Britain's NHS
 

Most of my fingers point in the wrong direction due to cricket balls. Always been looked after brilliantly by A&E.

Forever the news moaning about waiting lists, patients in corridors. Blah blah

My view is how flipping lucky is every single one of us to have this. The doctors, nurses, staff, admin., ambulances, paramedics

I salute ever one of you. I really do.

BBC, have a moan about something else and leave the NHS alone. It is ace.Just give them more funding Apologies, just started thread after watched latest slagging off for NHS on the news. Again

My NHS experience as below;
My wife was diagnosed with aggressive cancer.
One week later she is in chemotherapy unit. Brilliant staff, lovely new unit and best treatment available.
Following months of chemo she is transferred to radiotherapy unit. Again bloody fantastic staff. New bright facility and prompt treatment. No waiting around in gloomy corridors.
Three surgeries followed. All very well explained and supported by professional staff. From surgeons, oncologists, chemo nurses, radiotherapy staff and Macmillan etc. Bloody brilliant all of them. Can't imagine ever being able to access any better treatment anywhere .

A few years ago, my mum received the wrong treatment for a hip infection. Her blood pressure dropped so low one night she nearly died and had to be resuscitated. The infection ended up destroying all the cartilage in her hip and she needed a hip replacement. Hip replacement was done at a different hospital and was fantastic, but she had to be infection free for a year, so she was in agony and unable to walk without assistance for nearly a year and a half.

6 years ago my dad was diagnosed as diabetic, although very mild case. He then developed chronic diarrhea which the doctor put down to a side effect of the diabetic meds. Last summer he started passing blood so went to hospital. He was then passed around between specialists, having to wait weeks each time for an appointment. Finally after three months they finally found out he wasn't diabetic but had bowel cancer, which was slow growing but because it had gone untreated for six years had spread to his liver and was producing high levels of hormones which had damaged his heart valves. He was referred to a specialist cancer unit in Liverpool and they have been fantastic. He had to have a triple heart valve replacement op in January and is now recovering well. The type of cancer he has is non responsive to radio therapy or chemo, and is not operable to remove the tumor as its spread throughout his bowel and liver so he cannot be cured. It his however responsive to a new drug that has been developed which stops it growing further and suppresses the hormone production.

My experience of the German health system is quite limited (thankfully), but I did have a mole which partly fell off in the shower one morning (about 08:00). After calling my insurance for advice, they told me to go to a skin specialist and gave me a list of all the specialists in my area (specialists in Germany tend to have their own private surgeries rather than operating in a hospital). I picked the closest one and went straight there (about 09:00). Without an appointment, they told me I would have to wait to be seen. I had to wait about 30 min, the doctor took a look and said the mole would have to be removed. I had to wait another 20 minutes or so, then he took me through to the operating room, removed the mole, sealed the wound with a laser and sent me on my way with a follow up appointment for two weeks time to get the lab results. I was at work by 11:00! I had an ex in the UK who once also had a mole removed. She had to see a GP first to get a referral to a specialist, then another appointment for the op. She had to take two half days off work for the for the appointments, then a full day for the op to remove a mole. In total it took over two months from calling for the GP appointment to actually having the mole removed.

My brother-in-law had a paragliding accident where he lives in Spain and broke his back. His father, who also lives in Spain, was knocked off his bike and had life threatening injuries included a serious head injury. In both cases they received fantastic treatment under the Spanish state health system. The interesting point about their treatment was that a bed was provided for a relative who is expected to provided the basic nursing care where appropriate - helping with meals, helping a patient to go to the toilet, bed baths etc. The trained nurses therefore have far more time for the real medical care which only they can provide.

The NHS is fantastic and the doctors and nurses are amazing, but there is so much inefficiency in the system and a chronic shortage of medical professionals and massive under-funding means that even though they do their utmost to care for patients, the system is stretched to the limits and treatments are often way too slow and diagnosis is often rushed and key things are missed. I don't think plowing more money into it is necessarily the answer, more that drastic reform is needed. The principle of free healthcare for all in the NHS is fantastic and needs to be preserved. The government should consider the NHS principle and look at what other countries are doing to both finance and manage their health systems and come up with a new system that can provide the highest level of care without overstretching the resources and patients having to wait so long for treatment. The NHS is great, but it could be better!

I have a friend in Holland who had a similar experience - can't remember exactly what it was, but fractured wrist or something - was seen, x rayed and plastered up all in the Doctors surgery within an hour!
In the UK - you'd have sat in A&E for 6Hrs to have the same done by a Junior Doctor.
So the Europeans do seem to have a better system for minor-ish procedures without even bothering the hospitals.

Quite! I see this as one of the biggest potential gains in efficiency. If I have a skin complaint, I can go straight to a skin specialist who can perform any basic procedures there and then. Similarly, with ENT or eye specialists and many others too. Bypassing the GP can save a lot of time and effort. I don't know the exact structure, but it also seems here, that all the specialist surgeries, GPs and possibly even the hospitals are all privately managed even if the actual health care is paid for by a state insurance scheme. This removes the whole management costs associated with huge hospitals and regional health authorities. I don't know how the funding for equipment works, but local surgeries here often have their MRI scanners and all state of the art equipment. Its certainly worth looking at as an alternative way of doing things to the NHS.

I have private health care which I have used maybe three or four times, OK I know there are some limits with it, but its fantastic in general.
In one case I was told I needed an urgent CT scan, and was put on an urgent priority list.
2 days had passed, I rang them, got told I was on the list, I said to them, can I get this done privately - of course they said.
Made a call that day, and the scan was carried out at 10am the following morning.

On the flip side, my wife fell incredibly Ill many years ago spending approx 7 months in hospital and received fantastic service via the NHS.

I very much doubt you actually would . Have you visited the US / had any experience their systems ?


Gammon

Nothing stopping you now, crack on, help us all out if you can afford it.

Thats for a visiting ! i meant from the perspective of someone who resides there

The US system is terrible for the people who cannot afford the insurance!

I don't have a problem with the hospitals being privatised albeit with some level of regulation. Funding though should be from a state insurance system to ensure the poor also have access to healthcare.

Al those poles , bloody polish coming over here to use our health service.

When it's free at home

Other countries may not call it "NHS", but most have a fully state funded healthcare system. The difference is often that the hospitals themselves are often private, the funding is paid by a state funded insurance scheme.

The US did not have a state funded healthcare until the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) added a basic level of state healthcare for those who could not afford insurance.

Do you never use your GP then?