NHS will have to ration further treatments, GPs warn

The NHS is facing such acute financial pressure that it will have to extend the rationing of treatments in order to cope, GPs warn.

An overwhelming majority of family doctors believes that the NHS is under such strain that ministers will have to undertake the politically difficult task of redefining what it can, and cannot, afford to provide. Rising demand for healthcare, the discovery of new treatments and flat NHS budgets have reopened the debate on whether it needs to set out clearly what services will be restricted to patients with certain ailments.

A representative survey of 821 GPs in England, commissioned by the Nuffield Trust health thinktank, found that 85% predict the financial challenge will ultimately force the government to spell out more clearly what care is and is not available to patients.

The leader of the UK's 42,000 GPs responded to the findings by telling the Guardian that ministers, doctors and the public needed to have "a sensible debate" about reducing the currently "rather bloated" range of NHS care to ensure it can survive a continuing spending squeeze.

full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/feb/27/nhs-treatment-rationing-gp-warning

The Drudge Report version: "UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE=RATIONED CARE, UK WARNS"