What’s the point in the NHS?

Nonsense.
I did the same thing 12 years ago. Immediate X-Ray reassured me nothing was broken. I followed the doctor’s advice of Rest, Ice and Compression. Probably bought a bandage from Tesco not Amazon. An MRI scan would nowadays cost £400 and would not impact on your treatment or recovery, just a waste of money and time.
Meanwhile I’m sitting here 3 days after a knee replacement operation which would have cost £20,000 if done privately.
Words cannot express my gratitude to the NHS surgical and hospital team.

Same with us @mindutopia. I hope your care continues to be excellent. 💐

I have incurable cancer. Honestly, I cannot fault the NHS care I’ve received. If I need something, they almost always get me in within hours. My nurses ring to check on me. I’ve had huge amounts of support. My consultants have been top notch and absolutely lovely. I grew up outside the UK in a country with largely privatised healthcare. My mum had cancer there. I absolutely would not have preferred to be there than here. She faced all sorts of delays due to insurance and it has been stressfully expensive, for care that has been no better. I feel very grateful that I had moved back to the UK as an adult and got sick here. I’m not sure I’d be alive if that hadn’t been the case. There is no way I could have afforded the level of care the NHS has provided me.

If it’s the thread I’m thinking of the child was showing red flags for type 1 diabetes. There were a few posters who thought a trip to A&A was ridiculous. Were you one of them?

We have some crutches, MIL had them and they didn't want them back so we have them now after she died, rather than throwing them, be handy if I twist an ankle. Most people have a nice family heirloom, we have a pair of NHS crutches.

I am an nhs fan- I work for it and I have had treatment on it for over 60 years. However, this year has been horrific for me health wise and I was waiting for an appointment for so long for something pretty important that I paid for one private consultation with the senior person for my issue.
Half an hour with him, one test and a conversation cost £350. Any further work would have been in the thousands.
The procedures and life saving treatment I've had and am in the middle of still, although slower than I'd have liked would be eye wateringly pricey and yet the treatment is incredible.
We genuinely don't appreciate what we have..

You sprained your ankle - all the treatment you needed was rest

Youve asked if it boy emergencies are treated on the NHS…..what about all the knee and hip replacement surprise or gall bladder removal surgeries or TURPS. Not emergencies but required and carried out

A sprained ankle is annoying and will take time but that’s all it is

The OP's ankle is damaged now and she's complaining about the treatment she received now. So I was suggesting that she could get private treatment for herself now if she felt the NHS was not working for her.

I wasn't comparing the NHS to the USA

What other European countries do or what we might do in the future is totally irrelevant.

The OP is in need of treatment now, which is why I suggested she might think about paying for the type of private treatment we have in this country at the present time.

OK I’ll bite. My bloke was diagnosed with cancer last year. He had surgery to remove a tumour, three months later there were two more so those were removed. Last month he had a liver transplant so is now cancer free and could easily have another 15-20 years. Originally he was given a maximum of five. That’s what the NHS is for and it’s done it brilliantly.

I haven’t got a clue nowadays, but if you find out, please share. 🙄

How much would the scan be on the continent in one of the many countries with co-pay schemes or government backed insurance schemes?

We need to stop comparing the UK with the USA or the NHS against our current UK private health offerings.

Why don't we look at what works in various other European countries and transition to how the best of them do it?

Our practice is owned by the practice GPs, not some faceless group of foreign billionaires. They're still not keen on providing appointments, seeing patients etc. and run it on a shoestring. The same people own the pharmacy attached, as per Companies House ownership records which also makes them a handsome profit. Some GPs are "fat cats" just like absent billionaire hedge fund owners.

Nothing's stopping you from getting private treatment. However, you wouldn't get anything for £50.

A scan alone would probably be 3 times that and that would be without the consultation fee and any other treatment you had.

It's expensive because of the unnecessary admin/bureacracy. You'd think that they could just hand them to you, especially if you were in A&E or the orthopaedic clinic, but even there, they have to create paperwork, you hand it in somewhere else, then go to collect it in another place, etc. They make a right meal out of the simplest of things.

GP appointments on some practices are still fine to get. It's the private practices bought up by private equity that are a nightmare. It is nothing to do with the NHS. It's that private equity run as skeleton a service as they can get away with because all they care about is money.

But things like a sprained ankle are what you'd previous go to your GP surgery to have looked at. Now that getting such appointments are as rare as unicorn poo, A&E is the only place they can have it looked at. Years ago, even if you didn't get a GP appointment (although mostly you could as it was sit and wait), you could get a practice nurse appointment. Now even practice nurse appointments are like gold dust.

I don't think wanting someone to look at a sprain is "a bespoke luxury service"!

I agree. A sprained ankle does not need treatment. It gets better on its own, unless you have other issues.
The main issue is some people who want a bespoke luxury service rather than a medically necessary service.

But apparently it’s very expensive to give them out as well?

And it can’t be environmentally friendly as well.

Nail on the head. As you say, even within the same hospital. DH is at the same hospital under different consultants, one being a haematologist for his cancer, the other being an orthopeadic surgeon for cracks in his bones caused by one of the cancer treatments. They literally won't/can't communicate with each other, can't access test results undertaken by the other, i.e. x-rays, blood tests, bone marrow biopsies, CT scans, MRI scans. If one wants a new x-ray, they'll just glibly refer him even though he's had the same x-ray for the other consultant a couple of weeks earlier. Same with blood tests, etc. It's always down to DH to "tell" the other consultant what the other consultant has said. Yes, they finally get a copy of the "consultation" letter as sent to the GP after each major consultation, but that takes 4-8 weeks to come through, so often is out of date.

"Best" was recently during an operation to put a pin in his femur. Despite knowing about the op (DH obviously told him), his haematologist asked DH afterwards whether the surgeon had done a biopsy if his bone marrow and the legions on his femur. Firstly, how on Earth would DH know? Secondly, if the haematologist wanted biopsies, why the hell didn't he tell the orthopaedic surgeon to do it? As a result, he now has to go back in for new incissions to be made for biopsies to be taken.

It's really not just lack of money and lack of staff. A lot of it is inefficiency and disorganisation.

Because the cost of collecting, checking, sanitizing and repairing if needed is more expensive than new crutches, it’s literally that simple.

And in doing so they leave more and more people to get more unwell requiring more intervention and testing and treatment that costs more in the long term and leaves some not paying tax for longer. Stupid strategy.

I’m not saying it’s perfect but I’ve had good treatment

endo diagnosis and a huge excision surgery with 2 surgeons. Downside was the wait was 18 months

I’m prescribed £500 of injections monthly so I can exercise (allergic to heat, exercise, body temp/pulse increase) and get seen for a check up twice a year

diagnosed with a rare blood disorder and given blood tests every 12 weeks plus a consultant appointment

Levothyroxine to keep me alive plus free prescriptions

free therapy/counselling after a sexual assault

emergency spinal surgery plus physio

I was a prem baby and wouldn’t be alive had the NHS not existed

I hate this idea that we should just accept the NHS as it is because healthcare is more expensive in the US. I spend £250 on NI a month. I would like a better service & don’t see why I should pay that & private on top.

OP you have to be realistic re timescale. My ligament injury wasn't too bad, but took a year to fully heal. Doctors tend to underestimate. I don't mean I was incapacitated all that time. To start with walking was hard but cycling OK. After just a few wks I could walk long distances and drive again, but swimming was impossible. I hardly noticed anything wrong until I got in the pool and found pushing against water impossible. Be patient. Good luck.

If it’s so expensive then why do they give away the crutches instead of collecting them and reusing after they are needed?