AIBU to think the NHS is bloody brilliant sometimes?

Well exactly.

I have been really impressed with my local Specsavers over the years. Kind, organised, efficient, well trained staff. Easy to book and cancel and rearrange appointments. Kind to elderly people. Kind to children. Some things (eye tests and basic glasses for children, hearing checks if you meet the criteria, etc) are paid for by the NHS. I'd like to see a lot more of that kind of mixed economy..

I’ve experienced both US and UK healthcare and, perhaps for obvious reasons, prefer the NHS… I always felt there was a bit of weird dynamic going on when I saw my US GP. He was hesitant to recommend options that might cost a lot (you have an annual deductible and insurance won’t pay for treatment until you’ve met it) and I was worried about being left with a large bill. It meant I didn’t really receive some of the investigations needed because the GP presented them as ‘I suppose you could have this (gold standard treatment)but this could work okay (budget option). So I just went with the cheaper option. It’s a very weird dynamic. I’ve not experienced this at all in the Uk - GPs will refer you for what you need / what’s recommended, regardless of cost, and that is usually always the gold standard.

It can be good. Recently my son in law needed to be seen re: a foot injury sustained at work, all sorted within an hour. Similarly, my daughter injured her leg, wound treated, all very quick, physio offered and delivered to a great timescale.

However, in this same period of time my son spent 4 days in A&E (yes, 4 days!), didn't receive the correct treatment (he has subclinical seizures that needed an EEG to confirm), it ended up with the Chief Medical Officer of the trust becoming involved (I used to work in medical negligence and know how to escalate), etc., etc. As an aside, they actually swabbed him for flu on admission, it came back positive 72 hours later (despite vaccination), so those 4 days when he was stacked next to dozens of old people on a trolleys in a corridor, well, given that both me and my husband (also vaccinated) came down with terrible flu, I dread to think how many people were infected and what sort of impact that had.

I think it says a lot about the state of the system when a very basic level of care delivered promptly by people being kind is seen as amazing and worthy of huge amounts of praise.

We get our medical checkups done in India. So much cheaper

Yes. I had significant help fixing my eyes as a child, I get free hearing aids since I was ten and managed to have my first child with NHS funded IVF.

Yes we are lucky. So many moan about the nhs but they would moan more of paying 100/1000’s each visit

The NHS staff are brilliant but ime the waiting times are awful.
Needed stitches last weekend and was in there 3 hours before I had an x-ray then another 2 before I got the stitches.

The NHS is absolutely amazing. Unfortunately it’s been let down through lack of funding and it is too top heavy with management and needs an overhaul in that respect. However, as an organisation and when dealing with all the staff on the frontline, it’s amazing.

Sorry for mentioning the US 😂.

I have some experience of the French, Canadian and Swiss systems, all of which appear to do some things well that the NHS does poorly if that helps. And I know Chinese people who go home for dental treatment and Indian medics who go back to India for advanced medical CPD. It's a big world out there with lots of ideas and alternative systems.

We’ve used it more in the past 12 months than at any other time in our lives and it has been pretty faultless - ambulances, A&E, HDU, imaging, specialists in orthopaedics and neurology, nursing on the ward, pharmacies, surgery, physio - between DH and two DC we’ve pretty much covered it all. There have been occasional delays and a couple of times when we have had to advocate for ourselves but nothing particularly significant, and every individual we have dealt with has been kind and compassionate. I will always have a special place in my heart for the paediatrician who stayed well beyond the end of his shift to rule out a couple of scary diagnoses for my youngest when we had been brought in my ambulance.

All this "it's so wonderful it's free".

I mean it is wonderful if it works to your advantage and obviously it would be awful to be in a workplace insurance based system like the US and have a condition that wasn't covered (people do like to forget about Medicare and Medicaid of course).

But it's NOT free. It's very expensive. Just not for you!

It would be a more equitable to have a system where more could be covered and where people who could afford it could contribute on a sliding scale, rather than our one where some conditions are covered 100% and other conditions are completely ignored (or the waiting lists are so long they might as well be).

My dad's life was saved by the NHS a few years ago (which is wonderful). Could he have afforded to pay for the treatment? Er yes...yes he could! My SIL was in a similar position but couldn't have afforded the treatment. Meanwhile I've had to pay for nearly all my family's issues because our conditions fall into the "chronic" bucket not "acute". It just all seems a bit crazy, random and unplanned.

I know there are many things wrong, but there's an awful lot right about the NHS

But there shouldn't be many things wrong. Why set the bar so low? And if one more person mentions the US ...

To be very honest, I saw five different neurologists, four of whom were on the NHS.

I self diagnosed my movement disorder called tardive dyskinesia, and four of the neurologists gaslighted me, telling me it was either nothing, or a functional neurological disorder (FND) (AKA the way they love to group together all of the vague, misdiagnosed neurological conditions and label them as malingering/psychogenic.😳)

Then, only after I'd seen a private neurologist, did I get my actual diagnosis confirmed. (Although, ironically, he did work both for the NHS and privately, as most probably do).

Funny how the NHS doctors didn't want to admit these things cause harm, yet the private consultant did. 🤔😞

3 months is a long wait for the right treatment.

It’s true that chronic Musculoskeletal is a mess if you don’t go private. I sprained my toes and once a fracture had been excluded, I wasn’t allowed further imaging until I attended an MSK pool, triaged by physios. It was a 3 month wait for this, so I went and saw an orthotist. Got new insoles and was fine.

Yes we are very lucky. My ex’s father had a stent abroad and ended up having a massive stroke and going into a coma for two years. I held a birthday party for dad six weeks later to have a celebration (not a funeral!) with his friends.

Of course there are awful aspects (all the recent maternity reviews) but there are also things are great. I had a itching bleeding mole. Called our community integrated service and was seen within 2 hours. The nurse practitioner could prescribe steroid cream to stop the itching and could also make a referral to dermatology. 4 days later I was contacted by dermatology with an appointment date (12 days later). They gave me a day surgery appointment within 4 weeks.

I went to my opticians because I had intermittent flashes in one eye. He phoned the Sheffield Hallam Eye Department. They said send her up here now. I went ( 20 mins walk) and was seen immediately by the Consultant. He said ' probably just an ageing thing BUT here is my home phone number if you have a dark patch coming down in your eye phone me immediately day or night and I will meet you at the hospital! Last year my sister found a lump in her breast. Got an appointment with her GP that afternoon, was admitted to Wythenshaw Hospital 2 days later and operated on. Now fine. Pretty amazing NHS FREE service. As mentioned on another thread 2 cousins have returned to the UK from the US because they are terrified they'll not be able to afford treatment as they get older.

I've had some terrible experiences, but I have just been referred down the 2 week cancer pathway and my experience has been incredible. Seen by GP, bloods before I left the surgery. Call from the hospital next day, CT that week and endoscopy the following week. Our reorganized dedicated CT unit is now doing 140 patients a day, endoscopy does 50. The staff were all efficient, kind and I can't fault the service I have had thus far from the NHS. Now just have my fingers crossed for the outcome.

It does more with less. It has fewer doctors and nurses and lower health spending per person. The King’s Fund points out that there is no country that is without problems and there would be significant costs to change systems

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/reports/nhs-compare-health-care-systems-other-countries

all the data?

Data shows it lags in quality compared to many other healthcare systems

yes yes all the data and all the evidence confirms the nhs is crap.

😊

And every single bit of data and evidence proves the NHS is crap?

Oh dear 😆