NHS=Negligent Health Service

[SexyGreyFox]

Haha yeah. I'm one of the (many) ICU registrars around lol. Must've crossed paths at some point

Have you come across me in Legal naughty boy
I was over ICU today getting notes to a Clinician for a report.

 

[tamzzy]

Have you come across me in Legal naughty boy

I wouldn't dare cross a sexy grey fox
My work has so far been blameless so nothing to pass by the legal team just yet

 

[cheesefest]

At my grandmother's first respite care home. She was assessed by whoever saying as she can walk with her zimmer frame to the en suite in the room she was in, she can go home. Dad was angry with this as her bungalow, it was 2.5 times as further away.

Needless to say she kept falling and going back to hospital for a 1-3 nights each time.

The assessor never visited my grandmother or the bungalow to see for herself what the situation was.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

At my grandmother's first respite care home. She was assessed by whoever saying as she can walk with her zimmer frame to the en suite in the room she was in, she can go home. Dad was angry with this as her bungalow, it was 2.5 times as further away.

Needless to say she kept falling and going back to hospital for a 1-3 nights each time.

The assessor never visited my grandmother or the bungalow to see for herself what the situation was.

Not NHS

 

[alexakasloth]

I love the NHS and would not have it any other way. In the past few years:

They have found out what my breathing issues were which meant a dynamic CT scan, continuous laryngoscopy during exercise, numerous FENO tests and a methacholine challenge test to come. A charity was set up in the department which funds portable CPAP machines which I could take home for symptomatic relief and to help with exercise, these usually cost £1k+.

Saw my wife in A&E after a nasty car accident when she was 36 weeks pregnant.

And now today my wife is being induced, after a few trips to the MAU over the past few days.

If there are problems with the system it is not down to the principles, it is down to underfunding and lack of staff who are stretched thin!

 

[SexyGreyFox]

I love the NHS and would not have it any other way.

I work for them and I can think of lots of other ways.
eg It would be great to ring an ambulance and it would be at your house in 8 minutes like they used to be.

 

[alexakasloth]

I work for them and I can think of lots of other ways.
eg It would be great to ring an ambulance and it would be at your house in 8 minutes like they used to be.

Ok, that's not I meant. I was referring to systems (i.e. American health care) which obviously wasn't clear.
It has it's problems which should and can be sorted out, but I would not have an American type system.

 

[Lord-Jaffa]

Ok, that's not I meant. I was referring to systems (i.e. American health care) which obviously wasn't clear.
It has it's problems which should and can be sorted out, but I would not have an American type system.

You kinda already do, you just pay for it via vastly higher taxation for what is a slow broken system with poor health outcomes.

 

[GordyR]

You kinda already do, you just pay for it via vastly higher taxation for what is a slow broken system with poor health outcomes.

The United States spends per capita, nearly three times the UK on healthcare in total, and their Governmental/Compulsory spend per capita is nearly twice what the UK spends on the NHS:

Page Rendering Error

OECD's dissemination platform for all published content - books, podcasts, serials and statistics

www.oecd-ilibrary.org

Furthermore, the US government's share of the country's entire healthcare spend, which is funded directly via US taxpayers, is forecasted to be 67.1% for 2024; meaning that US taxpayers pay more than we do per capita, via tax, even before they pay for their insurance premiums:

The Current and Projected Taxpayer Shares of US Health Costs - PMC

Objectives. We estimated taxpayers’ current and projected share of US health expenditures, including government payments for public employees’ health benefits as well as tax subsidies to private health spending. Methods. We tabulated official ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

So saying that we "kinda already do" via vastly higher taxation is not accurate. The US system is a grotesque abomination.

Anyway, this direct comparison between the UK and other more comparable countries is particularly interesting I thought:

How does UK health spending compare across Europe over the past decade?

Icaro Rebolledo and Anita Charlesworth use five charts to compare UK health care spending with EU countries before the pandemic.

www.health.org.uk

• Average day-to-day health spending in the UK between 2010 and 2019 was £3,005 per person – 18% below the EU14 average of £3,655.
• If UK spending per person had matched the EU14 average, then the UK would have spent an average of £227bn a year on health between 2010 and 2019 – £40bn higher than actual average annual spending during this period (£187bn).
• Matching spending per head to France or Germany would have led to an additional £40bn and £73bn (21% to 39% increase respectively) of total health spending each year in the UK.
• Over the past decade, the UK had a lower level of capital investment in health care compared with the EU14 countries for which data are available. Between 2010 and 2019, average health capital investment in the UK was £5.8bn a year. If the UK had matched other EU14 countries’ average investment in health capital (as a share of GDP), the UK would have invested £33bn more between 2010 and 2019 (around 55% higher than actual investment during that period).

 

[alexakasloth]

You kinda already do, you just pay for it via vastly higher taxation for what is a slow broken system with poor health outcomes.

"Kinda already do"? Did I get a bill for tens, if not hundreds of thousands for what I posted earlier? No. I'm sitting here not worrying about what the hospital is going to bill and whether a greedy insurance company is going to be denying a claim.

The two systems are vastly different, and (as I already stated) whilst the NHS has its faults these should and can be rectified, it doesn't mean we should ditch it for something vastly inferior for the majority.

 

[Werewolf]

Re US spend on healthcare, a while back I saw something about a study/research that suggested the US healthcare system spends almost as much/more on billing and billing disputes between different insurance companies, hospitals, doctors and patients than we do per capita on the NHS (not to forget that because of the cost a lot of people won't go to get help for something that could be treated for a few dollars of medications*, and instead wait until they have no choice and it's many thousands)
It's an incredibly inefficient and fraud prone system because even if you've got the best healthcare package possible you can end up finding the doctor at your "in network hospital" (possibly the only one in the state for you) is not "in network" and thus not covered by your insurance, and even when everything is covered your deductible/co-pays might work out at thousands (potentially more than most average households in the UK pay in tax).

I've seen so many stories of people who had what they thought was great insurance, and usually very expensive, having to spent ages when ill actively fighting to get treatment their doctors have recommended because the insurance company doesn't want to spend the money, or the insurance companies first response is to deny payment for emergency care because the patient didn't call them for clearance, whilst unconscious or in with serious injuries before starting treatment.
I was reading about someone the other day who was on oxygen and their insurance company only deals with one supplier, a supplier that has a reputation of being incredibly unreliable (great for something you need to live), and they were finding that their oxygen supplies kept running out (requiring visits to A&E or similar)/coming within hours of running out because the supplier kept to it's reputation (think Evri/Hermes) of not delivering on time/delivering days late whilst the insurance company only allowed for X amount of spare and was extremely unhelpful in sorting out emergency supplies.


*Although at US medical pricing, what would be a few dollars in the rest of the world might be $500.

 

[Lord-Jaffa]

"Kinda already do"? Did I get a bill for tens, if not hundreds of thousands for what I posted earlier? No. I'm sitting here not worrying about what the hospital is going to bill and whether a greedy insurance company is going to be denying a claim.

The two systems are vastly different, and (as I already stated) whilst the NHS has its faults these should and can be rectified, it doesn't mean we should ditch it for something vastly inferior for the majority.

No, because you and everyone else has already paid for your treatment and you will continue to pay for it, with no choice or options available. While you might sometimes receive a decent outcome, there is a large number of poor outcomes too, for instance I had to wait 18 months for an MRI and developed Osteoarthritis in my knee in the mean time and now am unable to run because my ligaments are screwed.

The United States spends per capita, nearly three times the UK on healthcare in total, and their Governmental/Compulsory spend per capita is nearly twice what that the UK spends on the NHS:

Page Rendering Error

OECD's dissemination platform for all published content - books, podcasts, serials and statistics

www.oecd-ilibrary.org

Furthermore, the US government's share of the country's entire healthcare spend, which is funded directly via US taxpayers, is forecasted to be 67.1% for 2024; meaning that US taxpayers pay more than we do per capita, via tax, even before they pay for their insurance premiums:

The Current and Projected Taxpayer Shares of US Health Costs - PMC

Objectives. We estimated taxpayers’ current and projected share of US health expenditures, including government payments for public employees’ health benefits as well as tax subsidies to private health spending. Methods. We tabulated official ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

So saying that we "kinda already do" via vastly higher taxation is not accurate. The US system is a grotesque abomination.

Anyway, this direct comparison between the UK and other more comparable countries is particularly interesting I thought:

How does UK health spending compare across Europe over the past decade?

Icaro Rebolledo and Anita Charlesworth use five charts to compare UK health care spending with EU countries before the pandemic.

www.health.org.uk

US individual income taxes (might as well include VAT/Sales tax too) as a whole are far lower than the UK, wages are also higher, the amount of NI I pay is a fair amount more than I would pay for health insurance in the US, all while receiving an abysmal service in my own experiences. The comparison was made by the person I quoted, comparing to Europe isn't relevant.

 

[GordyR]

US individual income taxes (might as well include VAT/Sales tax too) as a whole are far lower than the UK, wages are also higher, the amount of NI I pay is a fair amount more than I would pay for health insurance in the US, all while receiving an abysmal service in my own experiences. The comparison was made by the person I quoted, comparing to Europe isn't relevant.

I'm not sure if you missed this section of my post:

Furthermore, the US government's share of the country's entire healthcare spend, which is funded directly via US taxpayers, is forecasted to be 67.1% for 2024; meaning that US taxpayers pay more than we do per capita, via tax, even before they pay for their insurance premiums:

The Current and Projected Taxpayer Shares of US Health Costs - PMC

Objectives. We estimated taxpayers’ current and projected share of US health expenditures, including government payments for public employees’ health benefits as well as tax subsidies to private health spending. Methods. We tabulated official ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Comparing UK/US take homes after tax is fairly tricky given the disparity in various taxes across states; it only really looks significantly lower in the US if you look purely at the baseline income tax rate in isolation. Once you account for extra state taxes and things like the insane levels of property taxes in some states, for people earning normal working salaries the difference is fairly negligible.

But regardless of any of that, the US system costs US taxpayers more per person than our NHS, even before they pay their private insurance premiums on top - It's indefensible.

 

[Kill_Phil]

@Lord-Jaffa just to check you realise NI contributions isn't just for the NHS?

 

[cheesefest]

Not NHS

The assessor was employed by the NHS

 

[Chris Wilson]

This may be of use or interest to some:

Definitive guide to England's 6,000+ GP practices

You can use MailOnline's GP data base tool to uncover all the info the NHS holds on your local surgery, from how many patients are registered to how often doctors see patients in person.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[Werewolf]

This may be of use or interest to some:

Definitive guide to England's 6,000+ GP practices

You can use MailOnline's GP data base tool to uncover all the info the NHS holds on your local surgery, from how many patients are registered to how often doctors see patients in person.

www.dailymail.co.uk

I love the way the article tries to make out that it's potentially a bad thing if the number of appointments with a non gp is bad, when in reality it's normal and healthy for a practice to do that, because it means it's offering a mix of services.

My local surgery will go through dozens of patients per nurse in one of it's half day clinics*, and it does different clinics every day, with about twice as many nurses as it has GP's (and for some things the nurse acts as triage, if they can't handle something it gets passed onto a GP during the same session).

*IIRC Asthma, diabetes, maternity, blood tests, health checks, minor injuries are the obvious ones.

 

[Devilman]

I love the way the article tries to make out that it's potentially a bad thing if the number of appointments with a non gp is bad, when in reality it's normal and healthy for a practice to do that, because it means it's offering a mix of services.

My local surgery will go through dozens of patients per nurse in one of it's half day clinics*, and it does different clinics every day, with about twice as many nurses as it has GP's (and for some things the nurse acts as triage, if they can't handle something it gets passed onto a GP during the same session).

*IIRC Asthma, diabetes, maternity, blood tests, health checks, minor injuries are the obvious ones.

It's not really surprising that one of our resident frother's would post a froth article from the Daily Heil though, is it?

 

[OllyM]

It's an incredibly inefficient and fraud prone system because even if you've got the best healthcare package possible you can end up finding the doctor at your "in network hospital" (possibly the only one in the state for you) is not "in network" and thus not covered by your insurance, and even when everything is covered your deductible/co-pays might work out at thousands (potentially more than most average households in the UK pay in tax).

So many of these anecdotes about US healthcare are old and outdated. This can't happen any more, the No Surprises Act passed a few years ago put an end to it - https://www.kff.org/health-reform/i...es-act-implementation-what-to-expect-in-2022/

I'm not saying the way the US does healthcare is brilliant, far from it - but in my personal experience it's really not the complete disaster people from the UK assume it to be.

 

[Devilman]

So many of these anecdotes about US healthcare are old and outdated. This can't happen any more, the No Surprises Act passed a few years ago put an end to it - https://www.kff.org/health-reform/i...es-act-implementation-what-to-expect-in-2022/

I'm not saying the way the US does healthcare is brilliant, far from it - but in my personal experience it's really not the complete disaster people from the UK assume it to be.

I suspect a large portion of the issue is the same as what happens over here with the NHS... That is to say, we rarely hear about the tens of thousands of people who had positive outcomes, but the media loves to make the negative outcomes front-page news.

As such we end up with a very jaded view of the US healthcare system because we only hear about those "bad cases".