People should be charged 50 pence every time they visit the GP, a doctor has claimed.
Dr Ellie Cannon suggested the policy when she appeared on Good Morning Britain today (October 28), reports the Manchester Evening News.
In her Daily Mail column last month, the doctor mentioned she had seen the idea of patients being charged £25 to visit their GP.
But, as revealed on the ITV programme, she would prefer to see a lower fee introduced which, she believes, would nevertheless put people off missing appointments.
Dr Cannon said: "It’s a charge small enough that’s it’s affordable for most, but large enough to teach patients the value of NHS time."
Elaborating on her theory, she said: "I look after patients who are homeless, victims of domestic abuse, I look after all the child abuse victims in my practice.
"And I have to be honest with you - and this is going to be an unpopular thing to say - it is not my vulnerable patients who are missing appointments and wasting appointments.
"The don't want to waste their appointments, they can't afford to waste their appointments."
When host Susanna Reid asked Dr Cannon what kind of people tended to miss appointments, Dr Cannon pointed to "the Amazon Prime generation".
She said: "It is people like all of us, who throw away everything in our society. We don't value stuff - it's what I call the Amazon Prime generation. We want everything now, now, now."
However, the doctor's opinion proved to be controversial, with panelist Eunice Olumide claiming it went against the principal of the NHS.
The model said: "I'm so proud of the NHS [partly because] it is free at the point of delivery."
She argued it could be a "slippery slope" if the NHS were to begin charging.
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