Just spent a couple of hours at the mucular-skeletal department at my local hospital following a referral from my GP. There’s loads of things that are not right about this country, but it’s easy to ignore all the things that are brilliant, and the NHS is one of them.

Quick referral, completely thorough assessment (final diagnosis as yet inconclusive: could be muscular imbalances and associated problems, could be bony impediment, could be osteo-arthritis), initial treatment, exercise programme to go home with, referrals for x-rays and specialist physio treatment.

All provided free, 10 minutes cycle from home, and best of all fantastic staff – happy to talk in detail, answer questions, and be calm, professional, friendly and reassuring.

For those of you who work in the NHS – thanks! You do a great, and all too often undervalued, job.

if it wasnt for the NHS pretty much everyone i know and love would be dead.

It is great, but it ain’t free…

From their own pages: “The 2008/9 budget roughly equates to a contribution of £1,980 for every man, woman and child in the UK.”

That was (in 08/09) about £165 from *everyone* every month. 😮

On the other hand, I dislocated my knee cap in the lake distric last year, should of remained in plaster for 5 days, but had to stay plastered up for over three weeks as the my local hospital did not have a computer link with the one up north and they refused to make an appointment for me to have the cast removed until my notes had arrived via slow mail.

I have to say my recent experiences of the NHS has been mixed 🙁

But I do agree – there are some people doing some pretty amazing stuff.

Andrew – its incredibly good value for money. I’m assuming you are incredibly fortunate and never needed to see your GP or go in to a hospital, in which case you could argue that it has been an expensive deal for you.

Oh hang on, I assume you were born in hospital? That will have certainly cost a few thousand…

I have nothing but praise for the NHS. I think so far in the last 5 years I have probably used more than £30k worth of service, and I am not even an unhealthy person… so I think its great! (thats going to the GP once, braking a finger, braking a wrist, having my son born.

“they refused to make an appointment for me to have the cast removed until my notes had arrived via slow mail.”

That appears very logical. Whats your problem? You could donate a large sum of money to the hospital so they can update their IT systems, or we could all pay more tax, up to you really.

When you’re in the shit, the NHS really does turn it on.

I had a “mystery illness” several years ago that progressed to life threatening. I had loads of tests and medical imaging and eventually granted one-to-one care in ICU. I was out three weeks later.

I’ve sat in A&E for hours of course – but then I didn’t need the urgent care that some other A&E customers that day, needed.

Hurrah for the NHS and all who sail in her.

I was on a conference recently with other managers in my area from around the world, including some US ones. Conversation one night came round to healthcare. I was speechless when I heard how much they pay for healthcare. I’ll admit I’d had a few so I’m struggling a bit now to remember exactly what the figure was but I do recall thinking that it was huge. I’m thinking well over $1k per month for his family (2 adults, 2 kids).

I’ve sat in A&E for hours of course – but then I didn’t need the urgent care that some other A&E customers that day, needed.

I was sat with my mum for almost 5 hours after she had taken a suspected overdose – all very upsetting (she was unable to tell us herself as she was confused and delirious during chemo treatment). I am sure they had prioritised but there was no communication.

My baby daughter was diagnosed type 1 diabetic 3 weeks ago. The care we have had has been wonderful.

When you need them they are there.

My baby daughter was diagnosed type 1 diabetic 3 weeks ago. The care we have had has been wonderful.
When you need them they are there.

Explains your tweets. Gotta be a tough one that. Glad it’s all going well.

As for me, rarely anything but positive to say.

Not cheap that chemo.

A Philipino I work with, pays to take his wife to HongKong every 3 months to have her lymphatic system checked. Philipines, despite their abundance of medical staff, don’t have the facilities available.

My dad was in, diagoned and operated-on and on a course of chemo within what seemed like weeks. My mum has had 2 lumpectomys,a mastectomy, reconstructive surgery and radiotherapy as well as currently taking drugs to supress further cancer.

Both my parents are still alive and certainly wouldn’t be if we lived in Philipines.

@FunkyDunc point taken, and I absolutely support the principle of the NHS and it is one of those things that is absolutely fantastic and I really would not want to live somewhere where personal insurance is the only way you get treatment.

For the majority of people the NHS is apparently ‘free’, yet you never hear people saying ‘Fantastic NHS, well worth the £660 my family* pay each month in insurance’.

This isn’t intended as a political statement, just a fact. I was unaware of the huge NHS budget until I did some work there a few years ago and was exposed to the staggering amount that national healthcare costs. And as technology and drugs improve, and the nation ages, it can only become more expensive (of course, some will say that efficiencies can be made, but the trend IMHO, will be upwards).

Oh, and as a disclaimer my parents and wider family have had so much NHS treatment that I expect any self respecting insurer would refuse to provide cover 😉

*2 adults, 2 children in the average nuclear family.

Andrew the 2010 budget for the NHS was £110bn and yes its growing at an unsustainble level for the reasons you suggest.

The current government is at least having the balls to try and do some thing.. whether the right thing is debateable, however people will start to see that they cant get every thing on the NHS that they have be accustomed to.

It does more with less than other systems – very efficient despite the tory propaganda/ We spend less of our wealth onhealthcare thancomparable countries.

funcky donc – the tory reforms will and are wasting money and reducing efficiency – and they are removing the rational evidence based rationing mechanism – NICE

Don’t fall into the trap of believing the aims of the tory reforms are to increase efficiency – they are not. the aim is to create profits for private companies

http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2011/08/08/surprise-report-nhs-most-efficient-healthcare

Labour’s decision to boost health spending while in office saw it reach a record 9.3% of GDP, but this remained less than in Germany (10.7%) or the US (15%).

Even with spending at such a low level, UK health performance was far more effective than that for other comparable European countries.

T&J I’m not the pro tory stance at all, I’m seeing it from the inside and seeing how not much is changing apart from cost being re distribute about and services being cut. Privatisation has been slipping in to the NHS over the last decade or 2, on the whole I dont think its a good thing, but Labour are just as nearly pro private input as the tories.

Ahem – steering this slightly back towards the positive and away from the politics (not that budgets / cuts etc aren’t important!)

Another big, appreciative thanks to Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital – treated my brother from birth til he was 19 (when they could no longer smuggle him in as a child 🙂 ). Without them he would have died at a very young age, and now he’s still with us at 39, and (as he constantly mentions), has won a gold medal in the Special Olympics for cycling. Without the NHS, there is no way my family could have afforded the specialist care and expert consultants that he needed, and it is unlikely any insurance would have covered it without exorbitant premiums.

So, yes, the NHS gets my full support, even if it does require substantial budgets and isn’t always perfect.

as brit now living in Switzerland, it’s interesting to compare the two systems. one fuly private and VERY expensive, and the NHS. Had lot’s of experiences of both (births, adult breakages, kids injuries, tests, you know, that kind of stuff).

Overall, boils down to 2 things:
1) Here in CH, quality of each individual intervention is exceptionally good. Really, amazing. Helicopters, machines that go “ping”, the whole nine yards
2) NHS – quality of overall ‘healthcare’ is second to none.

You always get the feeling here that each intervention is done not because neccesary, but because they cna charge insurance for it and hence make more money, and they don’t really give a hoot about you.

Im the UK, when it is good, and it can be very very good, choices are made more from overall healthcare of the patient and his/her long term health. A very interesting and holistic approach, and when you get the chance to see it fomr the outside it makes the whole early vision (was it Bevan, sorry can’t remember) and execution truly amazing. Stunning.

Now, if I was to ask about measures/KPIs and general management of healthcare, I may get a bit ranty about deficiencies in UK. Sorry!

Really interesting to see 2 sides though.

Kev

Couldn’t agree more – NHS is a national treasure. I would not claim it’s perfect, and clearly in these financialy challlenging times they struggle from time to time. But in the majority of cases, if you’re broken they fix you and it’s basically free at the time.

I have also tried out the alternative – in my case in the USA. Whilst the facilities were nicer, and the staff a bit less stressed, I spent about one man day a month on paperwork to chase all the insurance payments and the bills were eye watering. We had two kids born over there and it was about $20k each.

All things considered I came down firmly on the side of NHS as the overall best solution. Not perfect – but often very good indeed.

same experience as big_scot_nanny except i’m in germany.

there is no government helthcare here. the government will pay a private insurer so that you are covered, but that is only if you’re on the dole or recieving other form of benefit.

if you are employed and earning over 400€/month you pay 15.5% of your wages into the public (but in reality private) system.

if you are self-employed you pay 14.9%.

if you go private-private you can get a better deal. i pay 128€/month for basic coverage and with a yearly excess of 600€ for any treatment i
i may recieve.

my insurance doesn’t include rescue costs….. that i’ve got covered through my membership of the german alpine club.

if i were paying into the public (private) system i’d be paying over 650€/month.

compare that to the £40 NI/month i was paying as a self-employed chippy in the UK for “free-at-the-point-of-care” treatment and pension contribution.

yes there may be sections of the NHS that spunk money away, but be (VERY) grateful that you live somewhere where – if need be – you’ll be helicoptered off a hill and taken directly to hospital.

Blimus – I thought most of Western Europe had an NHS-style system. Didn’t realise that in Germany and Switzerland (and others?), it is effectively private healthcare. And based on the comments from those that have experienced both, the NHS / public healthcare system wins hands down over private.