Just reading the Guardian’s report into the sentencing of the former Ukip MEP, Ashley Mote, for benefit fraud.
This sentence struck me:
The court heard he used this money to pay off credit card debts that he had run up funding an ‘extravagant lifestyle’, including restaurant dinners, private healthcare and holidays to the US, France and the Caribbean.
Hmm. Not sure exactly what form Ashley Mote’s payments took, but why is ‘private healthcare’ classed as an example of an ’extravagant lifestyle’? I speak as one who has recently had some dealings with the NHS - far from being an ‘extravagance’, taking out private healthcare, where affordable, is actually a very prudent move. In fact, given the dire state of Britain’s health system, the time is fast approaching when private healthcare, in some form or the other, will be the norm for most.
September 4th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
I would say, if someone who is claiming benefits by fraud, and is using some of the money to pay for private health care is living beyond their means and therefore is engaged in an ‘extravagant lifestyle’.
Still, I don’t see him as posing a risk to the public and given the prison overcrowding and cost to the taxpayers, I think a community sentence and an order to pay the money back would have been more fitting.
September 4th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Hi jailhouse lawyer,
a question, and one for which I haven’t got a ready answer: should paying for one’s own healthcare be classed as ‘extravagant’? If the payments are inflated, maybe. But does the idea of ‘extravagance’ not imply that one is spending on something that is not necessary? Surely healthcare is a necessary commodity? (Stealing to pay for it is another matter, though.)
As to whether a jail sentence was appropriate, I suspect that because the crime contained an element of dishonesty, it was deemed proper that some jail time be served.
September 4th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Bel… with waiting lists massively reduced and almost wiped out for many acute services, what is it about them that leads you to say…. ‘the dire state of Britain’s health system.’
September 4th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
Bob, maybe it’s different where you are, but in my part of the UK, the NHS is in a pretty dire state. I have recently had to undergo surgery, so I witnessed the NHS in action, first-hand. For starters, I was given a six month wait for a scan, even though my condition was pretty serious. What, I wonder, was the fate of those patients with less pressing issues than me? And it was not just my local hospital. The situation was the same in all the neighbouring hospitals.
Scan aside, there were waiting lists to get onto waiting lists, and all manner of administrative skulduggery, all to ‘meet Government targets’.
Thanks to God, I survived all that. But I learnt a lot along the way from the frustrated health professionals who have to work within the system.
September 5th, 2007 at 1:47 am
private healthcare, extravogant? probabbly not.
Do i want my hard earned taxes ( and national insurance payments ) going to pay for somebody elses private healthcare, definitly not. Am already paying for his PUBLIC healthcare.
September 5th, 2007 at 8:41 am
Bel there is always a danger of extrapolating from a personal experience and applying it to the whole system of anything. As someone who works in the NHS, albeit mental health not acute provision, I can tell you that the overwhelming majority of health professionals and service users are of the view that the NHS has improved beyond belief over the last decade. I think the Government have made many mistakes (GP contracts for a start) and wasted money (continuing the Tory lunacy of PFI) but the hundred thousand additional doctors and nurses and the replacement of the decaying building infrastructure we inherited, together with the tens of thousands of lives saved by improvements in service and technology in the fields of cardiac, cancer and pediatric services, stand as a tribute to the Government’s commitments to an improved NHS.
If we are going to talk about individual cases to highlight problems I know of a hospital in Dudley in the 1980’s who used to book patients in for operations on Christmas Eve, knowing full well that they would invariably cancel. That would take them off the waiting list and start them again. Quite shocking, I know, but it did happen.
September 5th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Bob, I understand what you mean, but I am not merely extrapolating from my personal experience. If anything, my personal experience led me to ask questions of the doctors, nurses, and administrators I encountered. ‘Why is the waiting list so long for such an important scan?’ ‘Why is X this way, or Y that way?’ The answers they gave me were general in nature. Most of the problems, delays etc I experienced were symptomatic of problems within the NHS. I didn’t suffer all that inconvenience because someone somewhere didn’t like my face. Rather it was because there were problems within the system.
I agree with you that it is dangerous and often misleading to extrapolate from personal experience. But I submit that I wasn’t doing that. My personal experience in the NHS made me ask some questions, and it was the answers I received that led me to my conclusion.
September 5th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
I have always depended on the NHS for healthcare. Ordinary people are having to spend their savings on life-saving operations, e.g. triple heart bypasses, because of the communistic structure of the current NHS. Not to mention MRSA, which you just don’t get in private hospitals.
September 9th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
Listen, I would take my cat to the Royal London or to Kings. I’m sure the doctors are great and the staff morale is high (try not to snort your tea on your screen!) but the standard of cleanliness is revolting. Shitty toilet facilites do not assist in anyone’s recovery.
Damn right health insurance is NOT a luxury. Most people I know have a top up health plan. Most people I know don’t want to risk the National Death Service if they don’t have to.
Bob Pieper, come to London and look around. I defy you to find NDS hospitals that don’t smell of piss and make you want to vomit. And hey, I was just a visitor.
September 9th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
sorry, I would NOT take my cat to King’s or Royal London.