You don't really need more stories about the NHS, save to say that there's the local tug of war already mentioned between villification by those who say it isn't fit for purpose (who also tend to underfund it to encourage it to be 'leaner and more efficient') and those that say that they will keep it going to do its good work, but may back down on funding commitmemts when push comes to shove. These may even be the same people at different points in tne political cycle. (Interestingly, and honestly not my intention to bring this up but it is so apt, there was the NHS £350m Brexit promise/let-down which shows just how politicians tend to show how they think their bread is buttered by the public.)
My own last healthcare incident (apart from routine dentristry which for me is 'essentially' Private, in comparison to everything else, but then there's a whole different vibe to it than the fabled Simpsonian 'Dental Plan!' that USians seem to be obsessed with - and free treatment is available for many) sounds like a bit of a disaster... I tripped on a kerbstone and gashed my leg a bit, I discovered on returning home. Self-treated with the largest plaster I had at home, but it was an awkward wound that wouldn't close because of the stresses in the skin whenever I even tried to limp.
My last visit to my GP (~10 years ago?) had me discovering that 'emergency' appointments needed to be booked before 8:30am (some bullshit governmental directive requiring the availability of emergency appointments had made them a commodity to be booked on the day, rather than letting the GP decide upon fitting a quick triage between booked-in-advance appointments that might not even show up), so I hobbled in at 8:15 (rather than phone, because I thought it would help and I was only a couple of hundred yards away) to be told that there were no Practice Nurses in that morning (surgery has a half-dozen doctors listed as resident - not even sure which is 'mine' - but no idea if they were all there to be busy doctoring) and the receptionist suggested A&E for nursing (half a mile further away) rather than pharmacy (50 yards) for better personal dressing. (Receptionist probably playing safe. Pharmacists trained more than her and would be better placed as to whether they couldn't help, but she doesn't want to be liable for insufficiently urgent advice.)
Limp to A&E and it takes maybe quarter of an hour to be seen by their receptionist, half an hour to be seen by Triage Nurse who cleans up a bit as part of the checking of the wound before I wait ¾hr to be sent to the proper 'dressing' area. (Am offered prescription for painkillers, but it really does not hurt.)
That's in a busy mid-morning A&E department, with obvious emergency emergencies being dealt with on fast-track, whilst my injury wasn't urgent at all (IMO). By the standards of my prior A&E visit (late night/early morning) had I attended immediately after the accident, the non-emergency (but fresher) wound might have had me sitting in the A&E seating for eight hours as (first) clearly life-threatenng incidents were being dealt with and then the skeleton staff did what they could (ironically, for a skeleton staff, does not include non-emergency X-rays..!) until the proper morning shift of scanner operators, etc, came in so that injury could be moe fully assessed.
Though inconvenient in both cases (and, especially in the latter, frankly boring), the staff were brilliant. I did think in my overnighter that another non-emergency emergency was slightly more of an emergency than me, even though I got dealt with first (but it was a different medical issue, and the morning specialist for mine might have gotten in the door ahead of theirs) and no member of staff was clicking their heels (or indeed 'heals'), and no actually needy patient was left on the proverbial corridor trolley, that I could see.
This was all free at the point of use (my electronic records were brought up by the A&E receptionist - if I had been a health tourist without even a faked local cover-story then I would have been treated anyway and an attempt to bill me could have been made), it is not a case that I dare not for treatment fof fear of costs (I tend to not bother the NHS because I rarely get anything that I consider needs treatment) and I am confident that if I do need it, it is there for me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52.1789286 weeks a year...
The problems are that government support is (especially at the moment) accompanied by government interventions. When half of all hospitals are assessed as 'below average' (duh!1), they tend to be hit by an influx of middle-manager administration and/or top-level executives who (in the most notable examples) end up making things worse overall.
(Not that we ever hear of improvements. They're not considered newsworthy by whoever it is is currently trying to scord points.)
Compare and contrast with my (limited) knowledge of other hospital systems, it's no shining light of socialist heaven, but the US aquaintence of mine who wouldn't go to seek medical assistance, a decade or more back, for a nose-bleed that wasn't stopping, for fear of racking up charges he couldn't afford... (In contrast, I've had both emergency and non-emergency treatment for habitual nosebleeds, when I was younger, and had my nose cauterised three times in total, which is a mixed message, I know, but I think is a good thing on balance.)
1 Worse statistical asshattery is used. With multiple different metrics applied to each establishment, a low-blip in heart health outcomes can smear a unit with good overall paediactrics results, or vice-versa, which is plain dishonest.
Author
Topic: Your national healthcare system (Read 8401 times)