Rishi Sunak pins leadership hopes on plans to introduce a £10 fine for people missing doctor and hospital appointments, protesting ‘care-free to the point of abuse’
- Patients would initially be given ‘the benefit of the doubt’, with fines for repeat offenders
- Sunak denounced a ‘health care system that is free to the point of abuse’
- Fines would save the NHS hundreds of millions of pounds every year
- Skeptics claim the policy would punish the most deprived and create new bureaucracy
Patients will be charged £10 for missing a NHS appointment under a new plan unveiled by Rishi Sunak as part of his campaign to be elected Conservative Party leader and prime minister.
The ex-chancellor, 42, said penalties are “the right thing to do when we have people clamoring for treatment.”
First-time offenders would be given “the benefit of the doubt,” Sunak said, and patients who miss numerous appointments would be punished.
Rishi Sunak (pictured in West Sussex) used a speech yesterday to ‘wake up to nonsense’
The proposal, revealed by the candidate for No. 10 in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph aims to alleviate NHS costs and discourage no-shows.
He said: “If we have people who don’t show up and take those slots from people who need it, that’s not good.
“I’m all for a health care system that is free at the time of use, but not one that is free at the time of abuse.”
It is estimated that such a plan would save the NHS more than £200 million annually, with a single missed appointment costing the health service an average of £39.
Politicians have long proposed fines, with many dentists already charging fees for missed appointments.
Doctors have also claimed it would simply add another pile of paperwork to the already sky-high bureaucracy in the NHS, with health professionals forced to appeal and consider apologies from patients for missing treatment dates.
It’s also possible that the penalties will be disproportionately harsh for those who have good reason to miss appointments, such as chronic illnesses, disabilities, or childcare responsibilities.
But Sunak was optimistic, telling the paper: “I’ve been told that with all the different things I had to do during my leave, during the pandemic, “this is all too complicated” or “we can’t get this done” in time.” .
“I’ve found ways to do it.”
The struggling candidate, who described himself as an ‘underdog’ in the race against predicted member favourite, Liz Truss, yesterday declared another ‘war on wake’ in a last-ditch effort to save his campaign.
Sunak slammed ‘woke nonsense’ today during a speech in Fontwell, West Sussex, in a transparent attempt to define himself as a true blue Tory.
He also proposed to overturn the 2010 “Trojan Horse” Equality Act, which enshrines human rights law passed since the late 1990s and prohibits discrimination against transgender people.
The legislation also defined transgender people as individuals “whose gender identity differs from the sex assigned at birth.”
Sunak had claimed “no interest in waging a so-called culture war.”
It followed high-profile and much-appreciated statements of support for Secretary of State Truss from Tom Tugendhat and before that popular Secretary of Defense Ben Wallace.