To be totally fed up with the sorry excuse that is the NHS?

I also want a more European style healthcare system. I am from another European country myself and I have never understood why people in the Uk are so proud of the NHS. I can only assume it’s because they have never really known anything else and are brought up with this idea that the NHS is amazing. Personally I have private health cover and hope I will never need a&e for anything.

But by paying for private healthcare you ARE essentially getting rid of the NHS.

Where do you think the doctors for your private healthcare come from? They're paid more money than the NHS so do private work "on the side" or only work in the private sector. They will be NHS trained.

Then the NHS have to outsource procedures to the private sector (at cost to the NHS) which again eats into the budget.

And not to mention the fact that the private sector have no A&E units, so if something goes wrong, then the patient is taking to NHS A&E to deal with it. They take the money but not the risk.

We do need to fight to keep the NHS but changes need to be made to keep it afloat.

It is massively complex, but a good starting point would be people taking responsibility for their own health and looking after themselves with a healthy diet and exercise.

How do you think those in Europe who don’t have jobs survive? Are they dying in the street? No. Private models do not simply mean the US model. There are plenty of highly successful, cheaper alternatives. See Europe. Do you think they wait for days in corridors In A&E to be seen there? No.

I pay for Private Medical Insurance, can afford to pay for it but still don’t think we should get rid of the NHS or deliberately underfund it because there are millions of people who just won’t be able to afford to go private. Would hate for us to try and copy the American insurance model for healthcare.

There are too few admin staff to coordinate care/grease the wheels between departments

Many of the consultants you see privately are taking time off from their NHS positions

There are too few specialised staff and far too many patients

A lot of the 'routine' care is now outsourced to private companies who will reject referrals if there is the slightest hint that the patients' condition is more complex than the referral guidelines

Yes please to paying a nominal fee (excluding children and those in receipt of benefits). So tired of hearing of friends or family being admitted to a bed in corridors, waiting >6 hours in A&E or getting dates for urgent appointments weeks later. How is this happening in a first world country!

This is the problem and why the NHS wont be fixed.

It's not NHS style or insurance/US system. There is a whole in-between that would work but so many Brits are happy paying a shitload of tax for the NHS to get 'free health care'.

I'm sorry you're going through this OP.

Women can have stayed sanctioned torture rather than respectful treatment?

Outrageous.
It'll be a man who decided that.

It’s the gratitude we’re supposed to have for such shite healthcare that pisses me off. Just give us proper healthcare like the rest of Europe!

Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

it’s what they do all over Europe and their health systems actually work!

why can’t we have a functioning healthcare system? Are we not worth it? Is having the worst cancer outcomes in Europe (not just Western Europe anymore) acceptable to you?

The ‘sacred cow’ that is the NHS died about 50 years ago. Can we all just accept it and move on with a proper, functioning healthcare system?

OP, it’s in the NICE guidelines that you get a choice of whether you have the procedure under a general anaesthetic. I had one recently where I was moved into private care because of the length of the waiting list and I asked for a general and got one.

Quite. Unfortunately, as a whole, productivity in the NHS continues to fall, despite record amounts of money and staff. It's a shit show. You can get grat care and expensive cutting edge drugs and surgery, but only if you lucky enough to end up in a competent department. Even within the same hospital you can have fantastic care or shite care, depending on who runs the department. Its ridiculous

*bigger

My amazing SIL works for the NHS in A&E as a Sister.

She is absolutely gutted the way things are now, but it isn't their fault. The people working there are working their absolute arses off.

I asked if she would ever moved to private and she said never on her life.

The people working there want it to be better, but they are so stretched. It's not the 'on the ground' staff who are causing the delays etc.

It's bugger than them.

What can be done?

Unpopular post but I’d say to rescue what’s left of the NHS we need to introduce paying for prescriptions 65+. I wanted to get some fenofexadine recently and found it cheaper at Asda than anywhere else and a retired friend gloated he gets it for free. This is a wealthy pensioner btw. Introduce a system where the retired pay for their prescriptions- a system that is means tested: once you require x% of your pension you get it for a nominal annual amount. Like paying ££ nominal fee once you go over a median % of your income.

Everyone who asks to see a GP should pay £10-20 each quarter to see a medical professional. Make those who use public services pay more. Everyone can cope with £10-20 like that unless they have an exemption due to benefit reception.

I’m really sorry you are going through this op and I really hope your treatment improves very soon.

you are right the NHS is simply not fit for purpose, it’s so poorly run not just underfunded and we need to let it go. Thankfully more and more people are realising this but sadly it’s often due to poor treatment they or loved ones have received. We should expect and deserve better but keep being fed nonsense about how great it is that it’s free at the point of service.

We can follow and should follow Germany and France both countries have a far superior healthcare systems

I work for the NHS and few colleagues now believe in the NHS we see how badly managed it is, we see that appalling waste of money.

Ten years ago we mostly felt differently and marched to save the NHS few would do that now I certainly wouldn’t

Like I said it’s luck if you can access treatment.

many can’t so a national health service just doesn’t exist for many

NHS is a complete omnishambles.

It was set up in a different universe to lance Mr Smith’s boil / deliver Mrs White’s baby. The cutting edge medication and technological advances in procedures weren’t on the horizon at its inception.

France and Spain also have poor people but they have an insurance system. They don’t have an NHS, yet they have better outcomes in league tables than we do. They manage.

its high time we threw in the towel with the NHS and admit the bleeding obvious.

Rachel Reeves admitting that poor students and their ridiculous, awful student loans are paying for the NHS was the final straw. These youngsters barely use it, and it won’t exist (I sincerely hope) when they need their hips replacing. It’s supposed to be paid for with general taxation but obviously that’s not true.

And it’s not even very good in terms of outcomes.

It has to end now, surely.

The NHS admin/management needs a massive kick up the backside. It's not lack of money that makes them make so many mistakes, it's incompetence. My DH was diagnosed with cancer 8 years ago, and it's all be a shambolic battle ever since to get the tests, treatments etc that he's needed. It all happens in the end, but by God, it's very hard working dealing with their incompetence. Every month, due to maintenance chemotherapy, he needs things in a specific order, i.e. blood test x days before issue of drugs, drug taking has to start on a specific day, infusion has to happen on a specific day y days after the blood test, etc.

Every sodding month, they get it wrong - appointments come through that are utterly bonkers, i.e. blood test after the date of issue of drugs, or infusion before the start of the monthly drugs cycle etc. That was bad enough on a 4 weekly cycle, as some staff clearly didn't understand the difference between 4 weeks and a month, but then the consultant changed it to a five weekly cycle and the staff clearly couldn't cope with the change and it all went to pot for several months with random appointments coming through, not just wrong by a few days, but wrong by up to a couple of weeks. That caused not only lots of "wasted" NHS admin time as he had to keep phoning various different people/depts to get them changed, (not easy as the depts don't talk to eachother), but also a fair few wasted appointments when the appointment letter arrived after the appointment date or where he literally couldn't contact anyone to cancel/change the appointment before it happened. He "could" have gone to such appointments but he knew they'd be a waste of time!

Even his first round of chemotherapy was a cock up - cancelled by phone on the morning of the first day, told him they'd call him back with a new appointment date, but days passed and he heard nothing from them. After over a week, he phoned, and the receptionist told him she'd pass the message on (she clearly didn't) as another week passed still nothing heard. He phoned another couple of times, and eventually got put through to the nurses in the treatment room (he insisted on speaking to someone and wouldn't be fobbed off) - the nurse giggled like a school girl and said "oops, you've been deleted from the system by accident" and it took another 2/3 weeks to get reinstated, so his life saving urgent chemo ended up delayed by 2 months!!

That's not lack of money, it's sheer and utter incompetence, and it's no surprise their staff are "busy" when a lot of it is putting right mistakes by others, repeat calls, repeat tests, etc.

I had a hysteroscopy under general anaesthetic. After my experience of a HSG, I wouldn’t have contemplated the hysteroscopy, without a general anaesthetic!

Thanks for asking @Carlie97 . She’s stable at the moment but chemo made her too ill to carry on, so it’s palliative care only now. She doesn’t have long.

I don’t want to imply that the NHS is absolutely fine, it’s clearly not and there are parts that are terribly under-resourced, including, I think, gynaecology. I’m sorry you’ve had such a difficult time. I was just pushing back a bit on the NHS doesn’t exist, NHS isn’t fit for purpose line. Because it’s hard to imagine that you’d ever get all that my friend has been given, in an insurance based system; and even if the cover was extremely generous, can you imagine managing a claim for a very complex illness such as my friend has, while facing a terminal diagnosis?

I’m so sorry you’re going through this OP. I can empathise as have been struggling with a gynae issue too. I spent Tuesday in A&E in absolute agony, told I was going to be admitted, spent a further 12 hours or so waiting for a bed during which time I pulled something in my back from being sat in an uncomfortable position for a long period of time. I ended up being kept on a chair overnight hit and given meds via IV then discharged as they had no idea how long a bed would be. I had some swabs taken during my A&E wait and when chasing the results today, found out that the doctor who took my swabs used the wrong swab stick so the sample is now invalid. I’m still in agony to the point where I’ve been unable to carry out any of my daily activities and no further forward. 😔 The majority of my family work in the NHS. The system is broken & I genuinely believe it’s the multi-agency framework that is the problem. There were more people than I could count on my fingers that were in A&E with alcohol induced mental health issues taking up a lot of space and resources. One man refused to pay for his own taxi home claiming he didn’t have funds after being sober enough to go home. He threatened to leave and call the police to drop him off home. The nurse told him the police can’t do that and he might get arrested. Whilst sat next to me he set his jumper alight to intimidate the staff and people around him into paying for his taxi all because the suggestion was him waiting in the atrium for patient transport at 9am and him walking 1mile from the town centre to his house. He said he wouldn’t wait on an uncomfortable seat in the atrium until the morning and would only leave when they could arrange a drop off to the door. He’d spent 17 hours in A&E due to alcohol overconsumption, had to wait to sober up and see the mental health team who had a 2 minute conversation with him in front of the rest of us then discharged him. He knew exactly how to play the system to get the taxi he wanted and even brazenly winked at the lady next to him (also in for alcohol related issues) saying watch this, I’ll get my taxi! Indeed he did get his taxi and from what I gather, his trips to the hospital for this reason are rather regular. He clearly needs long term help but the staff seem to be fighting fires.

The NHS is a cluster fuck. Of epic proportions. The sheer WASTE of money, whilst people go without or are delayed life saving/life changing treatment? It’s an absolute scandal. But no political party has the will to change it. So right now, in the UK? If you don’t have private health, expect…the bare minimum. At best.

I had a recent hysteroscopy with just a local. I didn't even feel the local tbh, I think she sprayed something too. I must have been very lucky, but the whole thing was really easy, no pain, and I drove myself home. When we chatted about the procedure she said that 98% of women are fine with local, and that the department was very worried that women are being frightened into requesting generals. This means longer lists and longer waits. I got seen within a week!

Please. Please. I can see you tried once.and couldn't cope, which is awful, and adds to your anxiety for this time, and every women does and should have the right to ask for more sedation, but I just wanted to balance the narrative and say that it really can be painless if you are lucky.