Has the UK changed that much in 5 years?

[Faraway100]

As the title asks really. My husband and I currently live in Singapore and are debating whether to extend his contract here for another two years or move back to the UK.

We would love to be back near our families, however it seems like the UK is very much doom and gloom at the moment. Obviously when we come back we are in vacation mode and thoroughly enjoy ourselves but I wonder if we are a bit blind to the realities.

Has the pandemic, healthcare crisis and rising inflation fundamentally changed how the UK (specifically England) “feels” on a day to day basis? And even if we stayed abroad for another two years would anything change anyways? Hopefully someone understands what I’m getting at 😬

I can’t ask family as both sets of parents are retired and a bit insulated for everything and our friends and siblings would catch on to why we are asking right away!

If things were so much better five or more years ago then why did so many people vote for Brexit?
I wonder how many of them now have regrets.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/10/i-thought-i-was-going-to-die-otters-attack-british-man-in-singapore-park

He said they lunged at him, biting his ankles, legs and buttocks and causing him to fall over.
“I actually thought I was going to die – they were going to kill me,” he added.
Spencer’s friend, who was about “15 paces” away from him, ran up screaming in a bid to scare away the otters.
“I was bitten 26 times in 10 seconds. If it wasn’t for my friend, I don’t think I’d still be here. I’d be dead,” he told local outlet Today.
The pair said they ran towards a visitor centre, still pursued by the otters. After staff at the centre treated some of the wounds, Spencer took himself to nearby Gleneagles hospital where he was given tetanus shots and oral antibiotics.
He said he has returned to the hospital three times to treat his wounds. The attack has cost about $1,200 in medical bills.

Otter attacks are relatively unusual in singapore, i would say this is the only man i have read about who has been so seriously injured. But everyone may require medical attention at some point. SGD 1200 works out to £700 so this is the cost of accessing healthcare (for a non Singapore citizen, private is the only option really).

So for people complaining about healthcare in the UK, well, in singapore there may not be queues but if you are a foreigner, you have to pay a lot of money. For most expats in Singapore its covered in their contract but given many companies here also offer private medical insurance, there isn't much difference there.

A & E is a different kettle of fish and i do agree its scary. But at the same time, when i got breathing difficulties due to covid, the ambulance came within 15 minutes.

This poster is absolutely right. Yes, things are more expensive, but everything else feels pretty much the same.

Feels normal to me. Bit more rubbish on the streets round here but otherwise fine. I can get a doctors appointment easily. Mumsnet is full of naysayers when it comes to England.

Do you forgotten the lies they were told? The millions paid out to the EU but not the millions received from the EU? Have you forgotten Nigel Farage's ruthless populist exploitation of peoples' unhappiness and insecurity? His promise that post-Brexit Britain would be awash with money for the poor? Just because a certain proportion of clever city-types saw money to be made (including Farage, who off-shored to Ireland and Germany: useful having a German wife, eh) and managed to persuade a large proportion of Tory voters and desperate angry people to vote with them doesn't say much. Remember that Jeremy Corbyn was a Brexiteer and a lot of Labour people voted Brexit too. Where are all the improvements those Brexit-voters were promised?

Although I adore Singapore and would love there in a heartbeat if not for my elderly father

Property prices have fallen significantly round here (SW London).

It's been mentioned a few times that potholes are rife. They've fixed the potholes were I live. A team turned up early May and repaired all the roads, but next Spring they will be back again as they appear each year. Not sure why Britain gets potholes and overseas doesn't suffer - weather, too much rain here followed by frost?

If potholes boils your blood don't come to the UK because it's a never ending cycle of fix...winter...pothole...fix...winter etc etc.

However I will say OP get yourself over for a holiday because if you talk to folk on the streets, in the pubs, day-to-day life it's ok and you will see most places are not strewn with litter or graffiti or third world. Asking people on the internet means you get all kinds of opinions which is good but politics comes into it, loads of people peed off with the tories and brexit, so they say the UK is awful because they are angry. It isn't perfect but nowhere is at the moment.

Anyone can reply to you from their mam's back bedroom in Salford to an apartment in Toulouse to a tent in Warsaw with their opinion on the UK. Heck even I could be from Lapland (I'm from Derbyshire 😀), but bear in mind the political/Brexit element of some of these replies.

Does the feel much different to me. Yes there's a cost of living crisis but that's pretty universal. It terms of everything else it's the same.

Our inflation rate is much higher than in other countries. But at the same time, our food costs have always been relatively low.

UK is also not set up for this. We have had 10 years of stagnating wages for the middle income We have a high proportion of relatively low income people who have mortgages and low cash savings. We have lots of young and non financially stable people living on their own or in flat shares- so at the mercy of their landlord and private rental is insecure. Our social Norms (moving out at 18, having kids and a mortgage for a 3 bed semi on a relatively low income and paying full childcare or relying on a single modest income) were made for a richer country. And now that the middle classes are getting poorer (and they are 70% of the country), they are facing an existential crisis and feeling very very scared.

And they should.

I think it has change hugely - perhaps moreso in 8 years since the Brexit vote.

There was an immediate drop in investment in the country. Projects got pulled, companies started to pull out of the country and then there was a huge phase of political instability which means that organisation can't invest in skills and productivity - new equipment etc - as they don't know what is going to happen from one prime minister to the next. The NHS has just been run aground deliberately, Covid finished off the job the Conservative government started.

The difference now is huge. In 2015 I was diagnosed with endometriosis and got seen, scanned, treated and operated on when I had a painful cyst all within about six weeks. I'd hate to have a flare up now, I'm pretty sure I'd just have to get on with it.

There are three million people on waiting lists. Many of these will be people who can't now work or can't work to full capacity. The economy can't grow as we are so unproductive, and people waiting to be seen for various health conditions is a chunk of that issue.

@rosetintedmemories2023 Sorry! I hadn't intended to challenge your post, it was the one linked to yours in the thread I was commenting on...

@Kinsters Apologies my comment was intended for the linked one in the thread -I know absolutely nothing about owning cars in Singapore!

There is a huge difference in how employer provided insurance works in the UK vs SE Asia. I'm speaking from my experience of Malaysia but my understanding is Singapore is the same (albeit more expensive). Here you can go and see a specialist, you pay their consultation fee out of pocket (usually around £20-£30). If they recommend you be admitted for a procedure/treatment then as part of the admissions process the hospital will liaise with your insurance so you don't have to pay. Some of the insurance companies stipulate that they'll only pay 80% of the cost if you choose a more expensive hospital but otherwise you're free to see whichever doctor you like.

We took DD to A&E one night and she was admitted and had to stay a couple of nights. We paid the deposit upfront as it was 1am but claimed it all back on insurance (less the premium we paid for a single room). You couldn't do that in the UK...

DH has used his employer provided medical insurance in the UK and he paid £200 to claim for the whole year. So far he has used it for an abscess operation and to see a neurologist.

I am a singapore citizen and traditionally my family have had a private insurance package (employer as well as additional cover paid for separately). They then use the government hospitals and go for the B1 ward for hospital stays (shared room but it is the middle tier available; private is A ward). If you use B ward you get a 50-65% subsidy and then the rest is covered by insurance or your own savings.

My grandmother got a stroke and was in hospital for a month. my dad paid £6k out of pocket even though she had the subsidy and had private health insurance (dad paid for it for years) . This is because my grandma had very little medisave due to the fact that her last job was as a secretary in the 1970s! Can you imagine the costs if she wasn't singaporean and had to cover the whole cost (cos insurance doesn't completely cover) ?I don't think it would just be double as the B ward option is only available to Singaporeans. Singapore private healthcare is really quite expensive.

sorry just re-read your comment. Its true, you can't go to A & E and get priority access and then claim it back on insurance! But the main complaints here are lack of access to GPs and doctors and delays in checks.

There is a lot you can do about that. I paid £120 to see a GP on the same day and my company reimbursed me. DH needed to see a neurologist so he booked a private GP using his health insurance and then they wrote him a referral on the same day. He saw a neurologist 2 days later.

What is scary is that in singapore i know i am protected from obscene costs but when you go down the private route, you aren't! As employee provided insurance doesn't cover everything, DH had to give his credit card details when booking the neurologist consultation... but as i said, for his abscess operation, that was fully covered.

I guess my experience of UK private insurance is more akin to your experience in Singapore - it doesn't cover a lot, it's slow and comes with lots of conditions about what you are entitled to. My sister had to wait weeks barely able to walk because her insurance needed her to prove that the NHS wouldn't treat her in a "reasonable" time and she needed to wait to even get a diagnosis on the NHS to know how long they'd take to treat her and what a reasonable time was. And when I needed to take DS to A&E we waited for ages with no option to pay to cut the queue (the treatment when we got seen was great though).

In contrast my experience in Malaysia has been seamless. But that definitely has a lot to do with the fact that healthcare is cheap here so we can, to a certain extent, pay first and sort it out later which we definitely could not afford to do in the UK.

When you really think about it the number of countries that are 'bad' far, far outweigh the 'good'.
Of course, we should be comparing upwards , not downwards.
But 'good' where all of society can have a decent standard of living, good education, healthcare, childcare, etc?
Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries
Can't think of any others.
None that will be very accepting if you're not white.
So while we can acknowledge that things are getting worse in the U.K packing up and leaving isn't always the answer.
Although I suppose once you get EU citizenship most of the continent is your oyster, so 'first country' doesn't matter.

I looked into private medical insurance recently. Most seem to exclude menopause related treatment. I'm 47 - that's what I might need it for in the next few years!

Right now I would stay in Singapore. Lots of negativity in the U.K. right now, nhs issues,
schools issues, rail strikes, teacher strikes, doctor strikes, etc. gender ideology issues if you notice them are infuriating and widespread. But as much as anything - it is dark, cold and mainly wet for 6 months of the year. Last winter was brutal - cost of living issues and neverending media about it all with stories of people suffering with the cold. Plus we were freezing as like everyone else we turned the heating down. It is dark when you get up and go to school/work and again when you come home between November and March! I know the lack of seasonal differences can make Singaporean climate a bit same same but I’d swap it for U.K. gloom, drizzle and darkness in a heartbeat

With a high household income, you'll be able to live in a nice area, nice house and access to good schools (or private) and health insurance. You will feel relatively sheltered from what's going on in everyday life. I have a fantastic quality of life and wouldn't want to live anywhere else.

I'd stay where you are if you can. Right now the UK is as bad as I've ever seen it, unless you're a rich Tory. Health, education, food security, job opportunities, the environment, the cost of living, the xenophobia, the lack of joy, the sheer callousness of the government....The term basket case springs to mind though parts of the south are not as bad as large areas of the north. (Have lived in both in the last year. I would have defended the north with my dying breath until I experienced the decline for myself a year ago. It's like everyone has just given up as there's no point any more.)

The UK is very polarised. If you have a high income and live in a nice area you're likely to be able to insulate yourself from the decline in public services. My suggestion would be to visit for a few weeks in January when the weather is at it's grimmest and see if you can hack it!

I find everywhere is currently in a malaise with frustrated people not just in the UK. If you don't see/feel that malaise there then maybe extend for a while longer. The frustration is economic, political, social, etc. I wish we could get a good long round of positive news going to pull the whole world out of its funk.

The English's forelock-tugging love for the Tories has played a big part in the UK's downfall.