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

What about I.C.E? Do you plan on breaking into the US illegally? If not, what’s your issue with I.C.E.

Maybe you only get your ‘news’ from the BBC and the Guardian. But if you look at the statistics and real numbers, the yeah, under Trump the US economy is doing great.

The world is laughing at this country and also Europe. Pathetic, flailing, and weak. Unable to protect our borders, economy in the toilet, citizens arrested for tweets while rapists and sexual offenders walk around terrorising women.

!!!

Compared to where?!!! Haven’t you read any of the recent reports on UK maternity services?! CQC 2024 rated almost half of maternity units as inadequate or requiring improvement.

You’ve heard of I.C.E right? American is extremely divided and it is them importing their opinions over here.

I don’t agree. The nhs is a reason not to move here. I’m seriously worried and considering retiring abroad just to secure access to medical care as I age and to pain relief.

Yes you can take out private medical insurance but that won’t help you in an emergency. People are dying due to lack of care - my FIL amongst them after 6 hour wait for ambulance ( serious bleeding head injury) 10 hours in ambulance outside A&E and then 3 hour wait to see doctor. All night on trolley and bed after about 24 hours straight into bed next to person with Covid ( man had severe asthma - what could go wrong?!)

The NHS has also provided what appears to be excellent cancer care to my father and I’ve had positive experiences.

The truth is it’s an absolute lottery - you might be lucky - you might not!!

@Swiftie1878 How long did you live in the US?

How odd.

I wasn’t too sure it was going too well on the other side of the pond. Has Trump made American great again?

OP, on MN there are a lot of small minded little Britain types that think that the world outside this increasingly irrelevant island is worse than here.

If you are in the US, stay there. Higher salaries, better job prospects, way better healthcare.

In this country which once was a good place to live, there is a substandard healthcare system which people have some king of blind allegiance to, crime is out of control, you’re more likely to get arrested for non crime hate incident (aka a tweet) than someone who assaults you or burgles you. You’ll pay through the nose for expensive energy because of the net 0 cult. Women are being sexually assaulted on the street with no consequence. Illegal migrant crime is out of control.

And you’ll pay taxes through the nose so that the successive corrupt governments can steal your money, what’s left of it is spent on a ballooning state and those on welfare.

Stay put.

I wouldn’t count on it to be honest. Yes something like a major car crash yes.

but you could walk into a&e with massive bilateral pulmonary embolisms and be told it’s anxiety and sent home (twice). (Dd)

you could be in a&e waiting room with bad chest pain and be told you won’t be seen for hours, leave after waiting hours and die 10ft from the a&e front door. (Friend)

you could have a life threatening rare autoimmune condition and the gp spend months fannying around saying they don’t know what’s wrong and then you nearly die (husband)

you can spend a long time back and forth to the gp with abdominal issues and you tell the gp you’re worried it’s pancreatic cancer. Get fobbed off and by the time you’re diagnosed a year later it’s too late (mum)

you can go to the gp with textbook abdominal aortic aneurism symptoms and be sent home with a clean bill of health and drop down dead three hours later in your living room (friends dad)

NHS is extremely variable from place to place,

gp surgeries are offering nhs services but vary massively in terms of how busy they are and what specific services they offer. You are not supposed to register with a gp outside of your “catchment” area.

so people with stories is just anecdotes. Your gp surgery might be well staffed and well run (like my last one) or massively overwhelmed by new housing estates and having trouble getting staff like my new one.

most private health insurance these days in the U.K. includes 24/7 access to phone/online advice from a gp because they recognise that many people cannot get in to see their nhs gp.

if you google “the 8am scramble for appointments” you’ll get some idea of the system.

nhs GPs generally only do 9-5 or 8-6 at best mon- fro and then “out of hours” would be at a minor injuries place/big clinic so centralised for each area. The government made out of hours not part of the gp contract about 15 years ago so weekends and evenings/nights you can see someone but only really for stuff that can’t wait until morning - so not referrals, etc, more my kid has an ear infection, etc.

hospitals - private covers most elective procedures eg knee replacements, and increasingly these days stuff like cancer as well. There is no private A and E /ER so if you are seriously ill you have to go and take your chances.

in general the nhs is good at stopping you dying although the waits are causing problems with this with the royal college of emergency medicine estimating this is up to 16000.

https://rcem.ac.uk/news/each-a-dearly-loved-family-member-excess-deaths-linked-to-long-ae-waits-increased-to-over-16600-last-year/

I do personally know one person who has died due to an and e wait and another who was misdiagnosed with anxiety for seven months when she had a brain tumor.

If you have private health insurance and are generally healthy it’ll be ok.

I've experienced long waits in A&E though not in the past couple of years as haven't had to go - but I'm talking 4 to 6 hours and nothing life threatening. My experience is that we can talk to a GP if we want to, services are provided and my adult children have easily accessed services in recent years. It's frustrating sometimes but services are good once accessed. NHS saved a relative's life around a year ago - they were treated immediately when they had a bleed on the brain, no lasting after effects. We are in London.

As a young person I really don't think you need have any concerns on that score. No one I know longs to be part of the US system, but some do have private health care - which I guess is cheaper if you start paying younger.

If you need “life saving” treatment you will get it immediately. You will also get top class maternity services and cancer care if you need them. It’s the elective stuff that tends to be shit - but that’s where private cover can help. Don’t bake this your sole reason not to move.

The NHS is a shit show. Getting a GP appointment is nye on impossible. Very difficult to get an NHS Dentist.
We have 1000s of undocumented illegal young men roaming around the streets unfettered, a high court has deemed their rights supercede those of the British people. Tthe government have stood by and allowed anti semitism to flourish, leaving the Jewish communities terrified. There is a huge homelessness problem, British renters are being evicted to accommodate illegal immigrants. Anyone who objects to all this is called a racist.
So I would say, dont touch the UK with a 10 foot barge pole

It’s not perfect but overall I’ve had positive experiences with the NHS. I’m very glad we have it. A Canadian friend who works in the NHS raves about it.

The NHS benefits everyone here so if you fall on hard times or lose your job then you still have access unlike the US. The US system sounds very unfair.

I’ve always been under the impression that US health outcomes are better despite having fancy private hospitals.

This.

As an example OP, I attended A&E with severe menstrual bleeding. I was sent by 111 (though aren’t we all!) and I was seen so quickly. The other patients must have been thinking WTF as I looked ok, however I was loosing far too much blood. After having testing and samples taken the gynaecologist registrar came to see me ‘from upstairs on the wards’ and took a sample etc etc…..

When it’s it’s serious they are good. As the title suggests it’s for accidents like broken legs or emergencies like heart attacks, not for some of the ‘emergencies’ some turn up for, then complain they’ve had to wait 10 hours…… you wouldn’t have to wait that long if it was a true emergency.

OP, I’ve been in a very similar situation to you, and am in the UK now. I have private healthcare through work but also have used the NHS for pregnancy, and a&e (both me and my child). I have close friends in the US and lived there for ages so am familiar with both systems.

I can’t fault the UK private healthcare, it’s been amazing and so much cheaper / easier / better than what I’ve heard from US counterparts. All insurance processes will be somewhat difficult but the health insurance process I hear from friends in the US is a nightmare; by comparison, it is nowhere near as difficult here to navigate.

I have elderly relatives in the UK who’ve used a combo of nhs/private for various serious illnesses and been amazingly well treated.

I found the NHS for the whole pregnancy experience really well run (minus the postnatal ward but no one enjoys that!) and I’ve never had serious issues with A&E waits, they’ve been particularly quick the couple times I’ve had to go with my child.

The one thing I’ve found maddening about the NHS though is GP services - so annoying trying to get an appointment. But again you can go private for that.

I can see there are other reasons why someone might prefer the US over the UK. But (assuming you can get private healthcare here alongside the nhs) - healthcare seems a mad one to choose the US for.

Fractures would be A&E but there are many out of hours systems across the country. This isn't my area but my friend used them and was very impressed. It was drive through which was why she was so excited to tell me about it!
https://www.badger-group.com/

Well define “immediately”.

an infected cut can wait a few hours for assessment or walk in the following morning. Generally you would have some sort of leeway before requiring “immediate” antibiotics. It will take time for an infection to become non localised. If for some reason that point hits at 2am then yes you would go to a&e for IV antibiotics.

many injuries like sprains and strains can wait.

if it’s truly an “need immediate care” situation then a&e is the best place anyway. If it’s a “should get seen sooner rather than later” then Minor injuries or urgent care only shut between midnight and 7am.

if I can wait 6 hours in an a&e waiting room to get my injury seen to I can wait 6 hours and go to urgent care in the morning.

there are lots of 24 hours GP services anyway. In London a lot of them are attached to your a&e- fil went with a sore knee once and saw the GP at 9pm. Turned out it was an issue that required iv antibiotics and he was admitted and sorted before midnight.

YES! I was just thinking today how quickly we’ve all forgotten that we ❤️ the nhs 🌈🌈

There are many reasons
but stay in the US @Star555
holiday for the culture

Yes and as another PP also said there’d likely be a waiting period anyway for NHS eligibility.

Im just surprised you’re so hung up on the state of the NHS as a currently young healthy person where those risks can in the main be easily mitigated by prioritising your savings as you’ve got decades of work ahead of you. But also becuase I’d think any such fears would have been easily displaced surely by current levels of gun crime in the USA which are sometimes just arbritary in nature and often can’t be mitigated against.

In 2023 there were 19.5k fatal shootings and stats show that gun violence disproportionately affects the younger crowd to the extent that gun violence has become the leading cause of death for American children, surpassing other causes such as car accidents, cancer, and drownings. That’s truly horrifying and what I would be more concerned about getting away from given your comments about future safety of any children you may have. And of course all countries have crime but I think the whole gun ownership mentality is just so ingrained in US culture that they’ve just resigned themselves to accepting these facts which is quite mind boggling to those outside the US.

Same for my son, though he was 8 so minus the fetal medicine care and nicu care.

7 weeks in PICU
3 months of inpatient cancer treatment
5 surgeries including 2 emergency surgeries
multiple medications
many xrays, CT scans, ultrasound scans and heart echo scans
physio
OT
10 months total in hospital

On a side note, the effect on everything from the NHS and schools to the economy, of the shut downs and furloughs response to Covid, is seriously under acknowledged, I think.

Hospitals get ratings! Move near one with a highly rated a&e 🤣I will say that a lot (but not all) of the horror stories are in hospitals up north and some more remote areas.

My BIl is currently arranging a shoulder replacement for his mum in S. Africa -this includes shopping around for the shoulder himself otherwise the hospital and insurance will rip him off to high heaven.

my SIL is a nhs nurse and said shoulder replacements aren’t that common on people of her age in the uk (or at all) unless you’re a swimmer or something by the time your shoulder runs out you have so many other medical problems it does nothing to improve your quality of life (and won’t for BILs mum)

but of course ina profit making system quality of life doesn’t matter. You just keeping spending spending spending because that’s what the doctor tells you you need