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It's hard to understand how people view the NHS. Some people claim it's the national treasure, but how does that work if service is as abysmal as what you descr

by stef25 2y ago

It's hard to understand how people view the NHS. Some people claim it's the national treasure, but how does that work if service is as abysmal as what you describe ?

fidotron 2y ago
The local variation is incredible. Where I am from the village health services act as gatekeepers for the more central services. Just in my direct circles I know of several situations where the central services gave the village services an earful for failing to refer people faster, in at least one case directly leading to death. Those central services also seem to get further away every few years.
cja 2y ago
It's the national religion.
whywhywhywhy 2y ago
It's because the experience you get is completely random and heavily weighted towards the fatal. If you show up with something life threatening they're actually pretty good. But your experience of non-life threatening can be anything from good, to indifference/boredom to aggressive dismissal. This also applies to things that could be markers of something fatal, analogy would be they do little when smoke is coming out from under the door but do jump into action when the flames are coming out from under the door. Most of the interactions start on off the foot that you're assumed to be a timewaster too. Keep begging my parents to just go private because I don't like trusting their lives to the random chance they have a good doctor when I can instead have one incentivized by their continued existence.
- otoburb 2y ago
  Your description of the NHS sounds exactly like the Canadian healthcare system. >>Keep begging my parents to just go private [...] Except for this difference as we don't have the option to choose private care except for a out-patient services (e.g. physical therapy) and certain drugs & therapies. I'm speaking primarily about Ontario and British Columbia, but I think the other provinces and territories are similar. Hospitals, diagnostic services and physicians are all funded by public taxpayer dollars at both the provincial and federal level, but it is indeed a single healthcare system.
  - SpecialistK 2y ago
    It's the case nationwide in Canada due to rules in the Canada Health Act: if a service is provided by provincial governments (so MSP in BC or OHIP in ON) then it cannot be offered privately. There have been some workaround attempts in BC (such as the Cambie Surgery Centre, which lost a court case recently-ish) and AB's recent move to give contracts to Catholic health care providers, but the only true "private" option in Canada is the airport. I could go on about this at length and how it makes me a pariah amongst a flood of anti-American conspiracy theories, but this is a thread about the UK (of which I'm also a citizen) so I'll resist.
- 76SlashDolphin 2y ago
  The issue is that underfunding the NHS has become so bad that even very serious cases can't be handled appropriately. I know it's an anecdote, but I've had a fairly bad experience recently after a serious bike incident in the middle of a workday, and they took over an hour to send an ambulance, about an hour to be checked, and over 7 hours in the Royal Hospital waiting for treatment. Legitimately was a worse and slower service than I would have had at my grandparents' place in Eastern Europe, it's a disgrace. It still makes me angry that it's the experience I get after paying 1000s of £ in NHS contributions.
thorin 2y ago
Main problem with systems outside the NHS and I'm really talking about the US here is if you have a major accident or a terminal illness you can easily be bankrupted if you make a wrong decision around insurance and that's not cool. I see far too many GoFundMe's for people with illnesses in the states and that is no way to run a country.
zelos 2y ago
Everyone loves the NHS in an abstract sense, but mostly if you ask them, they'll have stories about how terrible actually being treated by the NHS is.
regularfry 2y ago
a) it hasn't always been bad (although it has always been a right-wing punching-bag); b) it has the potential to be a lot better than it currently is; c) a lot of the people actually in it care desperately about seeing that happen, and because of its size that's a surprising proportion of the population.

by stef25 2y ago

It's hard to understand how people view the NHS. Some people claim it's the national treasure, but how does that work if service is as abysmal as what you describe ?

fidotron 2y ago

The local variation is incredible. Where I am from the village health services act as gatekeepers for the more central services. Just in my direct circles I know of several situations where the central services gave the village services an earful for failing to refer people faster, in at least one case directly leading to death. Those central services also seem to get further away every few years.

cja 2y ago

It's the national religion.

whywhywhywhy 2y ago

It's because the experience you get is completely random and heavily weighted towards the fatal. If you show up with something life threatening they're actually pretty good. But your experience of non-life threatening can be anything from good, to indifference/boredom to aggressive dismissal. This also applies to things that could be markers of something fatal, analogy would be they do little when smoke is coming out from under the door but do jump into action when the flames are coming out from under the door. Most of the interactions start on off the foot that you're assumed to be a timewaster too. Keep begging my parents to just go private because I don't like trusting their lives to the random chance they have a good doctor when I can instead have one incentivized by their continued existence.

otoburb 2y ago
Your description of the NHS sounds exactly like the Canadian healthcare system. >>Keep begging my parents to just go private [...] Except for this difference as we don't have the option to choose private care except for a out-patient services (e.g. physical therapy) and certain drugs & therapies. I'm speaking primarily about Ontario and British Columbia, but I think the other provinces and territories are similar. Hospitals, diagnostic services and physicians are all funded by public taxpayer dollars at both the provincial and federal level, but it is indeed a single healthcare system.
- SpecialistK 2y ago
  It's the case nationwide in Canada due to rules in the Canada Health Act: if a service is provided by provincial governments (so MSP in BC or OHIP in ON) then it cannot be offered privately. There have been some workaround attempts in BC (such as the Cambie Surgery Centre, which lost a court case recently-ish) and AB's recent move to give contracts to Catholic health care providers, but the only true "private" option in Canada is the airport. I could go on about this at length and how it makes me a pariah amongst a flood of anti-American conspiracy theories, but this is a thread about the UK (of which I'm also a citizen) so I'll resist.
76SlashDolphin 2y ago
The issue is that underfunding the NHS has become so bad that even very serious cases can't be handled appropriately. I know it's an anecdote, but I've had a fairly bad experience recently after a serious bike incident in the middle of a workday, and they took over an hour to send an ambulance, about an hour to be checked, and over 7 hours in the Royal Hospital waiting for treatment. Legitimately was a worse and slower service than I would have had at my grandparents' place in Eastern Europe, it's a disgrace. It still makes me angry that it's the experience I get after paying 1000s of £ in NHS contributions.

thorin 2y ago

Main problem with systems outside the NHS and I'm really talking about the US here is if you have a major accident or a terminal illness you can easily be bankrupted if you make a wrong decision around insurance and that's not cool. I see far too many GoFundMe's for people with illnesses in the states and that is no way to run a country.

zelos 2y ago

Everyone loves the NHS in an abstract sense, but mostly if you ask them, they'll have stories about how terrible actually being treated by the NHS is.

regularfry 2y ago

a) it hasn't always been bad (although it has always been a right-wing punching-bag); b) it has the potential to be a lot better than it currently is; c) a lot of the people actually in it care desperately about seeing that happen, and because of its size that's a surprising proportion of the population.