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@hladik
BlueQuinn... I was not intending to antagonise or attack you. When I used the word "you" for much of that post, I didn't mean 'you' and your girlfriend... but us as a nation... a collective you if you will.
I didn't make that clear enough and I apologise.
I didn't (and still don't, after the summary you have posted) know all the facts of your girlfriend's case... I will say again, you have clearly had a terrible time with the NHS... nothing anyone can write will change that, and, without copying half her medical record onto a public forum, the only explaination anyone could possibly offer up would be nothing more or less than conjecture.
I am glad that the private sector served you well, and that whatever risks the NHS clinicians saw in her blood pressure were not borne out. That does not change the fact that private healthcare is a service provided by people with money (except for all the menial workers who actually make the hospital tick who are still paid less than a Living Wage), for people with money, at the expense of people without money.
One thing I will say is that it is probably not the fault of the Tower Hamlets GP that they were unable to subsidise the painkillers. I will make the assumption that they were not a generic painkiller, (because generic painkillers are generally inexpensive) but a patented product that a pharmaceutical company was charging an arm and a leg for.
That Tower Hamlets couldn't provide them free is the fault of the private sector charging so much in the first place. Nothing to do with the NHS, nothing to do with dole scroungers. It becomes, unfortunately, a matter of utilitarianism... if, for the price Glaxo-Smith-Kline were charging for the painkillers, TH could provide free generic insulin for 40 patients... well. It is not ideal. It is a matter of money. If they were a generic painkiller, I apologise again, and can only say that I'm at a total loss to explain.
There are those that would make the counter-argument that the drugs wouldn't exist at all without the private sector, which is true. That does not mean that drug companies should hold public bodies (and by extension, the public) to ransom so they can pay their CEOs giant bonuses and bump their share prices.
And on the cancer... I have no idea when or where your girlfriend went for the breast cancer biopsy, but I can say categorically, that today, if an NHS GP in London suspects cancer, you will have an appointment at a London hospital for a biopsy within two weeks. I'm 99% certain that this has been rolled out nationwide and is now the case for all levels of care, everywhere in the UK. If her case was recent and it really took three months from the GP making a diagnosis to getting seen at a hospital, you should lodge some serious complaints.
Finally, if you want to cut administration, paperwork and the bureaucracy, a total centralised allocation system is definitely not the answer. It is unworkable. I can't even envisage how it might work... you go to a GP, but before they can see you, they need to get money from a central pot, the amount of which is determined by the severity and complexity of the problem that can't be diagnosed until they can see you... which they can't do, because they can't get the money from the central pot until they know the severity and complexity of your problem...???
I'd be happy to discuss the idea further if you can flesh it out a bit?
Once more, I'd like to say I meant in no way to stir up bad blood!