and a meat/sugar heavy diet.

I hate to be rude and i know i'll get flamed for this but the people who end up getting massively obese are simply lazy. Home cooking is not difficult, the internet makes it even easier to learn in these days and if you don't have the net a cheap cookbook will be a good start.

Originally posted by justwokeup
Unfortunately the same people who lack the knowledge to make their own also cannot afford the healthier choices of the pre-prepared food available. We are now on the 2nd and 3rd generations of people wasting what little they have buying mass produced crap.

There has been and is a lot of advertising power behind the selling of the crap. It has had the desired effect.

I agree that the pre-produced healthy stuff is expensive, although i would argue over anything that is pre produced being healthy. But yes we probably are on the second generation of people who were never taught to cook, still this isn't anything to do with poverty. It's simply lazyiness.

Originally posted by justwokeup
The more affluent tend to be better educated and more able to make better choices with the greater spending power they have.

Eating healthier, if home cooked is way cheaper than mass produced food. People with more money may make better choices but lots of them don't, how many overweight middle class managers do you see?