Have I said lately...I REALLY love NHS

My GP's surgery is next door to my flat, and I can always get an appointment the same day.

Need I say more?

Similar here.  Mine is a very short walk around the corner & I can generally get an appointment within a day or two.

Everything is so simple and straight forward. I went today to get my refill prescription for my birth control pills. They had it already. Then I love taking it to the pharmacy and getting them free. I thought it was just great for my preventative care stuff, but my nephew has bronchitis. My brother-in-law took him to the hospital a couple of nights ago. They admitted him right away. My kids never got that kind of care in the US. So far...I LOVE the NHS.

Its not free, you pay for health insurance with taxes.  Just wait til you have a chronic condition and need to see a specialist that has a six month waiting list. 

Its great everyone has access to health care, but its not perfect at all.  Not that anything is perfect.  I miss my Blue Cross/Blue Shield...sighs

I have no NHS complains... but in a year I haven't had to access it (knock on wood)

My sickly kiddies on the other hand... I hear mixed stories all the time... from the MRSA ridden hospital that gave them top notch care from the moment the family stepped into the hospital, GPs giving flu jabs the same day of recommendation to outrageous waiting lists for desperately needed service or worse yet no qualified respite nurses but rather poorly/hands on trained carers.

For an "integrated children's service," social care, health and education aren't very integrated when it comes to passing blame or ownership. 

I think that every form of healthcare has its ups and downs.  I have no doubt that if I lived in the US right now I would not be able to afford insurance, so I would be in serious trouble if I got ill.  The main problem with the NHS now seems to be that the huge amounts of money being ploughed into it is going to the wrong parts of the system.  In other words, millions of pounds is being spent on managers, management consultants, feasability studies, new hospitals being build under wasteful PFI schemes....and not enough is going into paying doctors and nurses enough money, or employing enough of them so that they can work effectively and get breaks when they need them.

Vicky

I'm quite happy with the NHS, apart from a few odd incidents.  Our GP's surgery is also right around the corner and particularly for the children they nearly always see us that day.

I did find it interesting in Cornwall at the local "casualty" at night.  The sign said "Ring the bell once for non emergency treatment.  Ring the bell three times for urgent emergency". The outer door was locked (which I completely understand).

Dang, what if you were standing there dripping with blood or something- hope you would be able to ring it three times!

i agree that at the gp level, i'm quite happy. i get fast appointments and son gets free scripts but that's for ingrown toenails and the occasional ear/chest infection.........

as a critical care nurse, working for the NHS.....well, i'll just keep my typing fingers restrained!
nicole and i have 8+ pages of rants about the NHS on another forum.
the condensed version is: be warned, do everything you possibly can to avoid you or anyone you care about from becoming an inpatient at an NHS hospital!!!! of course, if you're not getting along with your MIL.....
by american standards, just the 20 bed open wards will frighten you back to wellness!!!!!!

the condensed version is: be warned, do everything you possibly can to avoid you or anyone you care about from becoming an inpatient at an NHS hospital!!!!

I think it depends very much on the hospital -- just as it does in the US. There are great ones, good ones, not-so-good ones, and plain awful ones. I'm going in as an inpatient on Monday and I have no qualms about it whatsoever. Several of my friends have been in the same hospital and have all had fantastic experiences and have had only good things to say about the staff, the treatment, etc.

it's kind of like being a waitress in a restaraunt....knowing what goes on in the kitchen may make you not want to eat there....?

My love with the NHS is for free contraception.  I had to go to 2 different clinics to get what I wanted, but in the end it was still free - something I can't complain about!  Makes me wonder why there's still so many teen pregnancies.

it's kind of like being a waitress in a restaraunt....knowing what goes on in the kitchen may make you not want to eat there....?

exactly ...I worked in hospitals in the states there were good places and not so good. Would I be happy being an inpatient any hospital? nope!

i agree that at the gp level, i'm quite happy. i get fast appointments and son gets free scripts but that's for ingrown toenails and the occasional ear/chest infection.........

as a critical care nurse, working for the NHS.....well, i'll just keep my typing fingers restrained!
nicole and i have 8+ pages of rants about the NHS on another forum.
the condensed version is: be warned, do everything you possibly can to avoid you or anyone you care about from becoming an inpatient at an NHS hospital!!!! of course, if you're not getting along with your MIL.....
by american standards, just the 20 bed open wards will frighten you back to wellness!!!!!!

I second that.  They are staffing the general wards in a way that nurses who are working 15-16 hours a day with no break, on their feet running the whole time cannot even come close to monitering/caring for those patients properly.   It is like asking an airline pilot to fly 10 airplanes to 10 different destinations simultaneously by himself.   No one would blame the airline pilot if he couldn't do that but they will come out of the hospital complaining that they waited forever for a pain med because the nurses are so lazy. 

Most of the staff you will so on the wards are not nurses, they are healthcare assistants they look like nurses but can do very very little.  You would not believe how much the qualified nurse is juggling at once.  You would be in shock.

exactly ...I worked in hospitals in the states there were good places and not so good. Would I be happy being an inpatient any hospital? nope!

But in the USA they have staffing mandates.  Where I used to work they would not allow any registered nurse to have more than 6-8 med-surg patients because it puts the sicker patients in life threatening danger.  Here the nurse can have 30. 

I have no problems with the care I received on GP level/maternity/or paeds.  It is the general wards that are struggling.

these mandates and financial penny pinching by some hospitals may cause to cut the number of nursing staff...for example at Kempsville Hospital my first job in health care Nurses worked less hours but nursing aides were pushed to work at disproportionate ratios. Not to mention since more nursing aides were lower skilled they ended up getting crap paid and long hours meanwhile the nurses worked a short hours and plonked all the crap chores on them..all they did was chit chat ,administer meds fill out paperwork while the nurse aides did all the other activities of daily living.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20060227/ai_n16195214

http://www.rcn.org.uk/members/downloads/research/setting-safe-staffing-levels-summary.pdf

I think general and A&E are struggling ...every week there's a leaving do for nurses leaving  wards to either work in specialist ,working in Australia , America or quitting.

I'm done with this thread

Eight patients (like they have in the USA) is hard.  30 patients to 1 nurse is ridiculous. 

yes it is .
when I first started working in healthcare in the US  I was a nurse aid  I cared in the worst conditions 16 (one nurse aid per 2-4 nurses) and  the extra wonderful joy of being treated like a second class citizen by nursing staff too!

oh well.