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?

Because they can afford to? Most peoples contributions over the years don't touch the sides of what they take out. And very many, particularly women have not paid in for 50 years. My MIL like many of her generation gave up work in her 20's to raise a family and never worked again.
As a nurse I too see the entitled attitude of some. One elderly lady last week just off a Caribbean cruise requesting we prescribe her a 'tonic'. Ordering dressings 'just in case' en masse because they don't pay. Bonkers.
God help the mess we'd be in if we didn't pay for our own care too. After all, that's what we scrimp and save for all our lives isn't it?

@mellongoose

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?

That number on its own means nothing. What is it as a percentage of our GDP? How does that compare to other countries? How does our population compare in terms of their healthcare needs to other counties ie age, chronic and long term conditions? No one thinks that the NHS is adequately funded for the needs to has to provide for. So just throwing a number out like that means nothing without context.

How much more would you like of tax payers money and what other services shall we sacrifice to make that happen?

But the 'tax' payer will still be paying for medical treatment, how much do you think they should be paying ? NI will still continue to be taken regardless by the way, so it will be an additional amount not instead of.

@Peaseblossum22

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’ .

Of course if you work in the nhs we want those things and everyone on this thread working in the nhs has said this and more. The nhs is really not a sacred cow beyond criticism that to me is a very daily telegraph cliche - it's constantly inspected and has to compete for funding and commissioning and constantly criticised We all want it to be adequately funded and more staff Staffing shortages are a massive issue and the amount paid to agency staff is eye watering but if there are no staff to be had then truste needs to pay more to fill the gaps and agencies exploit desperate staffing situations All the anti management comments seem to suggest there are loads of apprentice style suits faffing about the place but in my trust the management and execs are all nurses and doctors and there is a lot of research into why this makes them effective managers I think the frustration for those of us working in the nhs is that we see every day the impact of lack of staff has on everyone's workloads and stress levels and when staff are burnt out and stressed they are not going to be able to work as effectively and are at risk of emotionally detaching as a survival mechanism. It's the old 'put your oxygen mask on first ' adage from flight safety- if staff are running in empty with more complex patients in busier than ever wards things are not going to be as we would hope .

@notimagain if you read my post you will see that I am on an extended holiday, not a resident, which is why a GHIC is the appropriate document to access healthcare.

@Canhearthemice

Brexit. The Tories. This is where it's all gone wrong.

My FIL an DM both experienced crap NHS (both died due to to medical negligence) in the noughties, i.e. under the Labour years of trebling NHS spending and long before Brexit. It's been a shit show for a long time, not just recently!

Oh please it's not the Tories running it down to privatize it, the NHS has been failing for the last 20 years.

How the actual hell are people defending a system where 200 babies in one hospital alone have died from preventable things?! That superbugs are rampant in uk hospitals?
How elderly people with dementia are left hour hours alone with no help?
How the average wait time in a and e now exceeds 12 hours to be seen?

How it's acceptable to wait over 6 hours for an ambulance no matter how serious your condition?

I've witnessed countless abuses and neglect against patients in multiple hospitals this is not a one off this is systematic abuse of patients.

Most people can't get a gp appointment now and when you can it's all a waste of time. You have a phone appointment then they decide you need face to face then they refer you to another department then your stuck on a king waiting list whilst your health deteriorates, then you get kicked off the waiting list after 18 months for no reason and have to start the process again. This is the reality for many people and it is not ok. Again how the hell are people actually defending this.

@shanetwane I agree. I am actually amazed that there hasn't been more about the baby scandal on MN. Where on earth is the outcry that 200 plus babies (and some mothers) died because of dogma? I can only summise that is because so many on here subscribe to the anti-c-section dogma themselves.

And you are also correct about superbugs. My aunt-by-marriage died of sepsis a few weeks ago after going into hospital for a routine heart check-up. A young woman died of a bacterial infection after being injured playing sport. How can this happen?

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

no but how can you make the same mistake over 200 times?

And why are there not more checks and balances? I remember a case a couple of decades ago about a boy with cancer who had his chemo drugs injected into his spine by accident and he died. When I was in labour with ds, I was scared of having an epidural because of that case and the midwife said there are checks in place to prevent that now, it can't happen. And then recently I read of a similar case. So clearly the checks are not in place, 20 years later.

[quote Lineofconcepcion]@notimagain if you read my post you will see that I am on an extended holiday, not a resident, which is why a GHIC is the appropriate document to access healthcare.[/quote]
Fair enough for a visit yes the GHIC aid valid but since there was some discussion about the situation for those resident in Spain I was replying to your comment that “ you just need a GHIC which is sufficient for most needs”..

FWIW North of the Pyrenees the continued long term use of a GHIC/EHIC instead of having registered locally using an S1 caused a few to be when they applied to regularise their residency post Brexit….

There is a thread running right now of a distraught op who's elderly mother is alone in a hospital corridor for 15 hours with a suspected heart attack. They won't allow op to go in and see her or update her in any way and the thread has lots of posters defending this.

@yellowsuninthesky tragically this level of care has been normalized. What we read about in the papers is the tip of the iceberg.. We are meant to simply be 'grateful' there's any care at all.

In any other industry the NHS would have been put through massive reform decades ago.

Too many people, bad management and money being wasted. NHS employee

All these posts stating "you're not allowed to criticize the NHS", on a thread that is 99% criticizing the NHS. People criticize the NHS non stop. If you're so desperate for private treatment then go private, the only thing stopping you is your wallet, anyone can go private.

It's probably nothing to do with our ageing population or critical understaffing level's of the service, due to lack of recruitment, nurses having to pay to be trained, poor pay and conditions, Brexit encouraging thousands of qualified staff overseas, people wanting to be seen for dry nostrils or backache in A&E or their health conditions caused by years of smoking or over eating or lack of exercise. If it's that bad either write to your MP or go private.

People are happy to criticise the NHS on an anonymous forum. Political parties cannot rip the plaster off for fear of screeches of "privatisation!!"

Actually, radical reform by someone brace enough is exactly what is needed. I would love to see that, despite the hysteria!

@Puzzledandpissedoff

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

Spot on

However they also have a great deal of trust placed in them, and it really doesn't help when they lie, fob off and close ranks at the slighest suggestion of a problem - even when it turns out one of their number has just killed someone

This. Like my beloved late partner. They closed ranks at the inquest and tried to pin the blame on a lovely attentive SA doctor who did more than the rest of them put together. Systems were changed to "ensure it never happened again" "lessons were learnt" Like fuck.

The solution for the NHS is not for everyone who can afford to to go private. Do you think the solution for the problems in state education is for everyone who can afford to to go private .? Of course not.

The solution is for the NHS to be radically reformed, not privatised, we need to put the patient at the centre of care at the systemic level. I have sat in too many meetings where it is clear that the most important person in any decision made is ‘the NHS’ . Instead of arrogantly assuming that because our system is the most universal we have nothing to learn from other countries for example Germany and France and the Netherlands the USA is irrelevant , there are plenty of publicly funded systems which we can learn from.

@Skinnydogz

All these posts stating "you're not allowed to criticize the NHS", on a thread that is 99% criticizing the NHS. People criticize the NHS non stop. If you're so desperate for private treatment then go private, the only thing stopping you is your wallet, anyone can go private.

It's probably nothing to do with our ageing population or critical understaffing level's of the service, due to lack of recruitment, nurses having to pay to be trained, poor pay and conditions, Brexit encouraging thousands of qualified staff overseas, people wanting to be seen for dry nostrils or backache in A&E or their health conditions caused by years of smoking or over eating or lack of exercise. If it's that bad either write to your MP or go private.

There should be absolutely no problem with people discussing serious issues that effect them, which is what we are doing. The level of some care within the NHS is nothing short of scandalous and in 2022 is an absolute disgrace. Very few people on here are having a go at doctors and nurses, it's the whole culture that needs to change, and that means change from the top down and from the bottom up. If we don't have these discussions how will change ever be effected.

I too am very surprised by people working within the profession who choose to keep quiet about what is happening. In my profession, law, I am thoroughly ashamed by what this government has done to criminal legal aid and other social welfare legal aid, and the effect this has had on access to justice and resulting in the courts being not fit for purpose.

As can be seen from Shropshire maternity care, keeping quiet costs lives, it was mothers and babies who died, and quite often poor care affects women so much more than men. So to those people trying to shut down this discussion, go away. We'll have it whether you are here or not . . .

"my daughter's father and I kept getting angry letters and phone calls because my daughter needed some medical care after birth and they wanted to charge us €1000s for it, which we didn’t have... (we were legal residents, paid taxes, etc). Maybe I just did healthcare in Spain wrong?"

I think you might have, I don't know how it works for non nationals, but nationals don't have to spend a penny. Never, ever, get a medical bill.

Even some medication is fully covered.

@cptartapp

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

This is not correct. It might depend on the county, my relatives don't pay anything.

@Sarahcoggles

Out of curiosity, if you were a Spanish National living in Spain, would you get free treatment?

Yes

My sisters are nurses and my son a Doctor. All would say that the NHS has some serious issues from the perspective of staff. Management can be poor. Whistleblowers are often hounded. In one case as an example Doctors were asked to provide fingerprints so that a whistleblower could be identified. Mistakes are not recognised quickly enough and rectified. Resource planning can be quite poor. Notably for bank holidays (when higher pay kicks in), Managers and their friends are often rostered. Most staff are dedicated, but some are not and often play the system. My sisters have colleagues who have been off for months on full pay, openly stating they just fancied a break on full pay. There is a limited appetite to focus on bad practice and absence rates are very high. Add into this mix patients who are increasingly angry and litigious and it is a potent mix. It is very difficult currently to persuade medical students to specialise in obs and gynae given the likelihood of being regularly in court and the stress this involves. The US is no benchmark at all, but health systems in Ireland, Germany and France are better on almost all measured outcomes. This require more expenditure for some via an insurance plan, but I would happily fund this if it guaranteed appropriate treatment.