To wish I could stop paying into the utterly broken NHS black hole

It absolutely isn't the same service! People maybe.

Improved funding??? No fuckin way. The NHS is a money pit. You could give it an extra 3 billion a month and the managers at the top would STILL find a way to squander it or syphon it off to pals.
It needs an in depth audit.

Cancer services are better than the rest of the NHS. Wait until you watch an elderly loved one die of neglect and in pain, or lose a child to suicide because MH staff are lying bullies.

You are welcome to pay for your own cancer treatment but I think you are in for a shock when the bill is far higher than the amount you think you have contributed

Gave up on the GP when I was in the UK and paid to go private. My partner had multiple GP appointments over about 6 years for an ongoing issue. It was cured with two courses of a £40 cream bought privately after a private consultation. The NHS caused years of unnecessary suffering with a relatively minor ailment that was easy and cheap to cure.

I get same day GP appointments with my overseas health provider. NHS just burns money. Incredibly inefficient

Actually, people who give birth in the UK and don’t have access to free NHS services are charged around £10k, which is similar to the cost of a private birth. So no clue where you got your number from but you are being ridiculous.

Cancer treatment and diagnosis lags behind europe
https://www.macmillan.org.uk/healthcare-professionals/news-and-resources/blogs/cancer-care-decades-behind

and to get to the cancer services which are apparently the best parts of the nhs with is something that is a struggle which some people end up going private for diagnosis, as demonstrated by several posters on this thread.

Yep - changing from proper smear tests to just an HPV check is flipping insane ….and make me fume too as I have also had part of my cervix removed due to previous changes. Far cheaper to give me a proper smear than a hysterectomy & possible chemo etc. We need to go to a better system - possibly like the French model.

Most people have had a good experience of the NHS, but they usually have a terrible experience too. I nearly died when my condition wasn't picked up, despite numerous visits to the Dr. The stuff I hear about is incredibly worrying. I'd be happy with a German type system.

In France you’ll get an HPV test every 5 years rather than every 3 I think. I don’t think they do ‘proper smears’ over the age of 30.

The NHS screening guidelines for asymptomatic women are fine. It’s in line with European and other international guidelines. The OP’s issue is that she isn’t asymptomatic so what she needs is an urgent gynae referral not a screening.

If I’m reading the OP right, the GP did refer to gynae and the gynae asked for a colonoscopy. It’s the colposcopy that got refused and that probably is worth bringing up with PALS.

I'm with you it's crap op. But I couldn't loose it. Due to being dismissed and not taken seriously I now have life long disability. What I have is degenerative, it can be slowed not improved. They wouldn't look at me or test until I've lost bladder function, grip strength, I fall over frequently shit myself. Im a fucking state and now will need the NHS and the care system for the rest of my life to a much larger degree than if I'd got the treatment I needed 3 years earlier when I first presented with it.

But I've watched the NHS save my child's life when she had meningitis they moved so fast. I was unsure if I should take her in or not and if I'd of had to pay for that trip I would have waited a few hours longer and lost her

Honestly considering leaving the UK at the moment, just had a serious chat with DH about it. Not enough people pay into the NHS, for the amount that use it.

The tax in this country is going to get ridiculous (it’s already pretty bad), to support the 9 million unemployed, no thanks. This country is going bust.

Another thread entirely but starmer is going after the working middle classes, not the old and asset rich, or the billionaires, or trying to get people into work, and we’re going to bloody leave!! Had enough.

Oh forgot to say. I put in a formal complaint listing my symptoms what these could be and that I was being refused the needed test for it. I demand led they put in writing to me that with all my symptoms they would not do the test. They then did the test. Make the consultant put in writing they are refusing despite you having symptoms once faced with this they may baulk.

You also have a right to ask for a second opinion. I never would have done this but I had one consultant write up all sorts of incorrect shit after an appointment of waited months for after multiple referrals round the different departments. I phoned the secretary in tears and she got me seen my different dr within a couple weeks who at least write up my symptoms correctly. Definitely try calling the secretaries they are actually really helpful and amazing people.

This! In France you have a smear test every year even without precedent. For the NHS it would be cheaper to detect cancers early because radiotherapy is expensive. So even from an economical standpoint it makes sense to have free smears once a year..

You have no choice but to pay tax. Why do t you get private health care if you're not happy. I've never had a problem with the nhs and hate it when people run it down. The doctor would send you for the test if they thought you had cancer. You won't have. Your choice to waste the money. Maybe you have health anxiety you need help for.

You're only in the position to come out with your sanctimonious clap trap because by your own admission, you've never had a problem with the NHS. You've been incredibly fortunate. The rest of us can see it for what it is which is incompetent and outdated.

If it made economic sense it would be done that way. As it happens the HPV test as first line is more sensitive (I.e. will pick up more cases than a ‘proper smear’) so catches more cases. I believe cases are more likely to be caught at an earlier stage as well.

. The doctor would send you for the test if they thought you had cancer. You won't have. Your choice to waste the money. Maybe you have health anxiety you need help for.
I hate this maybe you have health anxiety bs and the dr is always right, the drs won’t always send you for a test, I’ve posted about it (it was dismissed as health anxiety) others have posted about it in this thread, someone posted about their dil having to go private to get their brain tumour diagnosed, I had to go private to get my cancer diagnosed. You’re lucky that you haven’t had to deal with shit in the nhs, it exists, we’re allowed to talk about it and “run it down” if it’s being shit.

Who is giving patients a smear every year and who is paying for that? Is it the patient that pays or an insurance company or is it free?

If it wasn't for the NHS neither me nor my daughter would be sitting on the sofa right now, for different reasons. Thank goodness we have it, though it is chronically underfunded.

It's not the same for everyone as a previous poster said her and her daughter wouldn't be alive without it. Me included. So no I do t want to run it down I'm thankful for it.

Okay but others aren’t having a wonderful time as you said so we’re going to complain about that. If that’s running it down then so be it. You’re allowed to dismiss op with talk of health anxiety but people who have had awful nhs treatment (or lack there of) We mustn’t talk about it 🙄

It's the system not the staff. I say that as an NHS worker.
The NHS is chronically under funded and is on it's knees.
Much much more needs to be invested or we really will all be paying for health care and the we're all screwed

@CornflowerSky

It's one of the best-funded health services in the world and yet one of the worst performing. Pouring more money into it is only making it worse. It needs to go.

This is utterly false. Please check your facts before spouting such damaging untruths

Well it is definitely one of the worst performing especially for cancer but think it is funded somewhere in the middle. The model doesn't work that has been clear for years (was clear to me when I was am NHS accountant in early 2000s). And I agree with @cuttysarcasm that there are too many taking out and not enough contributing (that goes did the whole system). All made massively worse by the Covid response.

There was a woman on the radio recently who had to sell her house to fund private treatment in her heart as she could have died whilst waiting for an operation on the NHS. These stories are common now. My oncologist friend says ‘don’t get cancer’ as the waiting times are so long people’s cancers become terminal.

We have an increasingly two tier health service as everyone who can go private does.