To think it's easier to access high quality medical care for pets than humans?

[Noalcohol26]

This morning my partner came home from work at approx 6:30 to find our cat meowing in pain with a significant limp outside. We rand our vets with an attached vet hospital and arranged to go in. We were in there approximately 15 minutes, with our lovely cat having a full check (thankfully seems to be nothing serious) and sent on our way once they had given her a painkiller. Total cost £200 (will be reimbursable with our insurance). If she had been a human it would have been hours and hours sat in A&E and it's made me feel cross (I work in the NHS so this isn't an NHS bashing thread). AIBU to think something needs to change when I can access this care for my pet but not my (human) family?

Presumably you pay for insurance and you agreed to pay the bill in the event that insurance didn't pay out. That's the difference.

I recently had this thought. My cat was injured, I got a same day appointment and then was able to move to when the little princess hid and refused to come out! £90 later she had a full check up and painkillers. I cat get my GP to answer their phone!

of course the big difference is money. But yes my cat has better healthcare than me.

You can access similar - if you pay for it.

Yes, there are no private A&E units but if you're willing to pay you can have a doctor on the phone to you pretty much any time of the day or night doing prescriptions or referrals.

OP, I used to feel that over our cats. When I had a blood test, I barely knew the results, other than that they were OK. When the cats had one, they would phone the next day with all the details. When the cats needed an operation, it happened immediately. When I did….not so much. Of course something needs to change with the NHS, and sooner or later, there will have to be some sort of co-paying. I sincerely hope someone grasps the nettle so that we end up with a European system, rather than the NHS creaking to a grinding halt, and those who can afford it increasingly going private so that we end up with a sort of American system by the back door.

I often laugh at how my animals have excellent private healthcare and I just have to slum it.

The flipside us i do sometimes think the pets get treatment thats not 100% needed.

You can pay for this kind of service for humans, there’s a private out of hours dr 8 miles from me in the city, £150 apparently (neighbour has used it for convenience) no good for blue light emergencies but the nhs is excellent for genuine emergency services

I don't think I could get something this equitable for what I pay for my cats insurance (£20pm per cat). Also - I pay hundreds and hundreds in tax and national insurance - I don't think my healthcare should be significantly worse than my cats!

That is my concern. I work for the NHS and it's completely broken.

NHS emergency services are not the same as paid for vetinary treatment for animals. HTH.

You’re talking about the equivalent of a private GP appointment.

If you have a look for those services around you, you’ll almost certainly find you can get the same for you as for your cat.

Yeah my cat definitely has better healthcare than me.

last time I had a chest infection I used a private gp as mine didn’t/couldn’t/wouldn’t see me.

Thats because your pet is in receipt of private healthcare!

You could be seen similarly quickly if you paid for it.

I agree the NHS is a mess.

You can access the same for humans - if you pay for private healthcare.

Private veterinary care and the NHS are not even vaguely comparable, and don’t vets euthanise some of their patients?

Let’s see how accessible it is when the bill is significantly more than £200 and you don’t have insurance.

Well vet prices have rocketed up, the country is covered by a small group of big businesses and while your insurance was cheap this year, it won’t be next year and unless you have lifetime cover any related conditions will be forever excluded. Insurance and treatment prices are making pet ownership impossible for some. There may be better models than our current NHS but I very much doubt we will find them in our pet industry.

I suppose the difference is that you don’t take your pet to the vet for a minor ailment. You only go if you’re worried there’s something more serious going on. Dogs and cats also don’t end up in A&E drunk or going because they need some reassurance. They also don’t ’bed block’ and have to wait in hospital for weeks on end while a care package is put in place at home. They also live fairly predictable lives in terms of life expectancy.

I totally get your point but there’s considerably less strain on health services for animals than there are for humans, meaning far easier and quicker access

I’m surprised you are trying to compare veterinary medicine to human medicine but okay. I’ve always received excellent care from the NHS although I’m aware that not all trusts are equal and I’m very lucky. However, we need to think more about how we use the NHS services. There was recently a thread about people going to A&E for colds and minor symptoms.

It's crazy when you think about. Yes my cat has access to far superior healthcare than I do. Same day appointments, diagnostics and treatment. I pay £50 per month insurance. If I could get a same day CT/bloods/surgery for £50 a month I would happily pay that!
And people complain vet fees/pet insurance high but it's really not considering the quality of care and the speed you can access that care.
There is definitely something very wrong in a world where pets have better health care than humans. I just had to watch my mum slowly die over several days, basically dehydrate to death, and said to the nurses a dog would have a little overdose of an anesthetic at this point and this hell would be over in seconds. Their response made it clear they would like to be able to. My mum believed in euthanasia too.

I do have insurance though, to ensure I can care for my cats properly. My point I suppose, is that we DO pay for our NHS services through taxation and we (in my opinion) are getting a pretty shoddy deal.

I'm not directly comparing them as such, just my experience this morning made me think about how the situation would be different if, for example, my partner had significantly hurt his leg.

The staffing balance between vets and medical professionals is definitely way off what it needs to be. Most households have multiple people but no or only one pet yet there seems to be more vets around than doctors and nurses etc. While the government is focusing on other elements of the NHS to try and improve it rather than the staffing levels they should be they're guaranteed to fail in improving this unfortunately, their focus should be increasing wage budget and encouraging school leavers to pursue medical carers rather than changing how surgeries are contacted like they did last year

If you think the NHS is shoddy (and I accept it obviously isn’t perfect, by any stretch, despite me always having received a good standard of care), you can get yourself private medical insurance or just pay for treatment from a private provider. The standard of service would then be comparable with your pet.

Have to agree with this. Took my rescue greyhound to vet for his eye check up yesterday and everyone was so pleased to see him, asked how hes settling in, lots of head scratches and even a biscuit afterwards. No one is ever pleased to see me or asks how I'm doing at the GP 😂

Yes but your cat has individual medical insurance, your taxes go to fund a general NHS service and it priotises based on need, not how much you personally pay in.

The NHS has to continue to treat people who, if they, were pets would probably be put down.

The two services are not even remotely comparable.

As others have pointed out there is the human equivilent of your cats care availble to you - private insurance. I get private GP appointments and medical care through work. I hurt my "paw" (tendonitis in my achilles tendon) earlier this year. I was diagnosed and on a course of physiotherapy within a week.

I think this is just going to get worse as the population ages tbh.Average NHS spending per person goes up dramatically with age.