Tell me about the NHS in your country.

[Weesiewoo]

I was having lunch with a friend who is visiting from the UK. We've been friends for 30 years and see each other a few times a year depending on where we travel in the world. We both have children. I'm Australian and she is visiting her parents here.
We got to talking about medical procedures and the NHS in both countries. She mentioned that she was lucky that her daughter only had to wait a month to get an abdominal scan. I was astonished. Here we could probably get that same scan in a few days and back to the doctor for results within a week , all free. I do understand that some doctors here aren't bulk billing and you may have to pay a small top up fee ( $30 ish so about 15 GBP) for a general consultation. Generally though that is only for the first visit for a new condition. She also mentioned that it's hard to get a GP appointment and sometimes you need to wait weeks.
Generally I book online and have one in a few days. I live in a major city.
I used to live in the UK , albeit 20 years ago and the NHS the times I used it was fantastic. What's happened in the last 20 years? Is it because of no investment? The population is growing quicker than the NHS can cope? I'm really intrigued.
If you live in a country with an NHS how does it work? . What are you waiting times?
Has the government invested a lot of money? Or is it relying on people to self fund through health insurance? I find it all so fascinating.

Is healthcare in the public or private sector over there?

The Tory's happened.

I live in Ireland and we have a public and private health system. Approx 50% of people pay for private health insurance here.

You pay to go to the GP and it costs around 60€ a visit - people on certain social payments or low incomes get this free. It’s also free for children 8 and under.

The waiting times in public are ridiculous- huge issue on the news all the time as are A&E waiting times. Everyone told me that the public health service was terrible but actually when I needed it - i was really well looked after. I think the quality of the service is ok but the waits are ridiculous (I was an emergency)

Now my whole family has health insurance. There is a huge difference in waiting times. My son had hearing loss, saw a specialist 2 weeks later and was given grommets within a month. Publicly it would have been a 2 year wait to see the specialist and a further 2 years for the operation. So it’s a massively unfair system and it needs to change.

I have lived in the UK and Northern Ireland but I didn’t really experience the NHS in the same way as you do when you have kids. Miss going to the GP for free though!

Sorry, think it's Tories.

Both. I do pay for health insurance but haven't really used it much. It's usually only used for elective procedures. As I get older I expect to use it. If we pay for health insurance we pay less tax.

Woops, elective was the wrong word. It's used for non emergency procedures .

Im in Spain. I'm the middle of cancer treatment. Super quick . Efficient and high quality treatment. Also having tests that arent available of the uk NHS.

I see my gp the same day

Every year everyone is entitled to free comprehensive health mot

No comparison to the uk version

I live in NI.

More people have been waiting a year or more for a hospital appointment in NI than in England, despite the population of England being about 30 times the size of the population of NI.

I'm in the SE UK. I worked for the NHS nursing over 30 years. Christmases,bank holidays, frequently agency staff, earning huge salary, and a lot of them, didn't care about the job. I Trained in 1972, you had small cottage hospitals. A few years ago,we had a brilliant Dr run drop in clinic in a nearby town. We all used it. Hospitals were run by medics, not what we called "Sainsbury's managers". Waste has always been ridiculous. The NHS doesn't need money thrown at it. It needs restructuring. People miss appointments. Before COVID and the junior Dr strikes, I could usually get an appointment for GP on the same day. Since 2020, it was 6 weeks wait for a phone nurse appointment. So people go to the ED. last year my DH and I ended up going in by ambulance,there was whole families,not even a seat. Drunks handcuffed to police. I have worked in the ED when people have come in with a minute cut on a finger. I had some intimate agonising problem, ended up going private, just had a skin lesion removed again private. Went deaf last October, after COVID,had audiology tests, waiting to see consultant, cannot afford private aids. Was found by accident,to have a lesion on my kidney,had bloods and CTs pretty quickly,had a follow up appointment which was unfortunately cancelled, now in May. Prolapse waiting 16 months,used to be dealt with by nurse at GPs.

And they are living up to the name too.

It is improving of late, and DH and I are now able to get GP appointment, though often by phone. NHS dentist has been brilliant and she even saw me during lockdown.

I live in Australia too, and have lived in the UK too.

I can't afford private healthcare.

My story is quite different.

I had to wait 23 months to see a specialist at a hospital for a long term chronic condition. When I did receive an appointment it was very good.

Every time my husband or I have to visit a GP we have to pay $110 and then we receive $44 to $55 back depending on how long the appointment took. This is every time. Not for just the first visit. I have to think hard if we visit a GP as this is a lot of money for us. There's no charge for children under 18. Not one of the 15 doctor surgeries in our area regularly bulk bill.

Our child has been waiting 16 months so far to see a developmental paediatrician and 14 months so far to see an occupational therapist and speech Pathologist.

If you're referred for an x-ray (by a GP) it costs from $180 for a simple quick one. Anything that takes more time is $350 upwards. A MRI (again referred by a GP) is $1,000.

Dentists are, again good and thirough but so incredibly expensive. A 5 minute check up for our child was $100. It cost $600 for my husband to have his teeth checked, a hygienist clean and one xray. Braces quoted are $4000 to $9000.

If you have small surgery requiring stitches at the GP practice the nurse charges you $25 to remove stitches a couple of weeks later.

We've found the level of care in Australia great. We're very happy with the care. We can book an appointment within a few days to see any GP but to see my regular GP (who is in demand) it takes three to four weeks.

Cannot fault the level of care we have received, but, in our case, it's extremely expensive in Australia.

Wow. I wonder if it's a postcode lottery in terms of the amount of cheap/ bulk billing clinics.
I had to have gall bladder surgery last year. It was done in through the public sector. Fro the first pain to having it out took 3 months. All free including scans, go appointments and surgery. I had to pay for my prescription though.

I was made to wait 3.5 years for an MRI after an accident, to tell me I'd broken my spine.

And it's four years since said MRI and I'm still waiting for treatment.

That's the UK's NHS.

What's happened in the last 20 years?

Well 15 years ago we elected a Tory government.
People will argue that funding under the Conservatives has gone up but then so has the cost of everything else. Also, who are they funding? Their mates who make substandard PPE which they sell for a huge amount and is now costing a fortune in storage?

We live in Sweden, health care is nationalised, you sometimes pay a very small fee to see a doctor if you’re an adult of working age, its about £4.50. Dental care is free until 24, after that you pay a small fee, its still heavily subsidised and it isn’t hard to find a provider. This includes braces as well, Sweden doesn’t have a severity scale to qualify for braces. Our local hospital is ranked as the 7th best hospital in the world, I think its 7th. Sweden has a very low rates of women dying during birth, and a very low rate of babies dying during birth.

Health care is I think 11% of gdp, its similar to the UK in that regional councils are responsible for health care, which is similar to NHS trusts I guess. All healthcare providers must follow the same regulations, so everyone in Sweden has the same access to healthcare, there isn’t a postcode lottery.

There was a recent outcry as the wait time at a hospital in A&E to be seen, treat and decide on admission was four and a half hours, where as my mum in the UK nearly died of sepsis because the wait time from entering A&E and being admitted was 50 hours.

We have had to use if a few times, when we registered with our doctor we all had a thorough health mot which also included things like an ecg etc, session with the onsite pharmacist. My husband has had surgery while we’ve been here, he had his own en-suite room, some hospitals have bays with four beds in. Food was very good, as he was mobile he could opt to est in his room, the ward dining area/social room or any of the hospital cafeterias. His pain was well managed, no having to beg for more than paracetamol.

We have been able to get same day GP appointments, or where needed book them in advance and actually at times that work for us.

@Weesiewoo- I think you've been lucky- there are massive issues with health care in Australia too- although not to the same extent as the UK. As @CaledonianDream has said- bulk billing in most places (I'm in Melbourne) no longer do bulk billing- the costs are every time and expensive. Scripts can be expensive. Access to GP's (a regular one) can take over a week. Tests have copays if not done in hospital, and extensive wait lists for some outpatients services- several years spent on the waitlist for the eczema clinic and needed to go private at a huge cost. Advantages- still big waits to be seen in A&E- can be up to 10hrs in the WR, but (usually) a system where blood tests, X-rays and ECG's etc are done in the WR to help with diagnosing and triaging which one has the highest priority to need the next available bed. Much easier access to CT's- they are done at the drop of a hat in our A&E. Access in the community to CT/MRI/ ultrasound is easy- if you have a referral can have one the next day pretty easily. Also the funding from private health- which everyone over 30 has to have or they are taxed more helps- as does our road tax insures you for accidents with a motor vehicle- so they pay the hospital (and it has nothing the person needs to do) workcover insurance also covers workplace accidents. So yes, better system in general, but still with some big flaws.

I know that everyone on Mumsnet likes to bash the US health system, but the care that I have received on the US version of the NHS (yes we do have such a thing - It's called Medicaid) has been vastly better on every level than anything I received in the UK in the 7 years that I lived in London. I can see my GP same day if I want to sit and wait and within a day or two if I make an appointment. I have had non-urgent tests and scans (a dozen in the last 6 months) within a month of the referral and urgent ones within days of the referral. I do not pay a penny at the point of delivery for any of my medical care or prescriptions with one exception....I did have to pay privately to see a Menopause Hormone Specialist as there wasn't one available in-network. I have all my dental work done promptly and without paying anything at the point of delivery (and it's a lot in my case). My glasses are also free at the point of delivery.

In contrast, my experience with the NHS was abysmal at pretty much every step of the way through 2 pregnancies and deliveries and some other medical (emergency and not emergency) issues when I lived in the UK.

I won't even begin to describe the completely irresponsible lack of treatment that my DS got at the hands of the NHS who completely failed to diagnose his rare genetic disease or even recognize that his symptoms warranted special attention. Never mind the inability to get GP appointments for a newborn with frequently reoccurring symptoms like being limp with a rash with 105 fevers.

Note, this was 23 years ago long before the Tories.

I think the nhs like the police are also facing additional pressures because of other strains such as the housing crisis, cost of living crisis etc.

In addition, it's needs more investment and restructure

I’m also in Sydney and have just returned from a year in the U.K. where we used the NHS a bit.
My experience in the U.K. was very good. We had one emergency, where my son had an infection in his eye and we were seen on the same day and the care was excellent.
We also saw the GP twice and he fitted us in the same day. There is a pharmacy on site so we had antibiotics that day. No complaints whatsoever.

I also have great service in Aus. I go to a bulk billing Dr (rarely as we are lucky with our health generally). When I found a breast lump I was booked for an ultrasound within two days (it was a cyst). My husband needed emergency surgery as he cut his hand badly and that was done for free that day in our local hospital.
I paid for private maternity and had a private room and bathroom, stayed in for 5 days, chose my Obs, always saw the same person etc. It cost me around $5000 11 and 13 years ago. I’ve never used my private healthcare apart from that though and wouldn’t have it apart from it keeps us from paying a levy.

In Aus it would be thought of as a bit shocking if a wealthy person didn’t have private health care whereas in the U.K. it almost seems to be looked down on if you do use private care. When I was there I saw Rishi Sunak having to almost apologise for using private care whereas over here if our rich PM didn’t have healthcare people would think that was both odd and also probably complain that he was stopping a lower income person getting care!

For me, the NHS has been stunning. south central UK.

Breast cancer picked up on routine screening in Sept 21. Seen within 4 days, surgery within 40 days.
Chemo & radiotherapy completed within four months, during covid, which was not allowed to get in the way. The care has been consistent, expert and beyond supportive. On-going care is calm, efficient and well communicated.

I recently needed another small unrelated surgery. Saw specialist in December, surgery in March.

I read in today's Times that 50% of the very long waits in the NHS are within just 15 trusts, so I know speed of service can vary tremendously from trust to trust. I have no complaints though.

That’s interesting Meadowfinch. Did it say which trusts they were?
Just wondering whether there were common factors.

My trust is really good. My mum lives in a
different part of the country to me and does nothing but complain. However, she refuses phone appointments or to see a practice nurse. She’s in her 80s and is of the opinion doctors should still do home visits.