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Speaking as someone who's had multiple relatives die at the hands of NHS rationing, I completely disagree. In a system where you can't sue your healthcare prov

Speaking as someone who's had multiple relatives die at the hands of NHS rationing, I completely disagree. In a system where you can't sue your healthcare provider for egregious malpractice because they're a governmental body and are thus subject to the same citizen-sues-state rules as law enforcement or any other public service, I fear for the quality of our healthcare.

bengillies 14y ago
Can you explain this please, as I'm pretty sure you can totally sue the NHS if you want to.
- Aaronontheweb 14y ago
  Sure In one instance in the 1970s I had a great uncle who came into a local clinic complaining about crushing chest-pain, and was told to come back the following day because the attending physician was out for the day. He died on the street of a heart attack while walking home. Why he wasn't immediately rushed to a hospital is beyond me. More recently, my grandmother, who died in 2004, was wait listed for over a year to get medical imaging and biopsy performed on what she (correctly) assumed was a tumor on her neck. By the time the scan was performed it was determined that she had metastasized lymphoma and the tumor was plainly visible to anyone who could fog a mirror. She died in hospice within a couple of months of being diagnosed. So what are we to sue for there? Clearly both instances of complete and utter NHS incompetence (and sadly, complacency on the part of my UK relatives) but it's incompetence by omission and rationing, not a doctor embedding a scalpel into someone's tibia. Had either of my relatives lived in the US, they would have had a much better fighting chance at living than they did at the hands of the NHS.
  - lotsofcows 14y ago
    First one sounds odd. What sort of "clinic"? That's not really a word I associate with medicine. Second clearly sounds like a fuck up. Current "wait to first treatment" target is 2 weeks. What happened when you tried to sue?
  - elemeno 14y ago
    Both of your examples are tragic and clearly represent failings of the system - some of which have since been fixed, and at least one of which would likely have happened in the US as well. I hope you'll forgive me if I sound callous in this post - I certainly don't mean to, but I also recognise that this is a touchy subject when talking about someone's own family. In the case of your great-uncle the problem is likely that it was the 70s and fourty years ago there was nowhere near the same awareness of the symptoms of cardiac arrest amongst non-physicians. If the doctor wasn't there, chances are it wouldn't have been picked up on. Even had he been rushed to hospital, his chance of survival would have been pretty low - heart attacks are still a major killer in the 2010s where even in London, which has the highest survival rate in the UK for heart attacks that occur outside a hospital, the survival rate is only 30%. Keep in mind though that survival rates have increased significantly over the last fourty years with advances in diagnostics and treatment as well as improved defibrillators etc. Your grandmother's case is a more clear cut case of failure. Waiting times have long been a problem in the NHS, but it's a matter of resource contention, and it's a problem which they're trying to improve with the guarantee that patients should start treatment within 18 weeks of their first appointment and that tests should be done within six weeks. The only, very rough, numbers I can find for the US suggests that scans and tests are normally done within seven to twenty weeks when cancer is suspected. Even in the US, the problem of resources exists - there's only so many hospitals that can perform certain types of scans, and only so many doctors who are capable of properly interpreting the results. The thing I can't comment on is whether or not the physician who saw your grandmother should have treated it as a higher priority or if, given the symptoms that were presented, it would be reasonable to assume that there was a benign cause and it being cancer was pretty remote possibility. If it's the case that his prognosis was obviously wrong given the symptoms, then there's a case to be made for malpractice, or at least a complaint to the GMC and/or NHS trust.
elemeno 14y ago
> In a system where you can't sue your healthcare provider for egregious malpractice because they're a governmental body and are thus subject to the same citizen-sues-state rules as law enforcement or any other public service, I fear for the quality of our healthcare. That's nonsense, hospitals and NHS Trusts are routinely sued for malpractice, along with the doctors involved. There's nothing special about any part of the NHS that makes it impossible for them to be sued - they're not part of the state, they're just state funded. Hell, you can sue most government bodies in the UK since there's no restrictions on suing the state, only against suing the Crown. It makes your 'multiple relatives' claim seem somewhat suspect.
- Aaronontheweb 14y ago
  Sorry if my comment doesn't please the autistic bias of HN community and greater internet justice. See my response to your sibling comment below.
  - elemeno 14y ago
    It's not about autistic biases for me, at least not when the topic is the NHS. All of my father, uncle, aunt and other-half are doctors all of whom work for, at least in part, the NHS and are respectively an oncologist, dermatologist, GP and ob/gyn. As you might imagine, I spend quite a lot of time listening to them talk about the NHS, their particular trusts and their hospitals and the failings of all the above. All of them would much rather live here where you'll be looked after by the NHS, and can also have private care if you're willing to pay for it (though often the only difference is that you get a nicer room and shorter waits for non-emergency operations), than in the US where the patient is merely the mechanism through which you bill the insurance company.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

bengillies 14y ago

Can you explain this please, as I'm pretty sure you can totally sue the NHS if you want to.

Aaronontheweb 14y ago
Sure In one instance in the 1970s I had a great uncle who came into a local clinic complaining about crushing chest-pain, and was told to come back the following day because the attending physician was out for the day. He died on the street of a heart attack while walking home. Why he wasn't immediately rushed to a hospital is beyond me. More recently, my grandmother, who died in 2004, was wait listed for over a year to get medical imaging and biopsy performed on what she (correctly) assumed was a tumor on her neck. By the time the scan was performed it was determined that she had metastasized lymphoma and the tumor was plainly visible to anyone who could fog a mirror. She died in hospice within a couple of months of being diagnosed. So what are we to sue for there? Clearly both instances of complete and utter NHS incompetence (and sadly, complacency on the part of my UK relatives) but it's incompetence by omission and rationing, not a doctor embedding a scalpel into someone's tibia. Had either of my relatives lived in the US, they would have had a much better fighting chance at living than they did at the hands of the NHS.
- lotsofcows 14y ago
  First one sounds odd. What sort of "clinic"? That's not really a word I associate with medicine. Second clearly sounds like a fuck up. Current "wait to first treatment" target is 2 weeks. What happened when you tried to sue?
- elemeno 14y ago
  Both of your examples are tragic and clearly represent failings of the system - some of which have since been fixed, and at least one of which would likely have happened in the US as well. I hope you'll forgive me if I sound callous in this post - I certainly don't mean to, but I also recognise that this is a touchy subject when talking about someone's own family. In the case of your great-uncle the problem is likely that it was the 70s and fourty years ago there was nowhere near the same awareness of the symptoms of cardiac arrest amongst non-physicians. If the doctor wasn't there, chances are it wouldn't have been picked up on. Even had he been rushed to hospital, his chance of survival would have been pretty low - heart attacks are still a major killer in the 2010s where even in London, which has the highest survival rate in the UK for heart attacks that occur outside a hospital, the survival rate is only 30%. Keep in mind though that survival rates have increased significantly over the last fourty years with advances in diagnostics and treatment as well as improved defibrillators etc. Your grandmother's case is a more clear cut case of failure. Waiting times have long been a problem in the NHS, but it's a matter of resource contention, and it's a problem which they're trying to improve with the guarantee that patients should start treatment within 18 weeks of their first appointment and that tests should be done within six weeks. The only, very rough, numbers I can find for the US suggests that scans and tests are normally done within seven to twenty weeks when cancer is suspected. Even in the US, the problem of resources exists - there's only so many hospitals that can perform certain types of scans, and only so many doctors who are capable of properly interpreting the results. The thing I can't comment on is whether or not the physician who saw your grandmother should have treated it as a higher priority or if, given the symptoms that were presented, it would be reasonable to assume that there was a benign cause and it being cancer was pretty remote possibility. If it's the case that his prognosis was obviously wrong given the symptoms, then there's a case to be made for malpractice, or at least a complaint to the GMC and/or NHS trust.

elemeno 14y ago

> In a system where you can't sue your healthcare provider for egregious malpractice because they're a governmental body and are thus subject to the same citizen-sues-state rules as law enforcement or any other public service, I fear for the quality of our healthcare. That's nonsense, hospitals and NHS Trusts are routinely sued for malpractice, along with the doctors involved. There's nothing special about any part of the NHS that makes it impossible for them to be sued - they're not part of the state, they're just state funded. Hell, you can sue most government bodies in the UK since there's no restrictions on suing the state, only against suing the Crown. It makes your 'multiple relatives' claim seem somewhat suspect.

Aaronontheweb 14y ago
Sorry if my comment doesn't please the autistic bias of HN community and greater internet justice. See my response to your sibling comment below.
- elemeno 14y ago
  It's not about autistic biases for me, at least not when the topic is the NHS. All of my father, uncle, aunt and other-half are doctors all of whom work for, at least in part, the NHS and are respectively an oncologist, dermatologist, GP and ob/gyn. As you might imagine, I spend quite a lot of time listening to them talk about the NHS, their particular trusts and their hospitals and the failings of all the above. All of them would much rather live here where you'll be looked after by the NHS, and can also have private care if you're willing to pay for it (though often the only difference is that you get a nicer room and shorter waits for non-emergency operations), than in the US where the patient is merely the mechanism through which you bill the insurance company.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]