2, but mainly because, as someone else said, no system can be perfect.
The outsourcing of cleaners is something that should be stopped straight away. They need to be able to work as a team with the other NHS staff. Communication between departments could be improved, too; occasionally my blood test results simply haven’t been sent through to my GP.
I have quite a few long-term health problems meaning that I’ve been an outpatient in almost every department, and those that I haven’t been in I’ve had experience of via either my daughter or my Grandad. The complaints I have are very few and are about a couple of individual staff (and actually one of those complaints is pretty trivial), which is astounding considering how many doctors and nurses and so on I’ve seen over the years.
My company policy is about £80 per month in total. (This is, presumably, because the NHS relieves a hell of a lot of the bureaucracy that would be required if everything were run by private medicine.)
Teacake, I appreciate what you’re saying, but I think the disparity in how income tax is collected, and what income and local taxation pay for, is so great that it renders direct comparison of just that one datapoint not totally germane to the subject. Particularly because the state-to-state taxation variance in the US is so vast.
I’m an American, but I had an experience with the U.K. system a few years back (lesson learned: don’t kiss strange boys in cab queues in foreign countries, as they may give you strep throat).
For my limited, single interaction, I give it a 1. I went into a clinic in the morning, got given a time to come back in the afternoon, went back to the hotel, napped, came back, was seen and diagnosed promptly, and given a prescription for antibiotics. Because I was a tourist, a college student, and it was my first clinic visit, **everything **was free, from the clinic visit to the drugs.
I’d say I’m a 2 on the NHS. I’ve had good experiences with my health care in the UK. I admit I would be a bit scared to be admitted to hospital based on some of the stories I’ve heard, but that is purely hearsay on my part.
I’m also a 2 on the best policy I had in the US, but that was a good deal more expensive out-of-pocket (particularly for prescriptions), of course.
I would find it hard to list specific improvements because frankly I just don’t know enough about specific operational details. In broad terms, I think the NHS needs to get back to what it was originally intended to be: a provider of essential health care. My personal opinion, and that’s all it is, is that there are too many procedures that people can get on the NHS that are not essential. Any form of cosmetic surgery is the first and to my mind most obvious example.
What’s truly remarkable about the NHS is not that there is room for improvement, because there always will be, but that it gets so many things right, so much of the time.
What about cosmetic surgery for burns victims and people born with deformities? Surely those would be sufficiently detrimental to their quality of life to justify treatment?
Presumably he’s talking about things like boob jobs, which you can (or could) get on the NHS with a minimum of fuss (basically, telling your doctor that your small breasts were causing you to suffer from depression).
On the one hand, I’m a full-on left-wing supporter of the principle of free at the point of delivery, cradle to grave.
On the other, one of the less glamorous NHS problem areas, psychiatry, led me to go private a while back - the difference has been seeing the same doctor each time rather than a different locum every visit, absolutely essential in that situation. The drugs are all still through the NHS, though, the only thing I’m paying for is the time I’m talking with him.
(Funnily enough, Really Not All That Bright’s comment above failed to raise a smile here.)
I’ll go for 1/2 too. Nothing is perfect but I honestly believe the NHS is one of the best things about this country. The NHS, along with the BBC, makes me proud.
I don’t think that was meant to be a joke. I do recall quite recently that “body image causing mental health issues” was a reason for the NHS to fund elective cosmetic surgery. Not sure where it stands now.
I’d be very surprised if it were actually easy to get cosmetic surgery just for saying you’re depressed. Odds are it would take official diagnosis from multiple doctors and then a long time on a waiting list. Perhaps when breast enhancements first became popular it was easier to get them because the system wasn’t prepared, or perhaps the media just misreported it.
I wonder how much such truly cosmetic surgery (as opposed to plastic surgery for more straightforward physical reasons) costs the NHS, anyway? Bet it’s not much.
Yes, I know, it’s the Daily Mail, so the problem is doubtless not even half as serious as they say it is, but it does exist. Here’s a similar (though naturally less breathlessly outraged) story from the Telegraph just to balance things out.
If I can partially-backtrack on my earlier comment, I do consider body image to be a good reason for NHS treatment in some situations. Severe and/or early mastectomies are just one case I’ve heard of. However, the NHS (or any other reputable health care system) isn’t going to jump in and ‘treat’ someone unless they’ve got a recognised condition.
Edit: even that didn’t make sense - treating somebody for a possible cancer without tackling the resulting difficulties is an incomplete treatment. Hacking away at somebody’s body without making efforts to help then adjust afterwards is similarly incomplete.
It’s strange that the world the Daily Mail inhabits - and that so many Americans seeking examples of why the NHS doesn’t work turn to - is so at odds with the everyday experience of pretty well the entire population. It’s as if the reality of a functioning, decent service is just unacceptable to tat paper and its kin.
Fwiw, I think, in the context of modern medicine and financing, the NHS model is close to a folly but the proposals for the USA aren’t anything like the NHS model, so the contrasts are bogus anyway. And while it might be a folly there is also so much emotional attachment to it – come what may, we’re just going to continue living with its uniqueness and it’s outrageous ambition.
The first one talks about some surgeons - it doesn’t say how many surgeons - feeling pressured to do operations even when multiple psycholgists say it’s not necessary. It doesn’t say how many of that unspecified number of surgeons actually carry out unnecessary surgery. It doesn’t say that much at all, really.
The list of ‘most requested cosmetic surgeries’ is interesting, though. Many of them are quite easy to justify as genuinely enhancing someone’s wellbeing, such as covering up scarring, and/or extremely simple to do, like mole removal.
The second article includes this figure:
And that is women requesting that surgery, not being given it. That’s a tiny number of women even for requests. The article also mentions that those women will have had to go through their GP and psychologists before they ever get sight of a surgeon.
So no, it’s not true that you can get cosmetic breast enhancements with a minimum of fuss, just by saying ‘doctor, I’m depressed.’
I do think that “it’s better than the American system” is a pretty weak justification for the NHS. We should look to other European systems instead. But we have it drummed into us that the NHS is the best possible system, and to suggest otherwise is heresy. They even have commemorative coins for it. It’s a bit of a millstone round our necks, IMO. We can’t see past the NHS to a better system.
So I guess I’m a (3). Share the costs of healthcare, yes, but I don’t see why the state should actually be involved in running the hospitals itself. Governments are not good at running industries. There’s little motive for them to be efficient.