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.

Your father and your son could both have been treated without the NHS though. You don't need to pay into a vast and incredibly bloated system. Free at the point of use health care doesn't have to be restricted to the NHS.

Wobbly - no system in the world works for everyone. We are not living in cloud cuckoo land

Every system should have to goal of working for everyone. Unfortunately the NHS doesn't even come close. And as the OP says, we keep forgiving it.

Pay very little into a system that delivers first class and cutting edge treatment free at the point it is needed.

Just like magic

I think we can at least question whether the NHS is bloated. It employs 1.3 billion people of whom only 686 million have a professional clinical qualification.

I agree with you wobbly : there is far too much lip service to commitment to patient care, I don't understand how GPs get away with it ... I also agree with bubaloo that A&E staff have far too much to put up with : the two issues are related, in that we shy away from confrontation so much more in this country than elsewhere, and obv the old-boy network ensures that mediocrity prevails. It's an atrocious waste of public money on an unforgivable scale.

It's very, very expensive for many tax payers. It's not delivering value. There are better ways to deliver it. We could pay a huge amount less into the tax and NI system if healthcare was taken out of the big pot.

One big company doesn't need to run, manage or deliver the whole thing.

1.3 billion people? A sixth of the population of the world?

Yes, MrsDeVere, I made a typo. Unforgivable.

I for one am greatful to be able to access health care free at the point of delivery when I need it.
The contributions we pay compared to the massive costs of lengthy treatment should I need it are fine by me.

I for one would definitely not want to have healthcare the way I get it from my vet for pet with a chronic condition, I'd be bankrupt in a year and going without treatment as I simply couldn't afford to pay for expensive hospital treatment.

I think that should be 1.3 million employees.

My BIL is Danish, he always talks very highly of the health service there. It is free at the point of use and it is very devolved ie local authorities in charge with minimal central government involvement. There is a strong focus on primary care.

In Denmark of course they may 50% tax and a national mind set that is quite socially focussed. That population is only 5 million I think so perhaps that is important.

OP, I think you summed it up with "It is like the NHS is some kind of national cult and nobody can see the massive problems."

I'm a socialist. I believe whole-heartedly in the principle of the NHS. And I can see that there are places where the NHS excels. I would much rather have the NHS than the US system (though other systems are available...)

It's just that it doesn't always work. There are huge patches of awfulness. My dying father was treated in a hospital that later hit the headlines for the poor quality of its care. I wouldn't have wished the care he received on my worst enemy. It was just awful.

Great thread. Haven't had time to read through it all yet, but in my view YANBU. I'm incredibly grateful for the NHS. I have no desire to privatise it, and would hate to live in a country like the US, where economic and social inequalities are by exacerbated by an unequal healthcare system. But at the moment it seems to be the ultimate sacred cow - dare to suggest it has failings, and you are automatically accused of being uncaring, or wanting to revert to some US-style system.

The NHS as it stands is unsustainable and in need of reform: levels of care are highly variable (world-class in many cases, yes, but appallingly negligent in others); it's open to all kinds of abuse; there are far to many 'Cinderella' areas that receive meagre resources and which (in some cases I've come across) have a 'put up and shut up' attitude to treatment.

In my experience (having seen more of the NHS than I'd like over the past year or so!) it's truly brilliant at dealing with emergency/acute care and at doing the basic job of keeping people alive. For that it deserves plenty of praise. However, in many cases it is hopeless at aftercare, handling mental health issues and chronic/non life-threatening conditions, and working in tandem with other services such as social care. Since, given our ageing population, it is these areas that look set to see the biggest increase in demand, something clearly needs to change.

I have no truck with (especially Conservative/UKIP) politicians who exploit these failings to suggest that the NHS should be sold off. No way should that happen. Actually I think that the aspect of the NHS that most needs to change is society's attitude towards it. First, we need to stop taking it for granted, and secondly we need to have a proper, honest, non-bunfighty debate about what it's for and how best to fund it. I, for one, would welcome paying a bit more tax (reinstating National Insurance?) as long as this was ring-fenced for health and social care, and was implemented alongside some measures to clamp down on abuse of the system - e.g. fines for repeated non-attendance at appointments; more restrictions on 'health tourism' etc.

The NHS didn't originate in an era when it was perfectly normal to live to 80 or 90; when 50% of cancer sufferers were expected to survive; when technologies such as IVF and gastric bands were available; when people could live for decades with multiple chronic conditions, or when the population was swelled by mass immigration. Now it, and we, need to change with the times.

I'm not grateful for the utterly useless physio who is not helping me to walk again after breaking my leg, just delaying my rehabilitation & return to my (taxpayer-funded) teaching job : just because it's 'free'

I'm not grateful for our GP practice who last year fobbed my husband off with telephone-prescribed antibiotics after a five-day wait for an 'appointment', so he sat at home for 5 days effectively dying of blood poisoning & had CRP of 400 on emergency admission to hospital, then having to stay in for 3 weeks, : just because it's 'free'

I'm not grateful for 'wonderful' GOSH for 'treating' my son's aplastic anaemia when he was 3 : there were so many outrageous blunders, incompetence & utter arrogance that they very nearly squandered his life : it was only the transfer to Addenbrookes which I demanded which actually saved his life : but because it was 'free' and GOSH is a sacred cow any criticism is immediately quashed

I'm not grateful for CAHMS which, in my 27 years in teaching in challenging areas, & my twin daughters' 5-year experience as qualified social workers, is generally totally unfit for its (vitally important) service : just because it's 'free'

Healthcare in the UK is not fit for purpose & taxpayers and those NHS staff who are competent and dedicated deserve infinitely more than they get. The inconsistency of quality of provision is frightening.

I found the same thing in my work, often the services where the worst care happens are those where the services users are least likely to complain, dementia wards, maternity wards, geriatric wards. And even when people do complain they're dismissed as being precious or demanding. Staff response is combative rather than receptive.

That's exactly my experience, Moan . Last year my dad was rushed to hospital with a stomach ulcer. Shortly afterwards he discovered he also needed a quadruple heart bypass. Amazing acute care in both cases - rapid, skilled and compassionate. We had 100% confidence in those treating him.

With my grandmother, though - 100 years old, frail, doubly incontinent and suffering from advanced Alzheimer's - it's a different matter. If she's taken to hospital after suffering a fall or UTI, she is frequently ignored at best, shouted at at worst; her notes are almost invariably lost (last time round they lost her glasses too); provision of food/water is highly erratic; nurses speak foreign languages among themselves rather than speaking to/reassuring her and once she's physically better she languishes there for days because there's no communication between the hospital and social services. Luckily she has her immediate family there to act on her behalf, and complain where necessary, but so many people don't.

Kachan My BIL is Danish, he always talks very highly of the health service there. It is free at the point of use and it is very devolved ie local authorities in charge with minimal central government involvement. There is a strong focus on primary care.

In Denmark of course they may 50% tax and a national mind set that is quite socially focussed.

But we pretty much pay 50% tax here, once you include National Insurance and Council Tax...

6I think there are two NHSs.
The service for things that can't be avoided - life&death dashes, babies arriving when they feel like it - is quite good.
The service for the day-to-day (like feeding the elderly in hospital, treating chronic problems) is not so good, it's all a bit mañana.

The NHS loves the drama of an emergency but cannot cope with the routine.^

Just read upthread, and senua you've summed up in a few lines what I was trying to get at in four paragraphs!

I'd also add that you're fine if you've got something exotic or unusual wrong with you, but if it's a dull, run-of-the-mill condition that makes life miserable but won't actually kill you, the NHS often isn't particularly interested. Same goes for many mental health issues - they're not glamorous and there's no silver bullet, so they're neglected. Problem is that there's no middle ground between being told to put up and shut up on the NHS, and shelling out megabucks to go private.

I must say threads like these tend to make me more wary of the NHS, particularly GPs, since there tend to be a number of posters claiming to be GPs who use them as an excuse to vent their dislike of patients, whom they seem to view as a barely necessary nuisance. god forbid a patient who has had a persistent cough and thinks antibiotics might help so follows NHS advice to see their GP (one post up the thread)

I do honestly wonder why they went into GP if they didn't expect to deal with repetitive minor illnesses, worried patients, hypochondriacs and so on, and aren't some big shot cosmetic surgeon or pathologist who never sees live patients. Never seem to get posters claiming to be hospital consultants saying the same thing though. Isn't the UK Cat meant to weed out those with poor clinical attitude?

NHS physio services - almost useless, very dumbed down ie aimed for people with mobility problems as opposed to fit and well people who simply have a bad fall from which they wish to recover from as quickly as possible.

I'm glad it's not just my perception Chandler