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?

I work for the NHS and have used it many times.

In most of the departments I’ve worked in, they have been run well, the staff work way above and beyond what you’d expect and I’ve been proud to be part of the service. The feedback has been that well over 90% of people are satisfied with the service provided.

With one exception (England) I’ve always been very satisfied with, and grateful for, the care (Wales) that I’ve received. It’s been average to excellent.

The NHS is free for ALL at the point of access. Total equality. Few, if any, other countries have that. Just as well, as our government have set it up so that we are all so much worse off now.

The NHS is underfunded.

Without it, if you can’t afford care - you don’t get it. Or you get less of it. Watch ‘Sicko’ the Michael Moore film to get a taste of the situation we would have.

I will, however, agree about the IT systems. Most Health Boards I’ve worked in are not great here. Outsourcing doesn’t work well and in-house seems slow and outdated.

Be careful what you wish for. Unless you are very well off, a country without the NHS isn’t a place I’d want to live.

I live abroad and went to hospital recently. Within one day I'd seen the doctor, had an ultrasound, had a blood test, seen another doctor, got a diagnosis.

Since living abroad and realising what other healthcare systems are like, I've realised that the NHS is, quite frankly, a disgrace. And one that costs lives.

@RagingRagingAndMoreRaging

I work for the NHS and have used it many times.

In most of the departments I’ve worked in, they have been run well, the staff work way above and beyond what you’d expect and I’ve been proud to be part of the service. The feedback has been that well over 90% of people are satisfied with the service provided.

With one exception (England) I’ve always been very satisfied with, and grateful for, the care (Wales) that I’ve received. It’s been average to excellent.

The NHS is free for ALL at the point of access. Total equality. Few, if any, other countries have that. Just as well, as our government have set it up so that we are all so much worse off now.

The NHS is underfunded.

Without it, if you can’t afford care - you don’t get it. Or you get less of it. Watch ‘Sicko’ the Michael Moore film to get a taste of the situation we would have.

I will, however, agree about the IT systems. Most Health Boards I’ve worked in are not great here. Outsourcing doesn’t work well and in-house seems slow and outdated.

Be careful what you wish for. Unless you are very well off, a country without the NHS isn’t a place I’d want to live.

Very well off? All my scans and blood tests and seeing the doctor and solving the problem cost £28. A good health insurance that covers everything costs me £9 a month. Yes America's healthcare system is expensive and crazy but it's not usually like that, not in any other country I've come across.

BTW

To Anycrispsleft. Resistance to change is not something any NHS worker can be. Changed and reforms happen ALL the time. What doesn’t happen is enough time without change, decent budgets and staffing to allow, us, the workers, to build year on year on the strengths of the service. We do manage to mostly, but constant change, for changes sake, is not necessarily helpful.

Grumpasaurusrex

And if you develop a chronic condition or need an expensive operation? Fertility treatment? What if you have to see specialists regularly? £28 a pop, alone, is beyond what lots of people can afford. This you get more inequality.

The reason the NHS is failing, is fucking monumental waste. My mil was discharged with a new zimmer frame every time she left hospital - she collected 14!!! And they wouldn't accept them back. She was over-prescribed, despite having a dosset box and she used to save up the extra meds to hand out to extended family. She was a thief too and would pinch blankets/cutlery and anything else she could get hold of whilst on the ward. She fell over at home at least once a week, sometimes 2 or 3 times, and had to be lifted by paramedics & taken to hospital in an ambulance & checked-over. When my ds & his friends have needed crutches they won't accept them back. Massive massive wastage & no one taking accountability for it.

FUNDING

@RagingRagingAndMoreRaging

Grumpasaurusrex

And if you develop a chronic condition or need an expensive operation? Fertility treatment? What if you have to see specialists regularly? £28 a pop, alone, is beyond what lots of people can afford. This you get more inequality.

I have a chronic condition. £9 a month health insurance covers all.

Threads moaning about the NHS drive me insane. I live in a country where we have to pay every single time we go to the GP. I need some gynae treatment and I will have to fork out for it because we don't have insurance.

Stop voting Tory FFS

9 quid a month for insurance. Utter bollocks.

@Umbellypico

The reason the NHS is failing, is fucking monumental waste. My mil was discharged with a new zimmer frame every time she left hospital - she collected 14!!! And they wouldn't accept them back. She was over-prescribed, despite having a dosset box and she used to save up the extra meds to hand out to extended family. She was a thief too and would pinch blankets/cutlery and anything else she could get hold of whilst on the ward. She fell over at home at least once a week, sometimes 2 or 3 times, and had to be lifted by paramedics & taken to hospital in an ambulance & checked-over. When my ds & his friends have needed crutches they won't accept them back. Massive massive wastage & no one taking accountability for it.

The reason they won't accept crutches / zimmer frames back is cost.

They would need to be disinfected, they would then need to be inspected for damage and they would need to be stored.

Even someone on minimum wage of £9.50 and whatever the hospital pays in tax/NI for that employee costs more than buying crutches / frames.

If you just issue new ones you know the quality and that they are safe to use.

When you only have a set amount of storage you order enough to fill that storage no more.

OP

You cannot compare one experience at one hospital and extrapolate that it is the same for everyone in that country and compare it with your assumption about what would happen in the UK.

A few years ago I had what turned out to be an ovarian cyst that would wrap round my fallopean tube and burst. I was seen in A and E at three different NHS hospitals (working out of area when it happened on 2 occasions) my local hospital I attended twice, once was a terrible experience, the other I came pout of an ambulance, was triaged to the surgical team who told me I was being admitted but they wanted to give me some drugs first, painkillers and an antiemetic.

Look, there's no mystery, the Tories are deliberately running it down in order to privatise it.

@Anycrispsleft

It's the same in Germany. The healthcare is so, so much better. It frustrates me so much when ppl in the UK resist change to the NHS because "you wouldn't want a system like the US" - well no, but a system like France, Germany, Switzerland or Belguim would be just fine.

The problem is the US system is what a Conservative govt would choose. There is a lot of money to be made for their mates and some of them!

The argument that the UK is either brilliant or terrible, overfunded and wasteful or resource starved and overworked doesn't really hold up against the evidence. The NHS is a middle ranking healthcare system amoung OECD nations in both investment and performance. There's plenty of room for performance if more money is spent (it's a trailer amoung G7 countries, but Spain isn't a member of the G7), but it's not really doing badly.

Spain is also fairly middle ranking, but it is considered one of the most efficient health care systems in the world. They spend less per person than the UK (£2,989 per person compared to Spain's £2,444 per person (PPP)) and get slightly better outcomes.

One of the ways they do this is by paying their doctors and nurses less (Drs make, on average, about half the income UK doctors make). They have more doctors per person than the UK and fewer nurses.

They also, in general, make more rational decisions about what drugs and treatment should be prescribed. Something the UK keeps trying to do with NICE, but then capitulating to pressure to favour groups with more political clout.

@gogohm

Have you lived in any of these countries? I don't know about Spain but dp has staff in Germany and they have to pay a lot of money for health and social insurance, around 3x the cost of U.K. employees

I live in Germany and all I can tell you is that it is a fair chunk (300 euros a month for me) if you have a good job but when I was a SAHM it was for free. So people with a bit of money pay a lot more than in the UK but everyone else gets the same excellent service without necessarily paying that much. Food for thought maybe for British middle class socialists so proud of contributing to the NHS - if you lived in European country with private healthcare, you might actually be paying more to support your low income fellow residents.

@BattenbergdowntheHatches

Doctors are humans too! They aren’t going to get it right every single time! Do you get everything right every single time ?

No, and nobody expects them to. But there is a clear tendency for doctors to suggest when the person turnis out to have which suggests reluctance to investigate properly or extremely shonky diagnostic skills.

It's really hard to claim medical negligence (despite what you read in the DM) and delayed diagnosis claims are especially challenging. I suspect doctors know this.

@BattenbergdowntheHatchesBut medics are taught common things are common and there is always a benefit vs risk issue when it comes to investigations such as scans and invasive stuff.

@Onetwothree456 I'd rather pay a small amount more every month for a functioning system

Out of interest how much would you be willing to pay ? I always ask this on NHS threads and rarely get an answer. £5 a month, £10, £50, £300 ?

@threecee

how are all of these other health care systems funded ?

Spanish health care is funded through taxes and is free at the point of use, like the uk.

Spain doesn't let all and sundry use their healthcare. You have to pay in for a certain amount of time first, otherwise you have to have private cover
Not true. You have to have a job to get a social security number but once you have that you can use the system like anyone else.
I arrived with a job offer, got a tax ID number and then a social security number and could immediately use the system. If you don't have a job then you have to have private cover, but there's no having to pay in for a certain amount of time first if you are working.

The problem is the US system is what a Conservative govt would choose. There is a lot of money to be made for their mates and some of them!

This is true.

Not sure if this has already been said but the NHS received £269b last year. £269b?!! Of public money.

For that price it should be one of the best services in the world. Actually, in many cases it is. But I would like to see a German or Australian model to take the pressure off.

I laugh when people say it is under funded. How much more would you like of tax payers money and what other services shall we sacrifice to make that happen?

My mate broke her foot- free xrays, but paying for crutches (not a bad thing I guess) a moonboot, physio and consultant appointments

But you could see a consultant thorough the public system as well, if you wanted to. There’s not a single medical specialty that you can only go private for.

People pay to go privately for different reasons, whether they want to be guaranteed to see a particular doctor, or want to be seen quicker or want to see the same person every time. It doesn’t mean that you have to go private

Don’t you think there should be a national conversation about our health service . It affects everyone , we all pay for it , we all use it at some point and it’s the biggest employer in the U.K. this is part of the problem, it’s become a sacred cow, anyone who dares to suggest any changes is shouted down because we mustn’t criticise anyone who works in it etc etc. saying that it’s a huge, wasteful mass of vested interests does not in anyway mean that the people who work within it aren’t hard working professional people giving of their best in difficult circumstances for limited reward.

If you work in the nHS wouldn’t you like to be better paid with more staff in better equipped hospitals . Wouldn’t you want the maximum possible to be spent on patient care and not on the vast bureaucracy which operates mostly in its own interests. Don’t you want healthcare outcomes to be better.

I absolutely believe in universal healthcare free at the point of delivery but that cannot be provided under the current system. The service is quite literally crumbling in front of our eyes, we need to be open to different ideas and not just dismiss every criticism and suggestion as ‘bashing the nhs’ .

Weekend, isn't it?

Lol. I meant weird.