To wonder if people who slate the NHS so much

[FutTheShuckUp]

Would find it so much better living in counties without it?
Sure it's not perfect but I just don't get the amount of vitriol which is aimed at the NHS at times

I think it is one of those things that are only really appreciated when it is taken away or denied.

There is no way that the NHS can provide everything to everyone, but the reality is that in other countries often medical care can and is denied unless there are financial arrangements in place.

I think the best part of theNHS is that it is completely free. At the same time, it's not much consolation having free health care if you can't actually access it, which I think is the big problem -- people having to wait a month to see the GP, a year to see a specialist, being denied treatment or follow-up care.

I much prefer the French system, where you have to pay a little but the care itself is much better. It seems a good hybrid of the US and UK systems.

Traveling and living in another country with the access to funds and back up insurance isn't the same as being a lower income resident.

If you phone my doctors surgery at 8am and need to see a doctor you will be seen that day. If you phone mid afternoon you will be offered appointments for two days time >.

And the french pay in more.

YABU. 'Slating' is a pejorative term for criticism. All organisations & institutions need to keep changing and responding to criticism in order to succeed. Criticising the NHS doesn't mean we want to live abroad, it just means we'd like them to find better practices & better ways of using the vast amount of money it costs.

It's the assumption that we should all be pathetically grateful it exists & blithely accept that it's perfect that is ridiculous. It isn't...

Narked, loads of people get those treatments for free or low cost, there's Medicare, Medicaid, veterans healthcare, state health insurance plans, children's insurance programmes. As I said, a lot of hospitals waive costs as well, especially nonprofit and religious ones, which have strong charity programmes.

I'm not denying medical costs are a serious problem in the US but it's not as Hobbesian as everyone in the rest of the world seems to think it is either.

Obviously, if you can always get a same-day appointment with your GP, you'll think the NHS is great.

I once moved to a catchment area in London where my only two GP options were a clinic for homeless men (not eligible) and a GP who was only open 6 hours a week and you could never get an appointment.

I don't take that to mean the entire system is bad, but I think there are some serious delivery problems.

Okay. My last post on this.

Whilst I still think it is a bit sixth form to say that people are left to die, I really don't want to argue. I am leaving now and am genuinely sorry if my communications have been a bit Ott, I really do have terrible pmt and am probably taking it out a bit.
Will see you all on a non political thread.

I don't think that there is anything wrong with looking at how it works and how it could work now and in the future.

But when you realise how things were when our Welfare State was created, it was fantastic.

We lost the way with Housing and Dentistry, but up until recent years the safety net that we had in the UK couldn't be rivaled and parts of it still cannot,anywhere in the world, in terms of Cradle to Grave care for all incomes.

Every single one of those has been fought tooth and nail by the Republicans. Children are still the biggest uninsured group. Most insurance policies have a lifetime limit which truly serious illness will exceed. People have to rely on charity, and these are often people who had the money and had insurance and have lost everything. What do you think happens to those who don't have insurance? How quickly do you think their serious illnesses are picked up when they don't have access to regular doctors?

Leave it now. Please.

Really, enough now. I am not going to rise to it.

There has been talk in the news recently about doctors calling for centralising services and closing hospitals in particular maternity services. www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jul/14/maternity-units-care-doctor
People are understandably worried and upset as they feel that basic services are being undermined.

Narked, I'm American, I do know about all these problems and they are very serious. I just think it's a bit disingenuous for people to buck up the NHS and how great it is by contrasting it with that hellhole America, I think it overstates a bit how bad things are. For every tale you can tell about Americans suffering, there's one about Brits suffering because of NHS problems of a different sort. I think both systems have some pretty serious flaws.

My mum for example just had cataract surgery. If she didn't have good insurance, maybe she couldn't have afforded it. But in the UK she might not have gotten the surgery either, now that many trusts are restricting access to it.

In the UK she could have paid for it to be done privately with the money she saved on insurance coverage.

(Hope she's doing well)

She is thanks

She actually spent very little on insurance ever, she worked for universities her whole life and now has Medicare too. She is very very lucky obviously.

A big problem in the NHS is private sector involvement. Idiot ministers and trust managers commit to buying in services and sign contracts that a first year law student could poke holes in, which state that the private groups will be paid x amount regardless of how many actual operations they perform. And then the managers realise that the uptake isn't high enough and they're stuck paying regardless, so they shove patients across to those private services and leaving the NHS wards empty. And Cameron wants to privatise the NHS by fully contracting out all services.

The cut backs are crushing services ATM. The surgeon who operated on my mother has had her time at that hospital halved. And she doesn't do nose jobs she deals with cancer.

My DH's company has American offices and is making cutbacks ATM. One of his colleagues has a DD who was 6 weeks prem. She's doing remarkably well and is home now. They're already struggling with the medical bills and they're terrified of losing their job because they'd lose their insurance.

I love the NHS. I want it to work better. We can't solve problems if we deny they exist.

My DP has been tortured and seriously abused by both individuals and systems within the NHS. That is where my rage comes from. I'm glad you don't get it. I wish nobody felt like this. Maybe if I can get some things changed, fewer people will have to.

I find it very odd that in these debates (on MN and in the media) many commentators seem to write as if the NHS system is the alternative to the NHS. That is just one model out of the dozens used in other countries. I've lived in two other Western European countries and would say that they both had systems that were superior to the NHS and the US system. There are plenty of alternatives out there.

The Fench system is very good - but they pay more for it! Our politicians aren't going to go for a system that requires greater resources.