The NHS. We need to fight to keep it.

[Differentforgirls]

My Mil is 87. Last year (around September) she was bleeding from her vagina and went to her GP.

The GP referred her to hospital for tests, which she got quickly.

It was cancerous polyps in her womb so she got further tests to ensure they hadn’t spread and was referred for surgery.

Tonight she has been discharged from hospital after numerous tests over the intervening months and a surgery yesterday (keyhole).

She’ll get follow up treatment too.

All NHS, where she has been treated with dignity, respect and kindness.

It might not be what it was due to cuts but it’s still something we should be proud of.

She’ll celebrate her 88th birthday next month, as an OAP in social housing with nothing but her pension, because of the NHS.

AIBU for thinking the NHS is something to be proud of and fight to keep?

More tax, dear, more tax, like a donation which is easily done.

We already have a mixed healthcare system.

there is nhs care which is free at the point of use.
there is private healthcare which is not free at the point of use.

Since Covid more and more people have private healthcare which insurance eg see this article

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jan/30/almost-one-in-eight-britons-now-has-private-medical-insurance-say-healthcare-analysts?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

even more do not have private health insurance but go private for specific treatments or operations.

nhs physio is yet another example of an nhs services that basically does not exist anymore.

dentistry, physio, many hip/knee etc replacements, cataracts, etc are areas of healthcare where the private sector is growing massively.

my dd is disabled. She has multiple conditions including an autoimmune disease and adhd.
she cannot get her drugs on the nhs any more - gps will not accept shared care and her original consultant who diagnosed her has retired.

the only way she can access her adhd drugs is by a private consultant who she has to see every six months and he writes a private prescription.

yes, people in America do die because they can’t afford to get their drugs.

nobody, but nobody thinks the American system is a good one.

but equally, the nhs system is pretty bad.

You could easily put the same provisions in as prescriptions. No need for the country to always go the common lowest denominator.

More accurately, it gives everyone equal access to appalling care and poor outcomes.

I don’t know if you realise this but the devolved nations are given a budget by the UK Govt and aren’t allowed to borrow.

We do well with our pocket money that we get back from what we actually pay in.

No. I think your confusing accuracy with opinion.

The huge Boomer generation getting old and ill will surely bankrupt the NHS in the next 20 years, so an insurance system eventually is inevitable IMO. I expect the NHS will be left as an Accident and Emergency type service and everything else will have to be insurance/self funded - we simply ask too much of the NHS these days.

My experience with elderly relatives is very much over treatment, when the best thing for them would have been to be left in peace. Subjected to endless invasive tests when they are not strong enough for the treatment, whats the point. Except that they can’t be sued I suppose!

I don’t want the “dignity” of being in a and e on a chair for 30 hours like my friend was last weekend.

I don’t want it for me, I’m fucking spitting feathers she had to endure it and I don’t want it for poor people either.

dignity? Don’t make me fucking laugh,

Are you quite ok because you seem bored.

Indeed you have - you support the NHS not patients :)

Yes, I’m sure if asked he would say something along the lines of “they want me to go…..”

No idea 🤷‍♀️ the consultant did say that if it’s polyps that he won’t treat them as they typically only turn cancerous in 10 years.

He spent a few weeks in hospital last year, about 3 different wards, all full of elderly people. It was eye opening. Always at least 2 or 3 patients with severe dementia on antibiotic drips.

Why would introducing middle men in the form of insurance companies be a more efficient way of increasing NHS funding than increasing general taxation?

What age will they be when they die? The youngest boomers are 63 this year.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/11/uk-cancer-survival-rates-developed-world-report

We have poor outcomes compared to similar countries, in many metrics, beyond just cancer

Is there any need to be so rude? I didn’t read your post btw. I also won’t be reading any more of them 😊👍

When two of my relatives were in the later stages of dementia, their doctors stopped giving antibiotics for infections and just gave supportive/palliative care. In at least one case, their adult children agreed to this approach.

It was the right thing for them in my opinion, as they passed away peacefully whilst asleep or partly asleep, and never reached the final sub-stages of being bedridden due to the dementia itself.

😂😂

Quoting and replying without reading might explain why you are unable to comprehend why the NHS doesn't work for patients ;)

Though if you didn't read it, how did you reply...?! 😂😂

I was not treated with dignity after being shouted at for bleeding on the floor after they made me get out of bed hours after going birth to sterilise a breast pump myself. I went private for my second as I couldn’t bring myself to relive giving birth on the nhs

Awful. It’s very true though that successive UK Govts don’t invest enough as it said in the article.

I don't believe throwing money at the current system will help. Like others, I support a change in the system. With more options like the France model.

Read the first line, rolled my eyes, then gave you very short reply out of politeness.

Awful. I had great care with my two.

👍

I left the NHS years ago, it has always been badly run.

I also think we need to have a very difficult conversation about treating people that are really really unwell especially when elderly. I for one disapproved of my very elderly Mother being kept alive in pain that couldn’t be totally controlled because sometimes it can’t. She should have been allowed to die when she was about 89 instead of rattling on for a couple more years. One of the worst moments of my life was when still compos mentis she asked me if I would in the future help her leave this world when it was too much for her. Of course I didn’t.

If anyone is interested then look up Dr Ken Murray’s article from 2012 about how many Doctors would not have the treatments they prescribe. My Father chose not to have cancer treatment at 84 and the hospice nurse said I wish more people would choose this end and she was right. All that treatment would have given him a prognosis of maybe a years more life. There are things far worse than death.

I’m really happy you had a good experience and I know others who have… and many who did not. It’s a lottery… you just don’t know if you are going to get exceptional or abysmally life threatening care and it now makes me so anxious as a result. I want to see reform but not sure exactly what that looks like