NHS treatment poor compared to some overseas countries?

I wish people would stop focussing on the US system. I have never heard anybody say the US system is better.
Europe though is way better (France, Spain, Switzerland, to name a few countries)

1. they do preventive medicine instead of waiting for issues to be bad before treating
2. if you want to go private, the cost is reasonable unlike in the UK where the choice is free or £££
3. even without going private, you receive better treatment as not so cost-driven than here

Similarly to a PP, all dual citizens I know (including me) will see specialists in their home country as seing a GP about something that is not critical is pointless.
Latest example: my legs felt heavy recently, I have family history of DVT. GP gave me advice (sleep with legs up, etc, nothing I didn’t know already). French GP prescribed compression socks (based on my leg measurements, not generic size) and a scan.
I’m sure in the UK I would be treated if I had DVT again, but why not avoid it in the first place?

Crabby cat you are missing my point. Clinical treatment is good. Patient flow, e.g., things like waiting times is not. Lots wrong with NHS but not the actual treatment.

Shingles is the same virus as chicken pox, you only develop shingles if you have previously had chicken pox. The virus lays dormant in your nervous system, it is an opportunist which in a healthy individual is unable to reinfect their body. As you get older your immune system weakens and the virus takes the opportunity to reinfect.
The vaccine helps to prevent the virus reinfecting. The infection is from within rather than due to exposure to someone with chicken pox. The vaccine boosts the immunity.

My husband saw a doctor in Germany for what ended up being a voice box infection. The doctor was very thorough, did a blood sample with the results straight away and wrote a script. It was only 80 euro which wasn’t worth even enough to make a travel claim. Prob would be similar price in Australia if we had to pay full price, but they wouldn’t have done the blood test that would have been separate and return for the results.

Thank you, @Natsku One presumes that this is why the American Centers for Disease Control recommends Shingrix at age 50.

But your experience is increasingly uncommon nowadays, average waiting times tell you that much! DC3 broke a wrist last May (aged 3), and we were in A&E for something like 4 hours in total. What's more telling is that I was relieved we hadn't had to wait that long, the visit before that was 7 hours despite DC3 being triaged amber on arrival....

Similarly some people may be seen fast but even for cancer now 38% of people now don't start treatment within 2 months of an urgent referral. (The target is that should be 'only' 15% who don't, data from https://www.rcr.ac.uk/news-policy/latest-updates/diagnostic-and-cancer-waiting-times-data-for-january-2024/ ). I have family abroad and haven't heard of anywhere else that has anything like the number of people languishing on waiting lists!

Not my experience in UK. I had a nasty wrist fracture waited less than 10 min be seen, was treated, there was a remote consultation with an orthopod to confirm diagnosis & treatment, was treated, cast put on & out the door in 2 hours.
The NHS has many problem (esp in handling patient flow effectively) but clinical treatment is not one of them.

I'm in Finland and my experience of the health system here has been pretty good in my area until now (won't be any more, as they've shut the out of hours service in my town and now we'll have to travel 50+km if we get ill or have an accident outside of office hours), with yearly health checks for children (so preventative care), GP system that functioned, and a really good out of hours (last time I went with vague chest pains, I arrived and was immediately given a bed and had an ECG within 15 minutes of arriving, doctor half an hour after that. When DS had a seizure the ambulance arrived almost before I hung up the phone, taken there and bed and tests straight away) but now they're ruining the system by underfunding it (must have learnt from the UK...) and I expect we'll have it just as bad, if not worse, soon enough.

I live abroad and get private medical care. I am now pregnant and in many ways, my care has been amazing. But about half the stuff, tests and screenings are totally fucking useless. They literally throw every single possible screening at me and the doctors are so pushy, I can't say no. The whole process is overmedicalized. And the midwives are useless because the obgyns do everything. So you have doctors with 20 years of education and experience doing the work of midwives and midwives just changing nappies, helping you right after birth and giving antenatal parenting classes. They're not even trained to help with breastfeeding.

All well and good but a waste of valuable resources if you ask me and I don't think this is better than the NHS.

Over the last year I've spent almost £1000 to access care more promptly - the first time for breast pain and the second time be fitted with a pessary for prolapse. I've been lucky I have a bit of rainy day money to cover it.
Meanwhile, after speaking to a spinal surgeon we've agreed I'll try physiotherapy as a last option before a spinal fusion. I've got an open follow up, but there's no sign that physio are doing anything at all - I haven't heard from them, and suspect my open follow up will run out before I do. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Sounds like care more convenient and shiny but not necessarily better. The NHS also does lots to try and improve health on a population level e.g. considering overuse of antibiotics, smoking cessation, chasing people up for things etc, while trying not to cost individuals too much. That said I do think there is much to be improved (alongside the fantastic work already done) e.g. reducing waiting times, more time for professionals to give care and availability of diagnostics etc, plus it would be great if more was invested in the NHS to do this. However I don’t think this is the best example of how care could be better

You know the current news stories about vets bills?

private medicine. They’re profit making businesses. The more they can charge for, the more profit.

It'll increase shingles to begin with (which could be mitigated by the shingles vaccine being given at an earlier age, like 50) but in time most people will be vaccinated against chickenpox and so shingles will decrease hugely.

Hi,@Runningbird43

These are great questions. Only people who have had chicken pox are vulnerable to shingles. So a routine childhood chicken pox vaccine would eventually largely eliminate the need for a shingles vaccine, together with the other good it would do.

The shingles vaccine is offered routinely, but rigidly. I think you had a couple of chances to get the old vaccine in your 70s -you were not offered it every year if you missed your first chance, you had to wait.
Now the better vaccine, Shingrix, is supposed to be offered to those turning 65 from last autumn. But my friend who should have been eligible heard nothing from our otherwise excellent surgery, and I don’t know how 66-70 yos will be vaccinated.

The real travesty in my view is that older people have no opportunity to get Shingrix on the NHS. They’ve been vaccinated with something having less than 40% efficacy.

NICE must cheese pare as the NHS is broken. But I have seen up close how incredibly painful shingles is and this seems cruel. I suppose if the money goes into reducing cancer waiting times we must be happy. But one has a feeling it is just as likely to go into the pockets of Tory donors for providing dubious, expensive services

NHS is underfunded. Used to work in Switzerland and medical care was excellent. However, medical insurance used to cost about £600 per month for 2 of us. If we want better health care we will need to pay more for it.

Absolutely agree with this^
I think injections are red herring here. The point is much wider - UK healthcare is at a really low point.

I have lived in 4 different countries so far... none of them have a prefect medical system. Where we are currently, there are tiers of medical insurance. Base level of insurance gives you cover in public hospitals and for 50% more, you can have cover in private hospitals where the same operation can cost more than double the amount. It is insane. You can get an MRI for a pain in the butt and can quickly run up costs that far exceed your annual premiums while those on 'basic' insurance are queried for everything. I remember listening to a talk by a UK trained doctor who worked here, who said that in the UK, they are trained to prescribe based on clinical presentation whereas here, they rely much more on testing.. which of course.. has a cost associated with it..

No where is perfect!!!

I’m maybe in the same country as @Borracha. I went for my routine mammogram this week. First you get a breast ultrasound from a nurse, then after a 20 minute wait, a mammogram from a doctor who has already seen your ultrasound. They tell you there and then if it’s all clear or if any follow up was needed. I booked this with my gynae at the clinic a 2 minute walk from my work, and I was seen within 3 days.

I’ve also lived in the Far East and Southern Europe and received excellent medical care.

All you people who think the NHS is the gold standard are deluded.

The NHS definitely needs improvement BUT, I’m always staggered when I hear about people in other countries just being able to rock up and see a doctor in minutes and have all the tests. I know that NHS staff are overworked and clinics are too full, but in other countries what are they doing all day, just sitting around on the off chance that a patient turns up? It could be seen as inefficient - someone has to pay for this underused capacity.

By contrast when same DD was actually properly ill she got top notch nhs care. 1 to 1 nursing care in picu & 2 to 1 in hdu.

She got slotted in for a surgery after only a one week wait, another surgery she was on the non urgent list & it was done 10 weeks later. These were both last year so it wasnt ages ago.

When you are on insurance, sadly doctors will often sell you anything including things you don't need.

I once saw a private paediatrician (on private health insurance) in the uk for my DD. The doctor prescribed 4 things, none of which my daughter actually needed. An inhaler at a dose so tiny it was pointless, an incredibly expensive probiotic, an expensive swab test of some kind to check for infection, an antiobiotic "just in case" etc

I was sent to get these things at a particular pharmacy close to the drs surgery where i was charged an extortionate cost.

It was an eye opening experience.

@kaiadeluded US insurance companies do cover pre-existing conditions. They also can"t charge higher premiums to people with pre-existing conditions or deny them cover.

We once needed to use health services in mainland Spain after DH had a potentially serious accident at our accommodation. As we weren't on a road (just a track) the emergency services wouldn't come out. The holiday rep had to transport DH to the nearest emergency clinic in their car. Moving DH in this way could potentially have paralysed him but we have no option.
When we arrived at the clinic the rep went to get a wheelchair. The porter appeared at the car door but wouldn't get DH out into the wheelchair until he had seen his EU passport! Eventually he was examined, given a strip of paracetamol and discharged. He'd had a serious fall and been concussed but no xray was done.
Thankfully all was well but it could very easily have gone seriously wrong. We were told that if DH was admitted to the main hospital along the coast I would have to go and care for him overnight as they wouldn't! A bit tricky as we had our 6 year old with us!
I don't think that is an improvement on our NHS.

Okay I'll bite. My elderly mother was feeling slightly unwell and unusually tired last Monday. She's 88 and lives alone so we phoned GP for advice. GP came out to see her within the hour, checked her over, took bloods and a urine sample prescribed antibiotics and referred her on to "hospital at home" from the following day. She threw up immediately after taking first antibiotic so we phoned GP who also prescribed an antiemetic. H at h (a Dr and a nurse) came out the following day, ran more tests, checked all her meds in case we needed to stop something temporarily, showed us how to make her more comfortable in bed, gave us a helpline number to phone as first point of contact. Swab came back as COVID. Since then they have been out every day to check on her, have referred her to the physio on their team to help get her back on her feet and have been excellent in every way. Apparently they can do iv fluids and antibiotics etc at home if needed too. Yes the NHS is under huge strain, and yes it's not perfect but it still gets a lot of things right.

This is what “ pay per view “ health care gets you.

see also IV fluids / antibiotics / antisickness meds for self limiting gastroenteritis - hugely common abroad- canaries , turkey etc.