To hesitate to move back from US to UK because of terrible state of NHS

Complete overkill covering ass advice. What else would you expect from a 24/7 phone nurse? Of course you're told to go emergency. Millions of people have thrown up after eating something a bit dodgy and millions have survived.

I’m in London and have never had an issue getting a same or next day appointment at the longest on a weekday. On weekends you’d call 111 and ask for their advice (they can get you into an OOO GP or a doctors call out or even send you an ambulance). The regular GP is closed.

Agree.

Yup.

Yeah if you turned up to A&E with a tummy bug you’d wait hours here.

Because it’s not an accident or an emergency.

@Star555 "The USA has significantly higher rates of food poisoning compared to the UK and Europe, with estimates suggesting one in six Americans are affected annually, compared to about one in 28 in the UK. The US also has a higher death rate from foodborne illnesses, with approximately 3,000 deaths per year, compared to about 500 in the UK."
It'll be because of lower food standards in the US.
Good luck.

I’m not sure the OP is real. I haven’t been to A&E for decades. Neither has my son.

My husband is quite a sickly person. He has something major needing urgent attention about every 18 months. He doesn’t just get shingles. He gets SHINGLES capital letters, advancing on his eye. Everyone else gets a UTI, he gets kidney infections. His bowels are unspeakable. He’s had 3 surgeries on various bits of him since we met and we’ve only known each other for 9 years. He goes to his GP with a list. Right now he’s having active treatment for 4 unrelated conditions.

Not only has he always had excellent care - he’s the world’s sickliest human and even he has avoided A&E. (He gets value for money from the walk-in centres though…).

Yeah. Most of us just sleep that off.
Stay in the US. I think you’ll be happier there.

@Star555 You seem to have a very rose-tinted view of the USA.

Have you considered the risk of your future children being shot dead at school? (or even having to teach them what to do if there's a shooting?) or the risk of you being prosecuted and imprisoned for having a miscarriage?

Curious about what your parents think is 'new' infrastructure in the USA? USA is notoriously backward in terms of anything other than roads. The train network is decades behind Europe. The emergency service network in terms of addressing and responding to environmental hazards such as flood, wildfire, is poor and underfunded, especially now, with Trump's wrecking ball.

But yeah, if you have health insurance it's fine in the US. Ditto in the UK. If you're specifically concerned about getting quick treatment at A&E, then central London is your best bet, with multiple A&E departments.

The US also has that weird thing where they over-specialise. You don't need to see a gynecologist every year for a pelvic exam if you're not having any issues. Ditto annual checkups with a pediatrician. We're much more generalist and nurse led in the UK- the idea of the GP or family doctor is much less common in the US. Another function of insurance. This can lead people to think they're getting worse care, but you don't need a specialist to prescribe you antibiotics for a chest infection or sort out your birth control or do your kid's vaccinations.

Hahaha yes. I should have said the climate is very context dependent on where you are in the states. Rather the British climate than the desert.

I'd stay in the US. Not because the US is better but because we already have a load of entitled whingers in the UK, we don't really want another one that's judging us on the histrionics of mumsnet and the Daily Mail.

Also, you say you're healthy but yet you've been to A&E many times? I'm twice your age and have never been to A&E in my life. So you're not that healthy!

Me too 😂

I currently live in a desert state and the summers are beyond brutal. It’s rained twice this year.
It’s currently still 83°F outside. I’m looking forward to coming back to the U.K. and October actually October-ing properly 😂

@OneZanyPoet We disagree on the British climate, I love it!

The simplest way to think about it:

If all you’ve ever known is the NHS, the US system is very scary.

If all you've ever known is the US system, you will cycle between marvelling at what you get on the NHS to being mildly horrified.

If you can look at both with an objective lens you will see there are pluses and negatives to both depending on your circumstances.

As I see it, healthcare doesn’t factor in

Reasons to leave/not move the US:
The horrifying political situation and racism (however don’t kid yourself that that can’t/wont happen in the UK)
Work culture, employment rights and crap holidays
Most of the other things (educational choices, culture) can be offset a bit by moving to a major coastal city and travelling

Reasons to leave/not move to the UK:
Parochialism, racism and a stupid political situation/race to the bottom
Taxes and what you get in return for them
Miserable salaries
The climate
Disingenuous British communication style

i live in SE london, NHS is brilliant, it’s better than when I’m from (Ireland) never had much of a problem. I have some health problems and always get appointments quite quickly, doctors are generally good, spoke to my neurologist on the phone recently, very personable I thought to be able to arrange phone calls with them. GPs are hit and miss but I get appointments fast. Free medication if you’re pregnant and one year postpartum, same with dental care.

Having lived in the US and Uk as an adult the UK far outweighs the US for me and my family. It seems like a cliche but I was afraid of ‘shootings’ and the healthcare system seems better in some ways but so many people wouldn’t dream of going to a Dr or getting a prescription for fear of cost. And one of the reasons people get treated so badly at work is because they are scared to death of losing their jobs (a lot of this is to do with health/dental), so put up with shit working hours, and low annual leave and really crappy maternity. They are conditioned to put up and shut up.

for me the UK even with its issues is far better for a safer happier family life than the US.

(not to mention the UK has a much better sense of humour and generally don’t take religion quite so seriously either).

edited to add I had to call an ambulance when my waters broke quickly and I couldn’t make it to hospital, the paramedics arrived in seven minutes and delivered my DD before midwife could attended. They were wonderful and I named my DD after the female paramedic.

My recent NHS experience has been brilliant. Saw a GP with a breast lump on a Wednesday afternoon in February, seen at breast clinic on the Friday morning. I’ve since had surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy and the only thing it cost me was my train fare to one of the hospitals.

Private medical insurance is good for non emergency treatments. Dh saved a wait for a hernia op that way. Even paying out of pocket for treatments isn’t that expensive comparatively.

My son had a bowel obstruction last year which turned out to be caused by cancer and he was triaged and given a bed almost immediately and that was actually when it was suspected to be gastroenteritis.

His case became complicated as unbeknown to us, the cancer had caused a twist in his bowel which caused some of his bowel to begin to die which then caused septic shock. My son had a cardiac arrest in the middle of a children's assessment ward and their outstanding care meant that they got him back.

He was transferred to a children's hospital with a PICU as soon as he was stable enough with a critical care team in the ambulance rather than a standard hospital transfer. He then had 2 high risk surgeries within the next 2 days to remove the dead part of his bowel and fit a stoma to allow his bowel time to heal and rest, both times I was told that it's possible he wouldn't survive as he was in multi organ failure due to septic shock and against all of the odds, he made it through both surgeries. Not long after the 2nd surgery, he declined again and they put him on ECMO to rest his heart and lungs which is what slowly began to stabilise him and it was able to be removed after about a week. We then found out a few days after that it was cancer that had caused all of this.

He was too unwell for chemotherapy at this point and as the cancer was all removed during his surgery and scans kept coming up clear, we all decided that chemotherapy when everything looked clear was a bad idea. Unfortunately, it came back 4 months later and steroids were started the same day, chemotherapy a few days later because they didn't want to start it over the weekend with less staff as he was at risk for bowel perforation and tumor lysis.

7 weeks in PICU
3 months inpatient chemotherapy
10 months in hospital overall
1 year in remission as of last month

They performed a miracle on my son.

For every bad experience, there's an experience like my son's but they don't get talked about as much and I feel like it's only the bad experiences you hear.

I know it’s not the same for everyone. But you only hear the dramatic ‘14 hours in A&E without a chair’ bad news stories. There are plenty - PLENTY - of good news stories. They’re just not as headline grabbing.

@Bloozie I agree. It’s the same in the US, the worst healthcare stories are the ones that get reported here too.

A couple of weeks ago I had pins and needles in my hands and bruising on my legs. I used my GP’s online ‘describe your symptoms and we’ll triage you’ system.

They invited me for an appointment within the hour. I was with my GP two hours after I’d submitted the form. She referred me for same day emergency care. 5 hours after I sent my form, I was in hospital.

I know it’s not the same for everyone. But you only hear the dramatic ‘14 hours in A&E without a chair’ bad news stories. There are plenty - PLENTY - of good news stories. They’re just not as headline grabbing.

but having private insurance provides faster appointments. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)
Private will often get you faster appts or surgeries and it’s good to have a second opinion easily, my cancer was diagnosed privately due to having issues with getting my gp to take me seriously and I think this may depend on what company you go with but lots (all?) will let you choose your surgeon/specialist to see if that’s important to you