'Tell the USA your views on the NHS' poll results/discussion

cyberbob

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this before but the poll is flawed. Option A says Free Healthcare has always worked for me. Well its not free it all comes out of our Taxes.

As a former employee of the NHS who has left due to poor staffing and an extreme lack of basic care given to patients. Managers frequently bully staff and the staff are demoralised and frequently treat patients with disdain. As a highly qualified person with 15 years experience I would never return to work in the NHS. I know of many of my former colleagues who think the same and are leaving or considering such.

The NHS needs some serious work, The way drugs new decided the way it is funded and the way staff are trained all need reviewing. I do not have any answers to what is the best system but there needs to be some proper political debate with choices. All the politicians are scared to discuss alternatives incase it effects there votes, without proper debate the NHS will never improve.

geoff2

Sowilo wrote: »

America, stick your health care system and mind your own business.

Although, of course, we should remember that it was a treacherous British MP who rubbished the NHS while in the States and started this whole nonsensical furore. Obviously trying to make a name for himself with half an eye on some future fatcat job no doubt. Mr. Cameron should remove the whip from him. He deserves to be deselected.

Mr_Mumble

geoff2 wrote: »

Although, of course, we should remember that it was a treacherous British MP who rubbished the NHS while in the States and started this whole nonsensical furore. Obviously trying to make a name for himself with half an eye on some future fatcat job no doubt. Mr. Cameron should remove the whip from him. He deserves to be deselected.

:rotfl:
Daniel Hannan is an MEP and wants Britain to adopt a system of health accounts based on the Singapore model. Life expectancy in Singapore is three years longer than the UK and healthcare provision costs are half the amount here in the UK. For suggesting this you think he is being treacherous and should be sacked?!

lukehar6569

Fulham_Mark wrote: »

Loyalty to the NHS is very nice but let's not delude ourselves that the system is faultless

The NHS faults are:
1. Political intervention is huge. All the targets? money spent on popular health causes and and endless new strategies and changes to grab headlines

2. that joe public has little motivation to keep healthy and do all the checkups etc they should so. Our cancer treatment is v good but we spot cancer too late and do too few tests and checkups. I'd go for my cancer checkups if my insurance cover depended on it

3. It's almost impossible to sack incompetant doctors, surgeons and nurses. A very small number of people can do a huge amount of damage. It is only recently that performance data has been made available.

I hope Obama gets it right and we can move in his direction.

Firstly, i strongly agree with point 1...

but had to point out that number 2 isn't wholly true...

In the UK we decide which screening programs to endorse based on the WHO guidelines that:

1. The condition should be an important health problem. (ie. prevalent in society)
2. There should be a treatment for the condition. (gold standard or as close as possible/realistic)
3. Facilities for diagnosis and treatment should be available.
4. There should be a latent stage of the disease. (ie. better prognosis when treated early)
5. There should be a test or examination for the condition.
6. The test should be acceptable to the population.
7. The natural history of the disease should be adequately understood.
8. There should be an agreed policy on who to treat.
9. The total cost of finding a case should be economically balanced in relation to medical expenditure as a whole.
10. Case-finding should be a continuous process, not just a "once and for all" project.

(can't post links atm, but for full NHS screening criteria then google NHS screening, use 1st link and add 'criteria' after the last '/' in the address bar!)

So you can see that our screening program is dictated by meaningful guidelines, and each program and its frequency and population of patients who are tested are debated along very real guidelines.

also to point 3, it is extremely easy to get rid of incompetent nurses and doctors, both must be registerered with and are governed by their own councils NMC and GMC respectively. The registration with these bodies is easily revoked, and often suspended pending cases being brought against said nurse/doctor! Without registration it is impossible to practice in the UK... the same as in most other countries!

Finally i would like to point out how grateful i am to the NHS for my training, it is estimated that it costs £250,000 to train each doctor, for which (at current rates) i am being asked to pay £12,000, after i've (eventually/hopefully!!) qualified! (£3000 per year fees). When compared to the average $23,581 per year for US medical students (when studying in state) and an average total debt of $155,000 (£95,000) compared to the current UK average of £20,000 ( including all living related debts i believe! although predicted to increase to £37,000 with the current co-horts... time will tell )

lauhen

Some of what you are all saying, goes a little over my head. However, I recently started working as a bank hca for my local nhs hospital trust, to date I have only done two shifts, so you are probably thinking that I surely can't comment. But I am going to, I was placed on the elderly ward, on one shift there was 2 hca's, two hcsw's, one staff nurse, and another senior nurse who specifically dealt with the elderly. Also called out was a doctor, who stayed for most of the shift, and a social worker who was there for a couple of hours. In total there were about 20 patients, some of whom needed more care than others, the amount of staff was sufficient to fill the needs of these patients. They were fed, watered, changed for bed, beds were prepared and if necessary changed, they were looked after well. It does seem though that nurses have an awful lot of paperwork to do, there are forms for everything, but that's why hca's were employed to help them out, I was running around constantly, but I was helping. On my next shift there were 3 hca's, 2 hcsw, 1 staff nurse and a senior nurse for the elderly, again it was the same, extremely busy but everything got done. There was also two cleaners on the ward who were in and out for the whole shift, which was from 7am to 3pm, and they were doing a good job to. This weekend I will experience the orthapeadic ward and the renal ward, whether they are the same I don't know yet, but I will still do my best, to make sure all the patients I have to help feel comfortable.

lauhen

I know that I have only just started, and some will say give her time, she will find out what it's really like. Maybe I will, but at the end of the day it's a job, it's a job I need, the money is good per hour for weekends which is when I work( I have young children), it is flexible and it suits me. Yes it will be hard, I know that, at least I have Monday to Friday at the moment to recover.

The nhs, have done alright by me, I have been in hospital when I was younger, and I am still under them now, I have had my two children in hospital, ok the first was a nasty experience in basildon hospital, I was left traumatised by it, but my second was at a smaller hospital where I live now, I got into trouble during labour, the midwife called for help and within seconds I had about ten nurses, midwives, etc come to help, it is bringing a tear to my eye, because without them god only knows what would have happened. And after labour I started to faint in the shower, managed to pull buzzer and in seconds had people there to help. These people deserve credit for what they do and the grief they have to deal with.

phattire

Saucepot wrote: »

If the NHS is such a great system, why has the world not copied it? To say that Obama is about to is wrong. He's attempting to create universal compulsary health insurance. More similar to the rest of europe than our own NHS.

When you look at the survivial rates for most cancers, the world beats us. The NHS is not the envy of the world.

The sad thing is, when people criticise the NHS they are labelled as people that want to abolish it and let poor people die, and only have decent healthcare for the rich.

Universal high quality healthcare is possible, unfortunalty a 60 year old socialist model the rest of the world wouldn't touch with a barge pole is not the answer.

Well said :T

musicmaker29

the NHS is not perfect, but basic healthcare is a RIGHT (and no, I don't care what the rightwing in USA say) - thank god the government have refused to implement a report that condones job cuts without consideration for patient care.

annefromantrim

Somebody I worked with said she would scrub floors rather than have a baby under the NHS, but I didnt have time to scrub floors as I was working full time to support my children and minding them the other 15 hours a day. So I had my baby under the NHS and when they offered me "An Amenity Bed for £10 a night I said they copuld PUT ME IN THE CHEAP SEATS. so they returned me and my newborn to the ward with the boringly painted walls, but the care we got was excellent