The NHS

[sazzyb]

The UK has the best healthcare in the world, according to a league table of 11 of the world's wealthiest countries.

Cost, efficiency and access to healthcare in Britain put it at the top. The US came last!

urban75.net/forums/threads/...

independent.co.uk/news/uk/u...

[Hidden]

Well there's lies, there's damn lies, and there's statistics ......!

Even allowing for a levothyroxine-induced jaundiced view of the NHS, I cannot believe we scored 1's in so many areas when compared with the Netherlands or Switzerland etc.

[Angel_of_the_North]

Other countries' expectations may be higher ...

[marram]

So why, why, oh why do successive governments want to to make the NHS into a copy of the U.S. Healthcare system?

[Clutter]

I believe NHS has always been excellent for emergency and trauma but not very good at dealing with chronic conditions. GPs have allowed themselves to be hobbled by guidelines instead of using clinical skills and trusting their gut instincts. Until and unless the shortage of GPs is addressed I doubt this will improve.

[sazzyb in reply to Clutter]

Spot on Clutter, they're certainly great in an emergency.

[Hidden]

My husband has chronic renal failure and they are SUPERB at dealing with his condition. I find the difficulty for some conditions is getting to the right person - often it seems there is a gateway system that means going through a number of appointments with different people before being referred to someone who can assess the whole body issues and give information and advice from that perspective - I have found that situation with the mental health services and also the muscular-skeletal service. Once I got to someone higher up and experienced then within both services the quality of the assessment and information and advice was excellent.

[Hidden]

I am appalled by the subtle and sometimes not so subtle privatisation of the NHS that is going on - for example I went to the local weight management service yesterday (the dieticians) and was told that the service is being taken over by a private company set up by a group of GPs. They are doing that work privately - presumably as a private company they will be making a profit. I thought GPs were supposed to be so overworked that they couldn't even manage their jobs but it seems they have enough time and energy left after doing their full time work to set up and manage a private company for profit! I am also appalled by the bonuses health authority managers have been getting - I know of one who got £50,000 bonus a year for a number of years despite the fact that the trust in question was failing to meet financial targets due to shortage of funds. Public money seems to be providing jobs for the boys yet again. I would like to see the NHS back into fully public hands and being respected for that. Most workers within the NHS (including the highly paid managers) do their best and do a good job but selling off bits is undermining the quality of care for patients.

[Hidden]

Spot on secondhandrose. Most people are oblivious.

[Gsp177]

Most GP's I know of are part timers, I think until GP's are held responsible and a new system is put in place in which GP's are paid on results then it'll continue to fall apart. My impression of GP's are a lot of them are willing to just turn up for their pay cheque. GP's must be in one of only a handful of careers where you get paid for failing, where is the incentive to do well??? Being self employed I wouldn't get paid if I did a bad job and I wouldn't have any customers.

Not sure what other surgery's are like but my NHS GP's surgery's is actually a private enterprise, run as a business with partners, they call that NHS......? You can't run the NHS like that IMO. From what I can work out, They get the benefits of being with the NHS but at the same time if they save money it goes into their pockets. My surgery won't even send you for an x ray I wonder why £££££££££

How can anyone be treated within 10mins, in that time GP's spend most time looking at a computer screen and not the patient. To book an appointment takes about 3 weeks.....! They call that progress....!

I'm thinking about going to a private surgery, someone I know goes to one, you pay about £400 a year depending on age, can see a doctor on the day and visit as many times as you like and an usual appointment lasts for 40mins.

[crimple in reply to Gsp177]

your GP surgery sounds like mine. I would be interested in private GP, whereabouts are you?

[Hidden in reply to Gsp177]

gsp177. Unless things have changed since my tenure on the Board of a Health Authority came to an end a few years ago, GPs are self employed contractors. However, calling them that is where the similarity between me, a self-employed person, and Drs as self-employed persons, starts and ends. In addition to their "contract fees", if I might call it that, they receive extra incentives ie per capita monies to do work which anyone in the 1950's & 60's would have recognised as the bread and butter work of a Dr. Then, even though they are self employed, they are given public money to train staff, install IT systems, renovate their premises etc etc etc. As a self employed person I receive no public funding for any of those things .......

Drs should be employed by the NHS and salaried, then perhaps they could stop holding the country to random.