Health minister suggests charging drunk patients

Slapping a fee on patients who wind up in A&E as a result of drinking alcohol could prevent the service from being abused, a health minister has suggested.

Health minister suggests charging drunk patients for using A&E could prevent public misuse of emergency services

Edwin Poots, Northern Ireland’s health minister, said he could “see merit” in the idea, as staff continue to face “severe pressure” on a regular basis.

He added he was concerned about the number of people needing treatment due to their irresponsible behaviour.

“The United Kingdom has a great principle of health care, free at the point of need to all who need it irrespective of their ability to pay for it,” Poots told the BBC.

“I think it is a wonderful principle but I think on occasions it is abused and we sometimes need to look at how we can make sure that abuse doesn’t take place.

“The principle of it has merit. The implementation of it is more challenging. We need to ensure that people who need medical care are not put off receiving that medical care.”

However, the suggestion has faced a backlash from a leading GP, who described the comments by Poots as “simplistic and totally impractical”, “naïve” and a “knee-jerk response”, the Belfast Telegraph reported.

“What he said is very simplistic and a very naïve view,” said O’Neill. “Politicians should stick to strategy and policy and should not be looking at delivery of service, that is not their role.

“Once again he is falling into the trap of looking at one part of the system when he should be looking at the whole system,” he said.

“So tinkering with A&E is not going to solve a problem. He has to look at the whole system and at present they are not doing that. Knee-jerk reactions do not solve long-standing problems.”