NHS treatment poor compared to some overseas countries?

You are more likely to get shingles after having chickenpox itself rather than the vaccine.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/vis/vis-statements/varicella.html#:~:text=Talk%20with%20your%20health%20care%20provider%20to%20learn%20more.,after%20medical%20procedures%2C%20including%20vaccination.

There are more people (ageing population) and treatments are more expensive than ever. We also spend less per capita than most other comparable countries. It’s under funded.

In Sweden, where we lived until recently, you have a small charge (~20£)for GP appointments, A&E etc, with a max a year if you have e.g. something chronic. Means people turn up as they will be charged anyway!

The answer is bureaucracy pure and simple. An emphasis on form filling, tick boxes and clinicians having to justify their actions to non clinicians.
The suggestion that it's underfunding or the Tories is bollox. The NHS gets more money year on year yet has worse outcomes year on year. We now have more funding and more staff post pandemic but the patient outcomes are worse than pre pandemic levels.
It simply doesn't work and never will no matter how much money is pumped into it

The CP (HerpesZoster virus) stays in your body for life and can get reactivated when low/old/stressed.

I know many (including me)

Having CP means you are MORE likely to reactivate the virus. Despite what many think.

It lurks in your spine (I think)

That question is answered here: https://www.ox.ac.uk/research/everything-you-need-know-about-chickenpox-and-why-more-countries-don’t-use-vaccine

modelling shows that introduction of a chicken pox vaccine would lead to increased cases of shingles in adults, as the virus disappears from the population adult will not be exposed enough to develop immunity.

so interestingly, chicken pox vaccine for children will increase shingles cases in adults.

Because you are paying privately.
You get what you pay for.

Do you know why shingle vaccine isn’t offered routinely?

i’d be interested to know if it’s like Hpv, where it’s only offered to teens because of the likelihood that the older population will already have been naturally exposed.

does the same apply? If enough of the older generation have already had chicken pox then would shingles vaccine be pointless? Could that be why it’s not routine?

if chicken pox vaccines were routinely offered to children would that negate the need for shingles vaccines?

does the us offer it because they also vaccinate against chicken pox so it’s unlikely anyone has a natural immunity?

Agreed.

A few years ago I used E111 when they were valid and broke my ankle in Spain - was in and out with it plastered in just over an hour.
My husband had a hernia op in India, very clean hospital but we had to provide his food - cost £800 and he was in there for 4 days.

Over use of antibiotics leads to resistance. We already have AB resistance in some very nasty diseases.
You only have to watch a US medical series to see how over treatment = profit.

That's not to say the NHS is superior in any way. I'd vote for a modest charge for most things but it's untouchable in that respect.

we have returned to home eu country for Easter hols and have a whole battery of health checks lined up for a very decent price. As we are resident in UK we obvs no longer qualify for free healthcare in this country but going private here is very reasonable priced (say 1/5th of harley street prices or less) so defo worth it as NHS will not offer any of these checks.
My eu friends in UK do the same.

ps: if you claim on insurance, your premium will go up at next renewal so I wouldn't just leisurely claim on it unless you really need it of course.. even if work pays for it.

I'm glad we have the NHS, I was on holiday in the Canaries & had forgotten some of my Zonisamide prescription for my epilepsy.
Luckily I was able to get a private prescription (about 50e) from a local GP there., then found 1 box of a month's supply of Zonisamide for 90e at a chemist!! Here my prescriptions are free anyway as I have epilepsy.
Thank god for the NHS or I would either be unmedicated for epilepsy and for my mental illness or living on the streets.. no insurance companies cover people like me for serious pre existing conditions in countries like the USA for example.
I can't get life insurance or mortgage payment protection insurance here in the uk as the premiums are too high, and have to go to a specialist insurers for Travel Insurance.

No. The nhs will offer the most cost effective option to fully treat the issue.

private medicine will tell you antibiotic injections are “better” because 7x consultation fees for daily visits add up to much more money from your insurance than 1x consultation fee and a course of oral AB’s.

also preying on human psychology that the more it costs the better it must be.

They were taking the piss there…,your insurance will be paying out big time for something unnecessay

This. It was not designed for today’s society.

really hate people bashing the NHS. And people taking liberties with it.

There’s no silver bullet here to fix it but we need to take a hard look at some of the treatments that are covered, optimising private medical healthcare (more employers should offer this) and better operational and general leadership. Not much then 😂

The NHS is a total and utter mess. There are now so many people trying to access very finite resources, all for "free". As it's not properly funded, it can only be reactive rather than proactive. It uses resources such as interpreters which are incredibly expensive, a cost that most other health services don't have. I think the NHS is trying to be too many things to too many people and as a result is not providing any discernible service to most people. Some people also abuse the system, missing appointments and not thinking of the money this wastes and there is no financial consequence to them for this (as it's all "free"). If the system had endless resources it would be great if dual citizens could get timely NHS treatment. However with a system that is totally broken, I don't think it's unreasonable for these individuals to seek their treatment in the other country where they hold citizenship. Many people will not go to their home country / other country for treatment as there is an upfront cost. I think a token fee should be introduced as many British people don't appreciate or respect things that they feel are "free". I do sadly think the NHS is finished and it is such a shame.

No, wrong way round. Hospitals run for profit and payed for with insurance will go for the most expensive treatment. Bigger margins.

What would save money would be to offer up the chicken pox vaccination as part of the routine childhood immunisation programme.

There isn’t really enough information in your post. Did the dr check urine when there weren’t actually symptoms of uti? Because asymptomatic bacteriuria does not routinely need treated in men. Or were the antibiotics to treat a different infection? It’s a bit confusing. Of course, when all consultations and treatment can be claimed from someone’s travel insurance, I’m sceptical. Antibiotic injections for someone who does not have a significant infection are unnecessary and will only contribute to their countries antibiotic resistance. But yes, the nhs has serious problems right now.

Obviously I don't have the notes but that sounds suspiciously like over treatment to fleece you or your insurance Company.

I am not questioning the judgment of professionals regarding OPs experience.

However in other ways I think she has a valid point. One example is the Shingles vaccine. Shingles is a terribly painful disease of mostly elderly who have had chicken pox. Occasionally it is quite serious. Until last year NHS England only offered the Zostervax vaccine to those over 70, for whom it is only 38% effective.

Now, many years behind other countries, we are finally offering the more expensive, more effective Shingrix vaccine to 65yos (the American Centers for Disease Control recommends age 50). But those who have had Zostervax are not eligible, where the CDC recommends they should also get Shingrix. Thinking of the needless suffering caused by this policy makes me furious

Was going to say the same thing as PP about the urinalysis machine. It dies exactly the same job as a conventional dip stick.

Even 20 or 30 years ago the NHS was comparatively poor on a global level, and I say that as my late husband was a heavy user of it from the mid nineties, but we travelled a lot and experienced heath services around Europe, Asia and the Americas. But people didnt notice in the U.K. as it was tolerable, whereas now it’s not just worse but much worse, and of course there’s much more viability of how bad it is

Every time your relative is going back for an injection of antibiotics the clinic gets to charge the consult time and the higher cost of an iv injection of antibiotics. My cynical brain tells me the iv antibiotics are indeed better...for the clinic's finance books!