The NHS in comparison to Spain is unfit for purpose . . .

[Lineofconcepcion]

My partner was taken ill a couple of weeks ago, we're on an extended holiday to Spain and Portugal. We went to the nearest public hospital in Oveido. Within 5 minutes he was triaged, examined within half an hour, given iv painkillers within 40 minutes, seen by an a & e doctor within the hour. Diagnosed, put on an iv drip for antibiotics within another half hour. Completed this, had the cannula removed, discharged with a prescription all within 2 hours. I was allowed with him during the whole of the treatment/examination. Treated amazingly well, faultless, lovely staff, who uploaded Google translate, to communicate better. All this on a GHIC card.

If it had been the NHS we would have waited 12 hours to be seen, denied my entry to be with him and generally be pissed off by the lack of care.

Where has it all gone so wrong?

@Fluffycloudland77

I agree, I literally tell strangers to get private cover now.

Wednesday dh was told his breathing problems were anxiety, Thursday I took him to a+e because his goitre is occluding his airway causing stenosis and he’s still in there as it’s an emergency if you can’t breathe…

It’s like a fucking game show “you said Anxiety, our survey said….stenosis” 🙄 but there is no comeback to drs. The gmc isn’t going to reprimand anyone, it becomes a “learning experience”.

How is private insurance going to help you in a medical emergency? There's no private ED you can go to....

The population as a whole keep voting for the tories. Therefore they keep voting to underfund the NHS. They either value low inheritance tax over their and others day to day well being or are seriously fucking stupid 🤷‍♀️

Spanish pensioners pay between 8-18 euros towards their prescriptions. Ours get them all for free, regardless of financial circumstances.

NHS hasn’t been fit for purpose for many years.
Two of my relatives work in our town hospital (one in ICU and one as a theatre technician) The say it’s like the 3rd world in there. Also one of my student’s parents are both doctors at the hospital and they’ve said all departments are always arguing and blaming each other for failures.
They all agree no one knows what anyone else is doing and no one really cares and so many patients get neglected and ignored especially the elderly ones

YANBU.

PIL have been in Spain since early 2020.

MIL has had various conditions and has been treated really quickly.

She collapsed, an ambulance arrived within 10 minutes and she was taken to hospital.

Her appointment with a consultant was 10 days later and she has a series of appointments for investigations.

They are scared to come back to the UK because the NHS was so bad in their part of the UK. Weeks to get a GP appointment way before covid.

Having lived in 4 countries in Europe couldn't agree more. All state funded healthcare systems providing a standard of care well above that of the NHS. It's such a shame people are so frightened of changing the NHS, and this notion that the only alternative is a US style privatized system..

It's easy to say the NHS is underfunded and blame that but the data suggest otherwise. According to the OECD in 2019 the NHS was better funded.

Spain - 9.1% of GDP
UK - 10.19 % of GDP

www.statista.com/statistics/268826/health-expenditure-as-gdp-percentage-in-oecd-countries/

I find it incredibly arrogant of the NHS to consider itself above scrutiny as to efficiency particularly when the vast majority of people have to wait inordinate amounts of time to access basic care. I needed specialist care when I was pregnant, I never got it and have suffered as a result. I gave birth to a premature very unwell child, who admitted did get a referral to a specialist when she was 6 weeks old. She would have been 18 months old on the day of the appointment.. Luckily for me I had private insurance from my employment. She saw a consultant a week later. The consultant immediately admitted her to hospital. He was livid the NHS had allowed a premature low birth weight child to get to the point she had - despite me taking her almost daily to the GP at the behest of the midwife. What would have happened to her if I hadn't had private insurance? She had complex needs and spent the first 2 years of her seeing various specialists, I have no confidence the NHS would have helped. Even when she was admitted to an NHS hospital from an ambulance having stopped breathing at 14 weeks old, they discharged her the next day saying they weren't sure what was wrong!!! NO FOLLOW UP. Again, had to get that worked out privately. Absolute disgrace and not fit for purpose. Needs reform and the sooner it happens the better.

@cptartapp

Spanish pensioners pay between 8-18 euros towards their prescriptions. Ours get them all for free, regardless of financial circumstances.

I wish we did the same. We get free prescriptions and we could perfectly well afford to pay.

My MIL doesn't pay 8 euros for prescriptions. It depends on the drug prescribed but it can be a few cents if it's something like paracetamol.

@bluejelly

I also think the UK population is likely to be older, more obese and more prone to substance abuse than the Spanish

The UK population is more obese, however the ages of the populations are not so different (I believe Spain has the older population) and many more Spanish people smoke than British people.

It's not money, it's management in many cases.

A friend in his 80's had major surgery for bowel cancer, and five days later (after two days in ICU), was put in a chair in the 'discharge lounge' at 11 am. The dischange lounge is a small ward with no beds, just chairs. When his wife arrived for her online scheduled visit at 2 pm, she knew nothing about it. They then sat there until 5 pm waiting for his prescription! They delay was because the doctor forgot to sign in, and no-one could find him to do so.

By this point, I arrived and they went home while I waited for the prescription. After an hour, a message came from the ward to say that he didn't need a prescription, he had the drugs at home.

When I asked one of the nursing staff if I was being unreasonable, and it was acceptable to leave an 80+ year old couple waiting for six hours - one of whom had just had major cancer surgery - for a prescription they didn't need, she told me it wasn't her fault.

But none of it matters, because the ward hit their 'Home for Lunch' target - although home was the 'Discharge Lounge' within the same building.

Before surgery and during the care was FANTASTIC - afterwards it was a total shit show.

spanish healthcare far better with diagnosis & primary care. our nhs is poorly managed with funds being either wasted and going to outsourced agencies. infact i have experienced far better care in a few countries abroad in comparison.

my caps lock not working lol

Sadly the NHS is not fit for purpose at the moment. What is even more sadder is the staff are trying so hard to help their patients but don’t have the resources to care for them!

I was in A&E a few weeks ago due to dehydration and being pregnant (hyperemesis) I was very ill, I could barely talk or walk, BP severely low and HR 162 BPM. I was left in the middle of A&E sat on a plastic chair on a drip of IV fluids and medication. The doctor was so upset for me and was constantly coming up to me and apologising. He said I’m so sorry I wish I could give you a bed but they’d kill me if I did. Not sure who he was referring to, but assuming they were reserved for patients even more critically ill. Every Dr walking past me looked so embarrassed that they couldn’t offer me a bed. After 7 hours they eventually transferred me to the maternity assessment unit and the Dr was so happy I could lie down and have a bed…but no I got to maternity and was left in a wheelchair on a drip for 2 hours in an empty room until they had a bed. I was finally given a bed and was just without a single midwife checking on me. However, I am still so grateful for the amazing doctors in A&E!!! Not so much some of the midwives who I could hear gossiping outside and not coming to check on me 🙄

NHS is simply falling apart. Tbh I think every aspect of healthcare is falling apart. Ambulance services, GP surgeries, Pharmacies. The lot of us.

Private healthcare makes no difference in the UK. I have it through work, I have a chronic illness, it was diagnosed privately but the consultant refused to treat me privately “as the insurance companies don’t like it”. Also they can’t prescribe certain drugs privately, only on the NHS. It’s a joke. I was born abroad and have lived in loads of places and the NHS is definitely the worst. I had the money to give birth privately and chose not to, my DS and I nearly died. I didn’t clap for the NHS, it isn’t underfunded, it’s just badly managed and the punters take the piss constantly. I have a close relative who is a doctor and also has a DH role, they’re a massive socialist but admit things are bad. It needs reform. Those who can pay, should pay. My relative says the entitled boomers are the worst, constant demands and rudeness and most of them are sitting on enough cash to self fund. The political will just isn’t there. What can we do? Nothing.

@OverByYer

The nhs is not under funded it’s badly managed and wasteful of its resources.

Absolutely this

The nhs is not under funded it’s badly managed and wasteful of its resources

It’s all three.

@Capturetotalelotion

Private healthcare makes no difference in the UK. I have it through work, I have a chronic illness, it was diagnosed privately but the consultant refused to treat me privately “as the insurance companies don’t like it”. Also they can’t prescribe certain drugs privately, only on the NHS. It’s a joke. I was born abroad and have lived in loads of places and the NHS is definitely the worst. I had the money to give birth privately and chose not to, my DS and I nearly died. I didn’t clap for the NHS, it isn’t underfunded, it’s just badly managed and the punters take the piss constantly. I have a close relative who is a doctor and also has a DH role, they’re a massive socialist but admit things are bad. It needs reform. Those who can pay, should pay. My relative says the entitled boomers are the worst, constant demands and rudeness and most of them are sitting on enough cash to self fund. The political will just isn’t there. What can we do? Nothing.

I am almost certain you can get anything prescribed privately as long as it is in the formulary because the patient is the one that pays for the medication. It’s NHS doctors that won’t prescribe everything because of the cost to the NHS. Any GP can produce a private prescription if it’s not cost effective. i.e tadalafil for ED can be prescribed by your GP but they will do it on a private script as costs too much to be funded by NHS.

@EngTech

The NHS that was created is now not the same NHS today 😔

The waste and inefficiency is horrendous 😳😳

What in particular did you have in mind? Not saying there's not waste and inefficiency, just curious as lots of people say this but don't elaborate on what.

My relative says the entitled boomers are the worst, constant demands and rudeness and most of them are sitting on enough cash to self fund

Of course he does, love, of course he does.

Health worsens as you grow older. How on earth does he know about his patients’ finances? And why should they self fund when they’ve spent 50+ years paying tax? I expect they want to save their money for the care home.

I was triaged and seen a nurse within 20 mins when I was genuinely ill. The main issue with A&E is generally misuse.

The nhs is not under funded it’s badly managed and wasteful of its resources

Agree with Blossom that funding, management and waste are all problems

Trouble is, until the second and third are sorted there's no point at all in spending more money, because rather than funding crucial services it could all go on focus groups, junkets to "discover how others do it" and several more layers of management to decide how to spend it

Well if he had private the specialist we saw privately last month could’ve operated by now but where we are now is frightening and I’m scared,

I'm so sick of seeing these threads that are either posted by people in the pay of the current government or posted by people who just like attention.

When the NHS was adequately funded, it was the envy of the world. You'll realise what you've lost when Johnson and his cronies have sold it off and you're paying hundreds every month for health insurance. You think fuel is expensive now, and food? You've see NOTHING yet.

When DS2 went to work on Friday night there were 28 ambulances waiting outside A&E to off load patients, and 6 more patients being looked after in the corridor by paramedics on top of all the other patients in A&E being looked after by nurses and doctors. He’s not an A&E nurse anymore, but he was called down because they needed his skills. He said he didn’t know where to start. It’s like fighting a fire with a leaking hose.

Over Christmas he and DDIL were here when they got an email to say most wards in the hospital were going to make 6 bedded bays into 8 bedded bags. DDIL sat in my front room in tears because she knew that she couldn’t nurse those patients to her best ability, that it wasn’t completely safe but she had no choice but to do it.

This is the reality of the NHS. It’s so short of staff and resources. It’s run on goodwill. Maybe there is wastage but it’s not the reason why the NHS is sinking, that reason is chronic underfunding. The Tories don’t want it, they don’t care about it and they wouldn’t miss it if it was gone.

[quote Blossomtoes]@Fairyliz, Spain spends 8.9% of GDP on health. The UK spends 7.2%.[/quote]
According to ONS the U.K. spends 12.8% of gdp on healthcare.

What strikes me about this thread is that everyone has decided that the NHS is good or bad depending on their own experience. I was diagnosed with cancer last year, before that I have rarely needed the NHS. My care has been absolutely brilliant and everyone I've encountered has been so caring and dedicated I can't fault them at all.