What’s the point in the NHS?

This is increasing. There are doctors on social
media saying insurance companies are hounding them not to give treatment. There is a viral video of a doctor being called during surgery and being asked to justify an overnight stay she had prescribed.

*Yes, but their overall tax burden is a good 10% lower than ours, so they get to keep more disposable income. It's still a very significant outgoing that baby can't afford beyond the most basic policy, which will consist of a lot less available treatment than what you get on the NHS.

I agree, OP. Those wait times are ridiculous, given your ankle will probably be fine in two or three weeks. I mean, what's the point? Absolute shambles, it is.

A sprained ankle isn’t urgent .

Exactly. Plus, insurance companies can (and do!) refuse to fund necessary treatments sometimes.

Yes, but their overall tax burden is a good 10% lower than ours, so they get to keep more disposable income.

Oh, hang on...

The NHS doesn’t only treat life threatening conditions.

I am resigned to the fact that if I got anything painful but minor I will just have to pay for it, like I have had to pay for the dentist for the last 20 years. I had a basal cell carcinoma that hasn't quite gone so I just kept the cream and shove some on every year to keep it at bay, it may go eventually but it's not really bothering me enough to bother with the GP.

You did.
It’s a (badly) sprained ankle. It’ll get better. You don’t need a boot or anything else.
You could have a physio appt but there is also good physio advice on the internet if you prefer - some people do because it means they don’t have to get a taxi/bus/lift to the appt.

The NHS also saved my DHs life four years ago. The care he had would have cost millions (not joking). He had a 16 hour operation and so much follow up care and treatment. Our NHS is fantastic.

Urgent care has always been patchy. It's the care for long term conditions that is atrocious when it needn't be. Heaven forbid you happen to be both a woman and suffering any sort of long term health complaint, you'll be treated like an attention seeker just for mentioning whatever is wrong. You basically have to be either very middle class/accompanied by a man or bothering them every working day to get treated. It is a complete joke. This is why I recover a large part of the taxes I pay via crime, just can't stomach paying for services I'll never get to use properly without a fight each time.

Has it occurred to you that it will take this long for you because it’s a small sprain and isn’t urgent? For those that NEED urgency the NHS will deliver, for those who require some assistance it takes longer if it’s not severe. You are one of those people, get over it. The NHS has excellent online resources for physio and rehab, they even have Pilates, back pain exercises and much more available online that would probably help you. You sprained your ankle, they gave you an x Ray and sent you away with perfectly good advice. Stop moaning.

Yes and there are issues with their system but it’s a hell of a lot better than our system
Yes, if you pay premium and a premium that will cost you massively more than some crushes and physio, which are optional anyway.

It's not unheard of paying 30% of your income to get basic healthcare insurance in the USA.

The US system is catastrophic for many ordinary people. You get people selling their houses to fund cancer treatment when their insurance refuses to pay. You get people in their 20s who can't afford insurance dying of asthma or diabetes.

You’ve got a sprained ankle. Google can tell you what to do with a sprained ankle. You don’t even need ChatGPT!

Sprains ARE ligament injuries @CandyCrushLevel14809 , and mine was severe.

This thread increasingly reads like some sort of advert for The American Way of doing things. No. You’ll have real trouble on your hands if you import the full American system of ‘healthcare’ here. We are close enough to it already.

Your sprain was low tier and didn’t need what you wanted. Those with a higher need get the things you wanted.

But your condition isn’t life threatening. I’ve torn ligaments in my knee, during a dance lesson when I was a child. They drained the fluid off and then told me to go home and rest up. There was no follow up. I just had to wait for it to heal. I did receive (I think) 2 sessions of physio but they didn’t really help. This was in 1995.

Chat GPT sounds bad but it’s actually a very useful resource. You can find out what helped other people very quickly.

Also, hopefully you didn’t vote for the Tories whilst they were in power for 14 years because they are the reason NHS is now on its knees. Oh, they borrowed plenty and spent it on vanity projects instead of people…

You've twisted your ankle, OP. When you do that, it hurts, and it swells up. You need to rest it.

Complaining that you've not been given further expensive NHS scans, and then looking at private healthcare options, is melodramatic and absurd.

You don't need physio for a torn ankle ligament. It might help...a bit, but you'll recover absolutely fine without it.

It might be a big deal for you, but from a healthcare perspective, it's a very minor injury that will heal by itself with time.

What planet are you on?

The USA system relies on a fragmented, market-driven multi-payer model. It is the most expensive in the world, spending roughly 18% of its GDP ($4.9 trillion), with administrative costs soaring up to 25% due to complex insurance billing. It leaves millions uninsured or underinsured, making medical debt a leading cause of personal bankruptcy. The NHS has higher overall life expectancy and lower infant mortality than the U.S. The US system underperforms in population-level health outcomes (such as lower average life expectancy and higher maternal mortality) relative to its massive financial investment. According to international performance evaluations the US ranks last overall among high-income countries for health outcomes and access, while the UK scores considerably higher due to universal coverage and lower financial barriers.

Yeah it’s so much better to be told to get the health aid you need on Amazon, and to get a treatment plan from ChatGPT!
Most people don't need crushes after a few days of a strained ankle, especially when young, so yes if OP prefer to have them, it's fair enough to get them herself.

As for treatment plan, it is basic for this ailments and certainly something that AI can do reliably.

So yes, totally appropriate.