Doggard
Site Supporter
Totally agree, I come here for everything pinball, not politics or world issues, we have twitter/ x for that
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NHS - Beware
- Thread starter DRD
- Start date
As I care for you peeps on here, I think it is more nuanced than merely buying private healthcare in the UK.
The entire UK health service is based around the NHS. So when 18 yr olds with fantastic grades train to be doctors, they do so in the NHS. Normal standards for these 18 yr olds are folk waiting in corridors and or months/ years to see consultants.
When these NHS trained Drs work privately it is often after a career in the NHS, operating to these corridor/ months/ years standards.
I have required casualty services in France, South Africa and the UK. I was seen within 5 mins in both France (skiing crash) and South Africa (allergic reaction, twisted ankle).
For scheduled UK private stuff, your private consultant may have done a full NHS shift that day, you are then seen between 5.30pm and 9.00pm in a sub scale hospital that maybe can't offer A&E if it goes wrong.
It may be better in London and the SE, but in the Midlands/ North it is
See GP, wait
Get referral letter, wait
See private consultant, get scan referral, wait
Have scan another day, wait
See private consultant again
My wife has elective surgery in South Africa. When the UK health service shut down for covid she was given a skin cancer consultation with a NHS consultant BY PHONE. So she flew to SA and was immediately seen, had surgery requiring general anaesthetic within days.
SA private care is about one third of the cost of UK private care. It is delivered in a full service hospital, with scanners, A and E, Intensive Care etc etc
I needed an elective MRI scan. In SA you can call the consultant direct before you have ever met them or paid a penny. I saw mine, he referred me for a scan, it was done in that hospital, I saw him again. All done in one morning with no GP referral required.
I'm only trying to help the community, as not everyone has experienced health care overseas, so might not realise the difference.
For the price of a machine you'd get great care in SA and the money saved would buy you a safari in Kruger Park.
The entire UK health service is based around the NHS. So when 18 yr olds with fantastic grades train to be doctors, they do so in the NHS. Normal standards for these 18 yr olds are folk waiting in corridors and or months/ years to see consultants.
When these NHS trained Drs work privately it is often after a career in the NHS, operating to these corridor/ months/ years standards.
I have required casualty services in France, South Africa and the UK. I was seen within 5 mins in both France (skiing crash) and South Africa (allergic reaction, twisted ankle).
For scheduled UK private stuff, your private consultant may have done a full NHS shift that day, you are then seen between 5.30pm and 9.00pm in a sub scale hospital that maybe can't offer A&E if it goes wrong.
It may be better in London and the SE, but in the Midlands/ North it is
See GP, wait
Get referral letter, wait
See private consultant, get scan referral, wait
Have scan another day, wait
See private consultant again
My wife has elective surgery in South Africa. When the UK health service shut down for covid she was given a skin cancer consultation with a NHS consultant BY PHONE. So she flew to SA and was immediately seen, had surgery requiring general anaesthetic within days.
SA private care is about one third of the cost of UK private care. It is delivered in a full service hospital, with scanners, A and E, Intensive Care etc etc
I needed an elective MRI scan. In SA you can call the consultant direct before you have ever met them or paid a penny. I saw mine, he referred me for a scan, it was done in that hospital, I saw him again. All done in one morning with no GP referral required.
I'm only trying to help the community, as not everyone has experienced health care overseas, so might not realise the difference.
For the price of a machine you'd get great care in SA and the money saved would buy you a safari in Kruger Park.
I have found Pinballinfo a uniquely useful source of knowledge over and above Pinball. A random assortment of folk, dotted all over the UK, many of whom have never met. Many of whom have the knowledge/ skill to maintain 30 year old 3d electromechanical jigsaws.
There is a valuable cohort of smart, enterprising, doer-type folk on here that know a lot of stuff.
I have found fascinating material on here like where to buy a kitchen, electricity deals, where to emigrate, heating systems, building products, investments, lighting, home electrics ......
The forum has non Pinball categories. I respectfully suggest that if you don't want to read a discussion about the NHS, don't open a thread entitled NHS.
There is a valuable cohort of smart, enterprising, doer-type folk on here that know a lot of stuff.
I have found fascinating material on here like where to buy a kitchen, electricity deals, where to emigrate, heating systems, building products, investments, lighting, home electrics ......
The forum has non Pinball categories. I respectfully suggest that if you don't want to read a discussion about the NHS, don't open a thread entitled NHS.
There's no such thing as a private A&E. Private healthcare is great if you need a planned operation. Not so much if you have a heart attack or are in a car crash
FWIW I'm in a senior nursing post within the NHS so will defend our service to the hilt. The NHS issues aren't down to the people working in it. It's down to many years of underinvestment, not just in mainstream healthcare, but in social care, primary care and all the other things that keep people out of hospital in the first place. Look at the NHS waiting times and attendance numbers 15 years ago compared with now.
"Doing more with less" only goes so data before things stop working. Ask anyone in the police, teaching, working in universities, fire fighters, paramedics etc.
"Doing more with less" only goes so data before things stop working. Ask anyone in the police, teaching, working in universities, fire fighters, paramedics etc.
Yeah we know
If only there weren't so many ill people about.
The World has a huge problem. We have rivers of cash streaming up to the mega rich top 0.1% who keep it that way by schmoozing the top 1% who in turn pay the top 10% to keep the status quo.
Meanwhile we have tight money supply in everyday life, our national economy, our local councils and public services. UK is basically bankrupt - just look at our debt & GDP.
(I could rant all night.....but hey - got some Pulp Fiction to play).
The World has a huge problem. We have rivers of cash streaming up to the mega rich top 0.1% who keep it that way by schmoozing the top 1% who in turn pay the top 10% to keep the status quo.
Meanwhile we have tight money supply in everyday life, our national economy, our local councils and public services. UK is basically bankrupt - just look at our debt & GDP.
(I could rant all night.....but hey - got some Pulp Fiction to play).
Asiapinball
Site Supporter
Darzi report came out in September but went largely unreported in the press and seems hardly referred to by politicians. The most technical open and balanced report that I have seen. Certainly worth a read if you really want to know what the NHS challenges are and how they might be fixed.
Big food conglomerates and fast food giants have made us ill.
Darzi report came out in September but went largely unreported in the press and seems hardly referred to by politicians. The most technical open and balanced report that I have seen. Certainly worth a read if you really want to know what the NHS challenges are and how they might be fixed.
Big tech are overcharging for their products and services.
Big pharmaceutical are pushing the wrong drugs and are overcharging us and health services worldwide.
All of the above are avoiding paying the appropriate corporation tax in the countries where they make sales, through the use of corporate entities in other countries/states/principalities/overseas territories, etc.
Successive governments the world over have failed and ignore this issue. Look at the business that occurs in uks overseas territories- British Virgin Islsnds, Isle of Man, guernsey, etc. they all exist solely for tax exploitation - they could be closed off but there are hidden strings constantly being pulled to keep this dirty business under the radar. Politicians are transient puppets. The real power is hidden in the background and works through the “establishment”.
Even if those territories were closed down, the global companies just move their profit on paper to a country who offers the lowest tax rate / highest tax breaks. it’s a huge problem and seems impossible to solve.
You are joking, right? The NHS has never had so much money. If you've got money to hire DEI officers and climate change officers in the NHS, you've got too much money. There is never anyone in the NHS accountable for its failing. The government always gets blamed. I personally would cut funding to the NHS and privatise as much as we can. I've used private healthcare all my life and never been turned away due to a strike. The cult of the NHS needs to end.
This is partially true, our independence goes back hundreds of years, it could be argued the UK has driven businesses away with decades of tax rises, we of course have welcomed them.
It would surprise you who benefits from it, one celeb was on telly banging on about tax avoidance, a mate of mine had opened an account for him that same week
Edit:
I will say this, I'm quite proud to have never worked in the sector, I consider the whole thing a bit grubby, but important people like the status quo, somewhere low tax, within the British Isles, while distancing themselves.
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I suspect that the NHS is representative of large swathes of the UK. There is an absolutely vast civil servant/ bureaucratic class being paid at the expense of the actual doers.
A friend died just before Xmas aged 52. She left school at 16 and ended up in senior NHS management. Her sister has a similar job in the NHS. The sister's husband is with a Big 4 consultancy that supplies the NHS. All three of them were/ are good earners in £50k plus cars, 5 star USA holidays etc. Not one has any clinical training.
If you work in the private sector you are possibly (I am certainly) inundated with ever more rules and compliance. So even though you don't have this bureaucratic class on your payroll, they are on the government's payroll and represent a double whammy on your profitability.
It would be very interesting to see how the proportion of spend between NHS clinicians and NHS others has changed over time.
Trump/ Musk are targeting this bureaucratic class for cuts at the moment in the USA, which is entirely at odds with what the EU and UK are doing.
A friend died just before Xmas aged 52. She left school at 16 and ended up in senior NHS management. Her sister has a similar job in the NHS. The sister's husband is with a Big 4 consultancy that supplies the NHS. All three of them were/ are good earners in £50k plus cars, 5 star USA holidays etc. Not one has any clinical training.
If you work in the private sector you are possibly (I am certainly) inundated with ever more rules and compliance. So even though you don't have this bureaucratic class on your payroll, they are on the government's payroll and represent a double whammy on your profitability.
It would be very interesting to see how the proportion of spend between NHS clinicians and NHS others has changed over time.
Trump/ Musk are targeting this bureaucratic class for cuts at the moment in the USA, which is entirely at odds with what the EU and UK are doing.
Asiapinball
Site Supporter
@DRD Read the Darzi report if you really want the facts.
There is a huge amount of information in there and is focussed on the facts and not press or political spin (although Darzi is an avid Labour supporter but IMO he seems to have done a great job on remaining independent on this matter). Much better than anecdotal evidence or what the press or politicians want us to believe.
Did this a year ago.
The more people you have in a country the more people are going to get sick. The numbers of people arriving in the country are a factor and as everyone is welcome, it's therfore not unreasonable to see more strain put on all resources.
The Darzi report "facts" are based upon figures, I believe some of those figures to be incorrectly achieved.
I wouldn't trust either party to tell us the truth, just spin it for their own ends.
The Darzi report "facts" are based upon figures, I believe some of those figures to be incorrectly achieved.
I wouldn't trust either party to tell us the truth, just spin it for their own ends.
Private healthcare just ends up benefitting the rich. Like any other privatisation effort tbh. I come from Switzerland where compulsory private healthcare insurance costs over 300 per adult per month, whether you're employed or not. So a family of 4 is looking at 10k+ per year. It's the second cause of people going into debt, after tax bills, and a constant political debate topic just like here. Low incomes get subsidies but high incomes don't pay more, so a household on e.g. 400k is laughing. The premiums go up every year and the hospitals and insurance companies are incentivised to make costs go up. The losers are the middle class, once again.
Healthcare is just ridiculously expensive these days. Especially when we must keep people alive for as long as possible (well into their 90s), at any cost.
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Private healthcare benefits the poor not rich because someone like me pays for a service I don't use therefore not putting a greater burden on the service. I pay for other people to use the NHS even though I don't.
So the rich stay healthy and the poor die? Which is literally what happens in America.
So how does that work if we scrap the NHS and make everyone pay for healthcare? You haven't thought this one through have you....
Surely there are more than 2 options here
1. Pure socialised healthcare where it is given to all and rationed by capacity as in the UK
2. Credit card healthcare like USA where you bleed out
The BBC Question time type debate in the UK has been reduced to this for years when there are a whole spectrum of options between these two extremes.
I played cricket with an Australian in the UK. I asked him what the fuk he was doing here when so many Brits yearned to move to Australia. He said that his wife was English. She gave birth in Australia but the child had a very unusual condition, like 1 in 100,000. In Australia the cost of care has very high so they moved to the UK solely for this reason.
I heard again and again on Question time it was NHS or bleed out. Told there were no health tourists in the UK. There was one in my village cricket team.
It's a shame that we can't get the politics out of this. But with unions and the sheer enormity of the largest public sector employer - that seems unlikely
1. Pure socialised healthcare where it is given to all and rationed by capacity as in the UK
2. Credit card healthcare like USA where you bleed out
The BBC Question time type debate in the UK has been reduced to this for years when there are a whole spectrum of options between these two extremes.
I played cricket with an Australian in the UK. I asked him what the fuk he was doing here when so many Brits yearned to move to Australia. He said that his wife was English. She gave birth in Australia but the child had a very unusual condition, like 1 in 100,000. In Australia the cost of care has very high so they moved to the UK solely for this reason.
I heard again and again on Question time it was NHS or bleed out. Told there were no health tourists in the UK. There was one in my village cricket team.
It's a shame that we can't get the politics out of this. But with unions and the sheer enormity of the largest public sector employer - that seems unlikely
Without unions you'd have even less nurses and staff in the NHS. The pay rises have been pitiful but luckily enough to keep some in the NHS.
Nursing and other grades in the NHS need to be made more attractive and it seems pay is the main issue. Without the unions the pay would have stagnated even more.
How much do they get?There are some people that think postgrad nurses are overpaid
All the UK's problems have one single cause, overpriced housing, remove that barrier and vocational essential jobs become easier to fill at less expense to the public, not to mention doing away with tax credits subsidising Amazon etc.
As for the NHS, charge £50 for a doctors visit and £5 prescription so its only used by those that really need it.
As for the NHS, charge £50 for a doctors visit and £5 prescription so its only used by those that really need it.
That response doesn't even make sense. And you say I haven't thought it through. Funny
My dad had a stroke - he was sat on the sofa and couldn't speak or move one side of his body. My mother (for fear of my father, who was in fear of hospital during lockdown, which ironically was completely empty the entire time) didn't do anything about this because he told her not to, but she rang me and I rang 999 for an ambulance. I was informed I'd immediately get a call back from a doctor.
10 minutes later I get a call back from a doctor and he said 'Have symptoms ended? Okay, well if it happens again call for an ambulance'. I just hung up. The NHS is compromised and it doesn't deserve protection on the basis that 'it provides healthcare', lots of healthcare providers provide healthcare and haven't become the liability the NHS has. It isn't it's fault, it's just what has happened.
My parents are on BUPA now. I joined BUPA the moment they recommended COVID jabs to pregnant women and began gaslighting my pregnant wife, despite 15 months prior (during her previous pregnancy) suggesting she not even take paracetamol/ibuprofen for pneumonia (which was probably undiagnosed COVID in the January before the outbreak). The day the policy towards unborn children changed from a zero tolerance policy of 'nope' towards over the counter medicine to 'this is fine' towards COVID jabs. No thanks.
Sell a pin or two and go private. It's not as expensive as you'd think.
They're overpriced because we opted to replenish the economy with immigration versus natalism, otherwise known as running a functioning society. That would require the neccessities of life such as affordable housing, availability of housing, availability of good education, suitability of education, sufficient planning of education and the economy to ensure the maximum amount of employment etc. Immigration requires none of these. It costs the government nothing other than artificially growing the population, driving down wages, driving up house prices and declining the existing population. It's a cheap price to pay when you can get away with it.
10 minutes later I get a call back from a doctor and he said 'Have symptoms ended? Okay, well if it happens again call for an ambulance'. I just hung up. The NHS is compromised and it doesn't deserve protection on the basis that 'it provides healthcare', lots of healthcare providers provide healthcare and haven't become the liability the NHS has. It isn't it's fault, it's just what has happened.
My parents are on BUPA now. I joined BUPA the moment they recommended COVID jabs to pregnant women and began gaslighting my pregnant wife, despite 15 months prior (during her previous pregnancy) suggesting she not even take paracetamol/ibuprofen for pneumonia (which was probably undiagnosed COVID in the January before the outbreak). The day the policy towards unborn children changed from a zero tolerance policy of 'nope' towards over the counter medicine to 'this is fine' towards COVID jabs. No thanks.
Sell a pin or two and go private. It's not as expensive as you'd think.
They're overpriced because we opted to replenish the economy with immigration versus natalism, otherwise known as running a functioning society. That would require the neccessities of life such as affordable housing, availability of housing, availability of good education, suitability of education, sufficient planning of education and the economy to ensure the maximum amount of employment etc. Immigration requires none of these. It costs the government nothing other than artificially growing the population, driving down wages, driving up house prices and declining the existing population. It's a cheap price to pay when you can get away with it.
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How expensive will that private healthcare be when you're 75, 80, 85? When you need it most? This is the ticking time bomb we have . Everyone working age who has BUPA not caring that the NHS has been ruined because they think they don't need it . But they will one day
I have the luxury of knowing the country will collapse long before I'm 85.