How do you like your health care system in England?
Posted by Dolores
Jeff was here asked:
With the possibility of Universal health care in the US, im curious about peoples opinion who have it. How do you like your physicians? How long does it take to see a doctor?
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With the possibility of Universal health care in the US, im curious about peoples opinion who have it. How do you like your physicians? How long does it take to see a doctor?
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March 16th, 2010 at 3:52 am
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Saw a doctor within 10 minutes of asking last week. Usually don’t need to wait more than 24 hours for an appointment and emergencies are seen at Accident and Emergency departments of hospitals within four hours for the least serious to immediately for the most serious.
I’ve lived all over the UK and have never had a problem, the best doctors and nursing staff in the world.
Over the past year all my family have had free NHS screening for breast, cervical and bowel cancer as appropriate. My husband and I have private health insurance through work benefits and have used it from time to time for convenience, but to be honest, apart from the privacy of having your own en suite room and better quality and choice of food, there is not much difference in the standard of care you receive.
I think it’s one of the best benefits of living in the UK and you really don’t appreciate it until you live somewhere where you have to pay or pay for insurance.
I was recently in another EU country and had to fork out almost 200 euros for a consultation and treatment for a mild infection. In the UK it would have cost me the price of the prescription - £7.20.
Yes, I know there is a reciprocal arrangement, I went to a private clinic for speed.
March 16th, 2010 at 7:29 am
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Maggie obviously was not in Spain. I have found the health service there better than in England. It is free to citizens of EU states on the production of a health ID card.
The English system is good in parts. Some areas are better served than others and there seems to be a quality problem in some places. England does not have the best doctors in the world. Only some of them. To say otherwise is not very polite.
You can change your general practitioner if you don’t like them or their group.
How long to see a doctor? In an emergency it is virtually immediate on arriving at hospital. Then you may have to wait until they are ready and able to treat you.
To see an ordinary doctor, you can normally get an appointment within a day or two, depending on your problem. If it is a minor matter you may have to wait a week.
Fact. Cataract operation waiting time is about 4 months in my local area.
One point I should like to make is that the English national health service is VERY expensive and administratively inefficient.
The service employs more people than the Chinese Army!
There are compulsory deductions from our wages even although one uses private medicine or has private insurance.
The present Government has privatised parts of the system but this always seems to cost about 30% more!
A curious fact is that most doctors surgeries are run and owned privately by the doctors.
March 18th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
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Universal health care in the US
So the US is going to supply the universe with free health care??
how is it unirversal lol.
just like your world series of baseball, but only american and canadian teams take part.
March 19th, 2010 at 7:05 am
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I can see a doctor quickly in an emergency but he/she is unlikely to examine me, just give me tablets or refer me to a hospital. My experience of the National Health Service is mainly not good though I have also come into contact with compassionate, caring doctors and nurses. I think they are great individuals who have risen above a service that is burdened with incompetent administration and too much of it and a lot of lazy and or burnt out people. But, then almost everything public and private in Britain, is run like this