In retrospect, was the NHS such a good idea?

Was it whitewave?
Not quite like that in France, though. Seventy percent is funded by employment based health funds and thirty per cent by top-up insurance. Costs us about 150€ a month. The seventy per cent for UK pensioners is paid by the UK under European reciprocal agreements.
I never understand these stories of pensioners in France and Spain flying back for treatment. Why would you? The health service here in France is superb and includes things like spa treatments and convalescent homes.
Spain is pretty good too, from what I hear from my son and lengthy visits there and a huge numbers of English speaking healthcare professionals or interpreters I've watched Benidorm ER so it can't be for language reasons.

I will defend the NHS to the bitter end. out here in Cambodia if you are poor you have free medical treatment. Fine, but you have to pay for all you medication and anything needed to treat you. If you stay in hospital you have to haave someone stay and care for. You will even be charged for the toilet roll. Recently we paid for our friends son treatment for dengue fever, a total of $260, he had free treatment but thats what the medication was costing. How do you afford it on $5 or $10 a week when you can find work? We expect far to much from the NHS, I would stop gastric bands IVF, sex change, help to stop smoking and even free needles for drug addicts. And dont get me started on HIV treatment and cosmetic surgery except for accidents, burns etc. Paying to see a doctor is just the start and before long the price will have risen and you will have another case of a two tier payment system. Rant over

An acquaintance of ours is a dedicated and talented hypochondriac. We were amused recently to hear that now, whenever he tries to make a GP appointment, he has to be phoned by the GP first to see if he really needs to be seen.
I know we shouldn't laugh but the GP practice must be pretty sick of him! (As are most people). I just hope it won't be a case of him crying wolf one day!
Sorry, a diversion.

Very well said Bluecat.

Just a thought re current private medicine, everyone who 'goes private' also pays National Insurance too. It could mean that by going private they are thinning out the NHS lists.

Yes, Jane10. DH and I pay private medical insurance and NI too. We also pay tax on the cost of the insurance premiums. The large number of patients going through the doors of our local private hospital must be thinning out the local NHS lists a lot, so if we private patients all went back into the NHS it would surely collapse.

Interesting question kittylester I think that we can afford the NHS, its just scaremongering to suggest it needs selling off - and some doing that have interests in the companies doing the bidding.
I paid tax for 32 years - most of us have paid for the NHS that way.

Paying for appointments would be daft - people with mental health issues and other vulnerable groups such as elderly would be likely to not go to the GP and they NEED ongoing treatment.

Personally, an angle people don't think about is programmes such as casualty which give totally false ideas that nursing staff have time to chat and sort out peoples personal problems - they dont in real life. I wonder how many people who go to A+E for silly reasons, are affected by misleading shows like Casualty.

Also the shortage of GPs. In my area of Wales we have 5 minute GP appointments and a policy of non escalation - both of which combine to mean possibly that people end up missing preventative phases of illness and burden A+E with them once they are worse.

I think the UK attracts companies and jobs because we have our NHS - the companies then don't have to run expensive staff health insurance schemes.

I think the NHS is overburdened partly because doctors are also having to pick up on social problems which at one time would have been dealt with by family or local community groups such as church ministers. The care of elderly people, for instance, is now a medical issue instead of a social one. We're never going to go back to the women of the house also being the carers of the elderly so more money needs to be put into the system to provide a decent level of care.

I do think people rush to the doctor too often for minor problems. I can't be bothered, myself, because it's so much kerfuffle to get an appointment. As my mother's friend used to say, it's pointless making an appointment, I'll either be better or dead by the time it arrives!

Regarding a shorter training for doctors; my daughter is in her 3rd year of training and she hasn't even covered all of the body systems yet, so I don't think that will work.

As for the US system, my son and family have good insurance. Even so, when their 6yo stuck a piece of Lego up his nose, they had to pay $900 on top of what their insurance paid out! The mind boggles as to how much the total came to.

I have lived in a number of countries without state provision and it's not something I would recommend. The poor are stuffed and for a relatively affluent family two or three bouts of serious illness can bankrupt them. If you can afford health insurance that is properly administered the older and more needy you get the more exorbitantly expensive i gets. Recently I heard someone on tv saying that in the U.K. We want the quality of provision found in Scandinavia but at taxation lower that the USA. We are a very rich country and of course we can have world class provision, it's a choice Introduction of charges, fees etc is an indirect tax and the cost of its administration would probably be very high. I think that issues such as health and education should have a national strategy agreed across party lines and stop being usd as a political football so that endless expensive changes are made to meet particular dogmas. One of the earlier posts pointed out many resources has been used to support her husbands health. Who would not want to support such provision ? I sometime think of my grandchildren who are collectively indebt to the tune of some £200,000 in student fees, to buy a house will be a feat of dreams over reality, why not led them pay for their health care too. I personally would prefer to have no worries about money and charges when ill than worrying about whether I should upgrade my car this year.

Well, before too long you may have the opportunity to find out whether the NHS was a good idea. I suspect that you may also conclude, with some regret, that it was.

Hear hear Eloethan. My 92 year old mum can still remember when people were terrified of becoming ill because they couldn't afford doctors fees and often conditions were left too late to treat and they died - children among them. Private treatment isn't all it's cracked up to be either as there is a massive amount of over-treatment in countries such as America, where it is privately funded. I do not believe you can run a health system on a for profit basis.

There is steady and constant undermining of the NHS rather than a portrayal of an excellent service staffed by caring and competent staff from all backgrounds. The constant carping and front page xenophobia gives the impression that the system offers third world provision. How about good news stories about our health system and education system to give some balance to the arguments.

Just remembered that song "you just don't know what you've got till its gone"

Yes,the NHS is relevant today. What would poor people do without it? If we stopped people from abroad coming here for free treatment it would be in a much better shape.

I was taken ill in Australia twice. Once for kidney stones, and once with an infection in my lung. It cost us a fortune in medical fees. We were treated but we had a bill to pay. The same happened in Cyprus, once for me and once for OH. I had a bladder infection, he fell over and cut his arm. Again we had to pay for treatment.

Why should people come here, have their babies, and fly back home? Why they get free treatment when they don't pay a penny in is beyond me. The NHS is overstretched and underfunded. It is a Godsend to some that cannot afford medical insurance. We should do everything we can to keep it.

My recent experience (my knee replacement was carried out in a private hospital) was that while the procedure was unpleasant, the care was excellent. Clearly they had a very good care pathway and stuck to it.
However, I was very struck by the age of the surgeon, anaesthetist and physio: they were all clearly some years past retirement! Not a loss to NHS but a slight worry for me. Nursing staff numbers seemed about right. There were enough of them but no sitting about. Training was obviously first class.
No obvious differentiation between NHS and private patients. It would be good if all hospitals were as good.

I am 63 and have always had access to the NHS. I therefore have no experience of being unable to pay for healthcare. I would think, though, that it would be very scary and I imagine that none of us would like to be in that position.
Even those who can afford to pay for private insurance still need the NHS for a lot of care that the private sector doesn't cover so it is in everyones interest that the NHS survives.
Many of us do not abuse the system and do take care of ourselves. Some of us have conditions that are not "our fault" and need more care than others.
Unfortunately there are plenty of people who abuse the system and themselves but I am not sure what to do about them.
My friend, a practice manager, has told me that a deposit system in Surgeries would be easy to set up. When a person registers with a practice They could deposit £10. If they don't turn up for an appointment then they lose £5 When they have used up the deposit they will only get emergency treatment until they pay another £10 in. This should "cure" the many repeat offenders.
I have to take out insurance when I visit Australia although we have a reciprocal arrangement with them ( not sure what it is). I think all insurers need to give us all a card to produce when we need it abroad. Maybe we should be given a card when we pay our £10 to show when we have appointments at hospital or at GPs and minor injury units when we are holidaying in a different part of the country.

My gripe is the number of non-attenders at surgeries and OPD appointments- 56,000 GP hours in one large surgery locally were wasted last year- and the amounts wasted on medication that's either not needed or changed or not taken.

As a DN I returned to a pharmacy five big carrier bags from one patient, total cost? £17,000!
Why? 'Because I tick all the boxes for repeat prescriptions, I don't pay for them and I might need them one day'
????
Unopened boxes can't be returned to the shelves even if you're still in the pharmacy and handing it straight back, so it's binned.

10 years ago a local DGH threw out a tonne of medication a week!

I imagine that the vast majority of the NHS budget is spent of people of our ages. If there were less of us it would be much cheaper ! Maybe that's the hidden agenda.

The staff at private provision are trained through tax payers and national insurance resources. I'm sure this cost isn't included in private insurance costs. Tax payers have paid for the formation of these professionals and the private sector gets them free.

Off to do something clever with mashed potatoes !

My husband had an accident in Laos andinjured his knee badly and we had to travel to neighbouring Thailand for treatment. We went to a hospital and had to deposit our credit card details before anything was done, despite having travel insurance. He needed an operation , the first part of his treatment was paid for by us on the credit card until permission had been received from the travel insurance people. Excellent treatment and the bonus the insurance people upgraded us to first class to fly home. So why cant we do the same here with people from abroad, take credit card details first?

I agree that people who do not attend for appointments should pay a fine. I also agree that many people tick in a box and are given medication they do not need. In fact I am in that repeat prescription position myself. I was given a lot of pain relief after my operation on my knee and I was supposed to have 8 tablets a day. I have now got that down to 2 per day and intend to stop taking them altogether. However, if I wanted to I could still tick that box (which I don't) and get more than I need. People do not realise that unwanted medicine, even though the packet has not been opened, is thrown away because the pharmacist is not allowed to re-issue it. Now that is one thing I think should be changed.

The NHS was welcomed in 1948 but has been mismanaged and abused. In 1947 the hospital bill for ten days stay in hospital after the birth of my daughter was six guineas. Ten days was usual in those days. A weeks wages.
People go to the doctor for trivial complaints and are over prescribed antibiotics and painkillers and the drug companies are making huge profits. Doctors appointments are not kept.
Some time ago I had a couple of ingrowing eyelashes which I thought the doctor could easily remove but I was referred to the hospital 26 miles away necessitating hospital car because I am disabled. It was looked at but I had to make another appointment to have them removed. I have since learned that in the past the GP could do the procedure but now not allowed to do so.

lolllllllllllllllllll

loopylou that is infuriating! How frustrating those failed appointments and wasted medication must be to GP practices.
To return to the title of this thread: Yes absolutely in retrospect the NHS was/is a good thing. However, the NHS, as currently set up can't hope to meet the ever changing needs and usage patterns. It needs to mutate to fit modern expectation. That may mean difficult changes for those of us accustomed to the old way to handle. Things can't realistically go on as they have been.

Lots of excellent ideas! I don't see that we can continue to increase funding for the NHS to cover all medical needs (the ones we currently provide free)for the future. So there needs to be a sensible, national, cross party discussion - think someone else suggested that. We could consider: charging the drunks who clog up A&E, charging for those who miss appointments, charging to put right plastic surgery undertaken abroad and which has gone wrong. We could also allow people to die when they want to, legalising some drugs and taxing them. The repeat prescription system is very wasteful, so needs reform. Big Pharma is a tremendous problem as is the over-prescribing of drugs. Should we be prescribing drugs which can be easily bought over the counter? I do not agree with charging for terminations (this could drive it underground - and my grandma died of a back street abortion) nor for gender reassignment. Any other ways we could save money?

And no I don't agree with privatisation!