to think the NHS is a bit crap

[eyebags63]

And because it is treated almost as a kind of religion nobody is allowed to say anything negative about it at all. And actually just because it is "free" (a mere 110bn a year) doesn't mean we should be eternally grateful for bad treatment.

My experiences are of elderly relatives being mistreated in hospital, non-existent services in some areas, screw-ups, buck passing, treatment delays, being treated as a number with no dignity or privacy, a significant number of staff that appear not to care one little bit. I could go on.

In other health systems people can get referred and treated within days or weeks. Here we accept that waiting for months on end in pain is normal. We accept exhausted staff, lack of access, dirty hospitals, ambulances queuing outside hospitals and restricted treatment resources.

Yes it is "free at the point of use", but isn't that half of the problem? Walk into any GP surgery or A&E and you can witness so many abuses of the system. On the other hand genuine patients are often seem to be treated as a nuisance.

I'm not saying the NHS should be scrapped but surely it is about time we at least looked at different ways of doing things.

Labours investment in the NHS did produce results

No one is waiting 2 years for a hip replacement now. That was standard in the 1980s/90s. Waiting time targets are not perfect and did produce some gaming and perverse incentives but waiting lists are substantially down.

The 2 week target for cancer also a Labour initiative that worked.

Lots of hospitals were refurbished which was sorely needed. Sadly a lot were done on PFI which turned out to be one of the worst ideas ever.

I am in fact not a habitual labour voter and I can never forgive TB for Iraq but credit where credit is due he did 2 things right

Minimum wage
Bringing NHS spend to European average.

I genuinely think the NHS model could be improved upon, but it's hamstrung by politicians of all flavours playing the "NHS is safe in our hands" card. So all they can really do is dance around the edges doing a bit of tinkering.

But I do think the sands are shifting - with all the recent news about A&E departments in crisis, people are rightly up in arms about time wasters and drunks clogging up the system. If the aforementioned politicians bleat on about "hard-working taxpayers" long enough, it won't be long before charges for wasted A&E time/GP visits are introduced. I'd favour that.

But again the problem is who is a time waster?

No one is going to admit that it is them. Ones own health problems are top priority. It's just all those other drunk/ fat/ smoking/ uneducated people.

The only real solution is to let them all come but deal as cheaply and quickly with them as possible. GP OOH service co-located at A&E is a genius practical idea that will save money and time.

Also in the recent crisis some places got GPs to offer extra Saturday appts and diverted A&E attenders to these where they were not an emergency.

That needs to happen as standard.

Now if you turn up at A&E you will get seen if you don't mind waiting but we need to make it so that you can get turned away and given a GP appt instead.

There is always lots of stock piling going on, people order their prescription at Christmas two weeks before they need to, because we are shut for TWO days. Same every year!!! Easter is worse because we are shut for THREE days!!!

I've always thought if a small charge per item, for EVERYBODY, 20p or something, it would make people think about what they order.

On the other hand we do get people moaning about having to pay £8.05 charge, not realising for example their inhaler actually costs £60.

Swings and roundabouts, not sure what the ideal answer would be really.

"That's why people turn up to A&E with things that the pharmacist could deal with. And why old people block beds for days on end because their family couldn't possibly deal with the hassle of having them at home for a few days while a care home place is sorted"

Yep I was waiting for this one. Well what did ppl expect when Governments have insisted that EVERYONE must go out to work.

Ppl have also been discharged in the early hours of the morning with NO NOTICE to their families who have jobs who then have to take time off from their jobs at short notice in a climate where there is plenty of unemployed for their employer to choose from.....some of whom wont have any caring responsibilities at all.

Would a short staffed nurses station be happy if a colleaugue had to call with very short notice to say they had to care for a family member so couldnt come in?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm grateful to the NHS for my free prescriptions... I take anti-epileptics, anti-psychotics & anti-depressants and need very frequent prescriptions which I couldn't afford if they weren't free...

However they are only free because I'm epileptic. Some poor people such as asthmatics don't get free prescriptions and they should do - everyone with chronic health conditions (physical AND mental) should get free prescriptions.

Personally I'm also grateful for my brilliant psychiatrist. But I'm very aware that MH services need to be better. Paying is NOT the answer because in the U.S in MH services it leads to lots of people not getting adequate treatment (mentally ill people are generally the poorest) and the 'worried well' or 'nearly well' getting over treated from what I have heard (got no statistics sorry).

Also my local hospital has a great Epilepsy Service with a specialist neurologist and nurse practitioners.

I think this needs to be more widespread and not a postcode lottery.

notrevealingmyidentity went to bed!

Public health insurance is for people earning under 52000 euro it is about 10% capped of your wage there is a tiny reduction if you have children. Scripts have to be paid for and one thing worth noting which shocked me was the price of OTC meds. To buy worm treatment for one child it was 32 euro, in the uk I think it is about £6 for fam of four. This virtually forces you to attend a doctor for a script for a very basic complaint.

There is a huge market for homeopathic remedies and I think this because it is cheaper than OTC meds.
From an an a & e point of view I can only comment on the paediatric department, there are of plenty who attend who could be seen by a gp. We are fairly frequent fliers as my dd has frequent dislocations that need reducing due her med condition. We are often sat with people attending with dc with tummy bugs etc. happily playing in play area and munching on food
Whilst I worry about my dd care in the uk I don't think the nhs is as bad as many people think, it has it's merits and weakness.

Forgot to add that the 10% is topped up by employer to the full amount.

I am a teacher, therefore the last to advocate Ofsted-style scrutiny in the name of 'quality control', however when it comes to our precious health service, I believe that we need clear & unambiguous end user agreements which are adhered to. Many improvements could be brought about without extra funding, just improvement in personal standards by staff, eg

GP surgery : we will offer a 24- hour service based on clinical need, which will be decided by a qualified doctor. We will listen to you & not fob you off, or promise a consultant referral which never comes, or is a golf-playing private- hospital working 'colleague'.

Midwives : your care will be planned, organised & monitored to optimise your experience ( as the public are shown on OBEM, but as we know is far from consistent reality ). We will not judge & mock you based on your postcode, age or accent, while you are at your most vulnerable & frightened. We will ensure that the unit is clean. If your experience is bad, this will be analysed & the issues you experienced will be properly investigated

Nurses: your treatment and recovery, or that of your family member, is our top priority, we will not be distracted by our phones / having a laugh about our private life / ebay on the ward computer / having to cover for the weakest member of our team (who is killing him/herself to pick up the slack)

These simple measures in hospitals are consistently adhered to by some hospitals (Addenbrookes for example) but not others ('wonderful' GOSH); if they were non-negotiable the hard-working majority of staff would not have to carry those who are unfit for purpose.

However, the GP 'service' in England needs a root & branch overhaul to become even remotely fit for purpose. It is a good example of what the OP is complaining of, but when it is pointed out that the emperor has no clothes, we are browbeaten into thinking that it is 'better than other countries'. No it's not, by any measure ...

Albert well said

With regards to "stockpiling" medicine by ordering it two weeks early. I always Order DS inhalers two weeks early, because our GP has a spectacular habit of mucking up the prescription somehow so it gives me time to ensure we have the right medication before it runs out.

I also always have two full ventolin inhalers at home and one at school. Given that he has 4 inhalers stored in various locations for home and he uses his school inhaler daily having a spares easily available is just common sense to ensure he is never unable to access life saving medicine!

MrsDeVere
No I think you are missing the point. Yes many people pay through general taxation but many do not and it is not the same as paying when you use anyway. By paying a nominal fee AT the point of use will people may think twice and use the system more responsibly.

Stockpiling of medication is the perfect example. I will stick my neck out and guess that most people who stock pile large quantities of medications are exempt from the prescription charge for one reason or another.

Sirzy
What you describe doesn't sound like a large stockpile to me. I'm assuming you rotate the inhalers as well so the backup ones never get out of date.

In a pharmacy it is not uncommon to see people return literally months/years worth of unused medication. This can add up to hundreds or even thousands of pounds and those meds have to be destroyed. It is such a waste.

Eye bags - yet it is what the phamacist up thread described people doing as if it was a bad thing. Of course people order two weeks early at Christmas because then it is done and the medication is in. It's all well and good saying the pharmacy only closes for 3 days, but do does the doctors so the normal 48 hours for a script quickly turns into 5 days and that's before weekends!

Constant complaints that 'the government have cut back on social services' therefore that is the problem.

The problem is that , like many other countries, we were bankrupted by the banks in 2008 and, amazingly, the UK is recovering much faster than other countries. But many further cuts to pay off our debt are needed so we aint seen nothing yet.

So rather than blaming nasty MPs for our problems we should be accepting that cuts in health care have to happen (it will anyway due to our ageing pop and increase in costs) either that or we cut social services, education or care homes, and should be thinking of sensible ways to cut costs eg pay something for prescription if you earn more than 20,000 for example, and not just demanding constantly better service.

I watched a (a bit of ) a tv prog about NHS problems the other night. An elderly lady with dementia was unable to be moved out as nowhere had been found for her to go, her caring DDs were with her, but really two able DDs although prob over 50 could surely between them have cared for her until a care home is found but no, she was in the ward for 3 weeks. This will change over the next decades I'm sure. Yes, they might have had to take time off work to care, yes, it would have been difficult cleaning and caring for their DM, but I suspect in other countries this would be more likely to have happened.

And before anyone says would I have said that they should look after their mother if DSs then yes, def they should.

Care of the elderly is something families should be obliged to contribute to, financially or giving time, male or female. And the elderly should be obliged to put in a plan eg at age seventy to explain how their care will be managed. Before they have a chance to move their money overseas /give their money away and out of their care equation.

One of the main factors in 5 year survival rates is early diagnosis - particularly in difficult to treat cancers such as lung and ovarian, where symptoms are often the same as benign conditions - cough, heartburn, an expanding waistline, rather than pain. 60% of serious illnesses are diagnosed at A&E.

Charging to see a GP is not likely to improve this.

Moniker - I think you seriously underestimate the difficulty of caring for a demented relative.

There is also the (justifiable?) suspicion that taking on the care of said relative, even for a few days, is likely to mean that social services will put him/her to the back of the queue.

And the UK did not recover faster from the crash than other countries. The USA and Germany both did a whole lot better. We went backwards for at least 2 years.