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?

Why are some bleating about the US with scary numbers. There are other much better options.

The NHS is no longer fit for purpose and needs a major restructure. it’s past saving! A&Es are like war zones, the wards are dangerously under staffed. The whole system is frighteningly unsafe.

im a nurse

We don’t have any private insurance. My daughter has collapsed multiple times through heavy periods, and they just want to “put her on the pill” without even seeing her, they won’t even prescribe iron (I know you can buy it but that can be hard work at some pharmacies).
Meanwhile I’m in the throes of menopause and still not being taken seriously.
My son got told a lump was nothing to worry about from a telephone call. And now it’s been triaged as such, he can’t get any more appointments for it.
My friend was sent home with a broken leg to wait for surgery and now post surgery cannot get any follow up care, despite living alone.
And I’ve just looked at the next available GP appointment, it’s in 7 weeks.

We really don't! The current model was designed for the 1940s, when relatively few medical treatments existed. If we want to maintain access to excellent staff (that, on the whole, we do have), technology and systems, we need to pay properly for it. That probably means some form of insurance system for most people. We also need to be more ruthless about what is not covered, because there's a small minority of people who misuse it. It's not free, it shouldn't be free and we need to be grown ups about it.

Never mind Europe, we went to Africa and daughter had an accident and son had a virus - both were treated quicker, more effectively and with more compassion than ever here. (And don’t even start me on the refusal of the NHS to follow up when we got home!)

It’s not free, we pay for it through taxation. It’s supposed to be free at the point of use, but if the system makes it impossible for you to access it, you’re just paying for something you can’t use.

I don't understand why so many think the NHS is sacrosanct.

Changing things does not mean we copy the US.

so many other models that work that we could copy.

why would we chose a model that’s actually worse than the NHS

Yes but if the UK privatised it would they follow the Europe model or the American model. If Farage had his way we'd be in trouble.

You will get different views depending on people's experiences. I expect many will agree with you, and others will feel hurt and angry that their loved ones were not so lucky.

Personally I think a system of affordable care would work better. You pay a bit when getting your rash or fungal toenail looked at, which goes towards a better functioning system and funding for the intensive care - again with a basic cost.

We pay for other things that are needed and essential - food, electricity, rent. I don't see the logic in a trip to the gp being any different. If we all paid a reasonable sum, it would boost the coffers for when the expensive care needs subsidising. The truth is they are on their knees. It's all very well singing about it being free, but it would be better if it was efficient and not stretched.

I would fight not to keep it tbh. I’ve lived in France and Switzerland where there are various forms of co-pay and the healthcare is superb, literally a different species compared to the hopeless, slow, archaic, creaking monolith here. I’m actually embarrassed that our standards are so low in the UK that we think the NHS is something to be proud of.

DM has terminal cancer and has just spent 19 hours on a hard plastic chair in a cupboard in A&E. She only got a cupboard because she is immunocompromised and I asked what the ever loving fuck they were doing about infection control considering every single seat in the waiting room was full. The staff nurse actually said “I really wish they wouldn’t advise the chemo patients to come here” - you couldn’t make it up.

The French system is so much better than the NHS isn't it. My care has been wonderful. Why can an ambulance reach me in under 10 minutes living very rurally in France, for something non life threatening yet the average wait for a category 2 call (heart attack, stroke etc) in England is almost half an hour?

I did a first aid course here recently, with the pompiers (firemen) who are often the first line emergency responders and who have their own ambulances. The trainers was complaining about the ‘long’ waits he is currently experiencing to drop off patients at a&e in our city… 15 minutes rather than the usual 5 minutes! Kept my head down…

There are a whole range of experiences. It came out recently that the waiting lists were down because the NHS paid people to go through and remove all the people who had give up waiting and gone private or else had died whilst waiting for the ops - hardly the success story Starmer claims.

If you’ve experienced healthcare in Europe then you’ll know our system is not working. Wish we could pivot to the French or Norwegian models.

I would rather it is abolished and replaced with a more modern and reliable alternative

The NHS is broken beyond repair

we keep being told how great it is as it’s free at the point of service

the service provided is very poor

we need to look at Europe and model out further healthcare system like theirs

I work for the NHS the NHS evangelists are very very few and far between and usually new to the NHS. That was very different to 10 years ago when many of us marched to save the NHS. And the money wasted is absolutely criminal

10 years ago I'd have agreed wholeheartedly. But after years of working in a woefully underfunded mental health service that was completely behind the times and wasted copious amounts of money on shite awareness campaigns and rainbow lanyards, then Covid and the complicity of the NHS in the destruction of the mental health of so many children and young people, then seeing older and ill relatives get increasingly variable or poor care, and now dealing with arrogant, rigid, penny pinching NHS commissioners in the private sector, I'm just done. Burn it down. It's become a Hydra, a monster that seeks only to ensure its own survival, it no longer exists to care for patients.

I believe in free at the point of use healthcare, I really do. But the demands society is placing on the NHS are greater and the NHS is woefully inequipped to meet them.

Sure, there are pockets of innovation and good practice, but they usually quickly get stamped out by the dinosaurs and bean counters after a few years. The NHS is so behind most other European nations, USA, Australia in mental health research, care and treatment it's laughable. No wonder people are turning to the charlatans setting up private psychiatry and therapy factories, they're desperate and the NHS is still clinging to its ridiculous IAPT model and patting themselves on the back for being so innovative for bringing in triage by chatbot that's so basic a teenager could have programmed it.

I'm sorry, but we need rid of it.

I have been a GP for over 35 years.
i don’t work in UK but in a similar system.
When I was a med student , a patient with a heart attack would be put in a bed in coronary care, given morphine and ,if they met very strict criteria, an infusion of a medicine which dissolved clots .. now that same person is taken straight via ambulance to a super-tech cardiac lab and stented.. guess which is more expensive? Cancer treatment has changed hugely.. cancers which would be an immediate death sentence 30 years ago are now curable.
we are surviving longer but because chronic disease are not surviving well.. chronic diabetes, respiratory disease, mobility issues as we age and cognitive issues/dementia.
Healthcare is a lot more expensive.
In addition there is a huge mental health crisis, society is more divided and more individualistic and the whole thing is unsustainable.
Health starts with providing decent homes, heating, investment in children…but no government is brave enough.

If the NHS is so wonderful, why has no other country used it as its health care model?
We need a brave, forward thinking, innovative government to explore moving to a European health care system based on the French, German, Norwegian models etc & necessary financial investment.
It isn't the NHS or go bankrupt because of a US type system.
We need a modern day Nye Bevan to deliver an effective, affordable, efficient health care system fit for purpose & fit for the 21st century

Just out of interest, what do you think would happen to your MIL in any EU country if she had bleeding?
You realize she would get treatment without going bankrupt? Very likely with a shorter waiting list.
The reason why I highlight this is that I believe the problem with the NHS is that people see the US system as the only alternative and therefore can't imagine anything different.
There are countries that manage to have the same advantages as NHS and offer much more (you can actually see your GP face to face, you don't need to wait 5 hours at the A&E, you actually get an ambulance if you need one - my friend had appendicitis and had to take Uber to the hospital whilst bowled over in pain because he was told the wait time was 6 hours!).

I do think the NHS has gone downhill since George Osbourne’s austerity measures.

We should be trying to fix it rather than do away with it.

A key reason it’s like gone downhill is that it was started in the 1940s when life was totally different and population was smaller and healthcare wasn’t as advanced. It was not designed for what today’s society is and hasn’t been able to keep up with it.

Sorry, still blame the Tories!

If we vote for parties that want to invest in it that means increasing taxes to pay for it-and I don’t think there’s the appetite to do that
I’m not sure it’s a viable option in its current form