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.

But the USA is a country of 300 million people where capitalism rules.

Comparing the uk pop 60 million is very different, comparing it with similarly sized countries it doesn't do well.

Depends how you look at it. This article from last year seems to suggest actually it performs pretty well even compared to other similar sized nations www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/17/nhs-health

I belong to Facebook pages where members from the USA with same the illness spend most of their time completely stressed out because, as a long tern chronic condition their insurance companies will no longer pay for treatment

What long term chronic condition is that?

Although the front line staff need to be included because after all they know the real day to day issues one neds to be careful that there isnt some self interest. When the GP's proposed large pay increases for themselves stupidly the government agreed it! That didnt help the NHS but did help the GPs!

It rather like looking at how people vote. Pensioners will vote for things they will benefit from etc etc....

Thanks for that link, Sirzy.

It's good to have some real evidence, especially from an independent source based in another country.

I think we have got so used to getting NHS treatment without even thinking about how much its costing or how much you have paid in results in people thinking in some cases that they dont need to take personal responsibility for themselves.

My DSIS stepson kicked off in A&E because he thought he wasnt been seen quickly enough. He tried to smack a nurse. He was arrested. My DSIS said he had 'anger management issues' an was getting conselling.

Why do we try and excuse people's behaviour by suggesting that what they did wasnt under their control.

So, the next someone lashes out in anger - its OK, they have anger management issues!

I also think we need to decide how we are going to make the curent system work for ourselves should someone dear to us be taken into hospital.

A very wise private nurse I knew a few years ago said to never leave the relative to the hospital. Be there to wash, help out, feed etc. Some people have excuses a mile high as to why this doesnt apply to them and why they cannot do it, they are working, too busy etc.

She also worked at Stoke Manderville in the days of Saville. She was a student at the time and it was known how creepy he was. He would draw the curtains around the bed of someone he was visiting. He claimed it was for privacy reasons. She always felt there was something wrong. The nursing staff just stayed out of his way because it was easier and he was a huge fund raiser at the time.

Would I have spoken out as a student nurse - honestly I am not sure....

We cannot expect the state now to cover us. In other EU countries relatives do a lot of the day to day caring. I know some are going to come on and say they have bosses who dont care etc. I work full time and always have. I always look on it this way. Would you rather get out that report or resolve that customer complaint of look after your 86 year old mother who has had a fall. I know its not easy but something has to change whether its the system or our attitudes to the elderly.

When my DM was in hospital a few months ago I needed to report back to one of my clients on a serious failing by my company. I was late with an update and at the hospital. I work from home at lot but needed to resolve a situation urgently (they are always urgent!).

The only thing I could do was come clean with the client and they were fantastic. Said not to worry and they would call me in a few days for an update etc.

The thing is EVERYONE will be in this situation one day and most people will care enough to understand that the report they were waiting that doesnt arrive in time wont result in someone dying and honestly if you were run over by a bus 'someone' would be found to pick up your role.

lijkk there are lies, damn lies & NHS statistics ... people want to believe them, so they do.

The sh*t rolls downhill in the NHS, with greedy consultants servicing private patients & working minimal hours, trickling down to front-line staff (A&E, nurses, HCA, agency staff & exploited junior doctors).

The Establishment colludes with the system because doctors are well-represented in every domain & huge profits are made from pharmaceuticals, outsourced contracts, residential 'care' and private patients.

Root & branch reform in this country is long overdue, but while we delude ourselves that the treatment we've had is 'free' and fail to challenge the glaring issues in the NHS due to the UK's culture of fawning to doctors, believing what we are told, having unrealistic expectations of the scope of treatment affordable for our ageing demographic, things will only get worse.

They can't get consultants here (rural Scotland) no buggar wants to work in the sticks so if it was only money there wouldn't be a problem. And the ones who are here work vv hard.

Whatever its faults we are lucky to have it

What will it take for people to stop saying this?

Perhaps when they repeatedly arrive to find their elderly relative dehydrated in a pool of piss and shit they'll feel differently??

I think the people who are saying most forcibly that we are lucky to have the NHS are those who have had recent, or a lifetime of ongoing, experience of the benefits to them and their families.

No one is saying that there aren't occasions when things go wrong. The debate should be about the best way to improve it. The King's Fund report today is quite clear that the Lansbury reforms were 'disastrous'.

I don't think it's the doctors' fault, Albert. They had v little say in the Coalition's plans - and to be fair to the Lib Dems, neither did they.

Yes, Thymeout - exactly that, my mother has had a myriad of serious illnesses for more than 30 years. Another very close family friend has had cancer four times, is diabetic and having tests for another very serious illness.

Both have received sterling care.

Of course there are flaws, any huge machine has flaws, there will never be enough money, less serious matters will never receive the same urgency as serious matters.

The government of the day will always tinker with it and how it is measured and try to score points.

I still think it is a very very good thing.

YABU

Over the last year my family has experienced childbirth, pallative care, genetic counselling, local nursing support team and day surgery in several different hospitals in the UK. The care and support we have received as a family has been second to none. Without exception, everyone we have been in contact with has been kind and understanding. We are extremely grateful.

I have just re-read this thread and cannot believe how many still believe the NHS is the best possible system. Yes, there are worse, but there are many better ones too. The German system is by no means perfect, but just consider this:

• When DC is ill I can ring the paediatrician and get an appointment within a couple of hours (when I was worried I even turned up without an appointment and DC was seen straight away)
• When feeling unwell you can visit out of hours services (adult and paediatric) until 11pm 7 days a week, including bank holidays. A&E is available at all other times and in my experience much less busy. When we went with feverish DC on a Saturday morning at 1pm we were the only people in paediatrics and were seen in less than 15 minutes (the paediatrician actually apologised for the wait, saying that they had been dealing with an emergency on the pediatric ward).
• I can have (and all women/sexually active girls are actually encouraged to have) an annual gynological examination, including smear test. If you have a problem or are in a higher risk group, an ultrasound of the breast, womb and/or ovaries is carried out. If you do not fall under e problem/risk group, you can still have these exams for a total of around 50 to 70 Euros.
• Other specialists such as ENT, urologists, dermatologists etc. are also available without referal and things such as annual melanoma skin checks with a dermatologist are the norm.
• There is generally more testing as every Doctor has ultrasound, and X-ray, CT and MRI scans are much more readily available (not just in hospitals as in the UK).
• There is true choice. If I am unhappy with GP or specialist, I just see a different one (you are not allocated a surgery). There are many more hospitals and they tend to work in competition with each other so most people will consult more than one specialist/hospital before deciding to go ahead with an operation. Also hospitals here seem to be better organised and are definitely cleaner.
• Access to tests and results is much faster. Routine blood results are available on the same day at around 4pm as long as my GP surgery takes the blood before 10am. XRays and their results are available the same day and I have also had same day CT scans (although I have had a longer waiting time of nearly 4 weeks for MRI scans).
• More access to the latest cancer drugs. It actually pisses me off that the UK public give so much more to cancer charities, yet foreigners seem to benefit from the drugs developed. It is probably the better access to these drugs as well as the more prompt, comprehensive testing that explains the better German cancer survival rates compared to the UK.

Obviously not everything is great here (I have met some crap doctors), but overall I do feel much safer under the German health system. And btw: Here the press and general public relatively rarely discuss the health system and I assume this is because people are overall happy with it.

Needs to read 'went to A&E on Saturday at 1am

littlemonkeyface There is true choice. If I am unhappy with GP or specialist, I just see a different one (you are not allocated a surgery).

This is one of the things I cannot fathom about the NHS. Why on earth are they so obsessed with you being registered with a particular practice? If you go on holiday (in the UK) or move house, or work away from home for anything from a few days to a few weeks, its chaos. You apparently have to register as a temporary visitor everywhere you go (even if you are not ill, in case you are ill), which of course hardly anyone does unless they have a serious pre-existing condition, so if you fall ill when away from home, you have to persuade the local practice really, really hard to see you. And you are quite likely to be treated very suspiciously once you get there. That is, of course, if you can actually get an appointment before you return home.

I remember I once phoned NHS 24 (I turned out to have A-typical pneumonia) and was interrogated by the person on the other end of the line for 15 minutes because I gave an address that "didn't correspond with the address they held on their system". Obviously, I had moved house. I had actually registered with a different practice, but no, the other address was on their system and I was repeatedly questioned about this, as if I was hiding something. Exasperated, I may have raised my voice slightly to emphasise a point, bearing in mind I had pneumonia, and was given a stern telling off by Ms Prissy - "If you are going to raise your voice and shout, I am going to have to cut you off".

I was really ill and not really able to cope with that and ended the call. My husband later called an ambulance and I was hospitalised.

Chottie, I agree with you. I've had excellent maternity care & breastfeeding classes, state of the art surgery x 3 to rebuild my ankle/lower leg & physio to get me walking again & the most wonderful breast cancer care, support & mastectomy surgery & reconstruction.
I'm glad that I'm not now bankrupt with health insurance premiums.
No organisation as large as the NHS is going to be 100% perfect & wabu to expect it to be, but I hope that when we have cut off our noses to spite our faces, that we can afford the private health care fees to have them sewn back on again.

Sirzy sorry, but the line that jumped out at me when I read that report was "The only serious black mark against the NHS was its poor record on keeping people alive"!!

It's a universal service free at point of delivery. Pay for private if you want to.

wooly yes compulsary insurance. you pay 20% or thereabouts of your gross income and your employer pays the same. people on benefits are insured as well (paid for by the job centre equivalent).

oh and the health insurance is deducted directly from thr wages.

Choude I'd rather pay for a system like the German one littlemonkey describes.

I certainly don't want to pay for the NHS and private too.