Waiting just to see any old regular doctor, or to have a colonoscopy, or get your surgery, is not a good thing.
When we abandon free market, soon shortages will appear and the whole world will have guaranteed shortages now for medicine and devices, not to mention personnel. Because there will be no back-up because the US has adopted the same foolishness. The sad thing is it will take decades before that really happens, and the gradual change will numb people to how bad it is.
Waiting?. Despite the myth, I and any Brit can see a doctor at short notice. If I phone my surgery at 8.30am opening, 9 times out of 10 I will see someone that day, if not that morning. Only if the surgery is swamped (for example during the winter if there’s a bad virus going around) would I possibly have to wait IF its a minor ailment. Anything that is serious or causes great pain will be seen immediately and put to the head of the list. And a GP on examination will send you straight to hospital if they think its serious enough.
Yes, there are waiting lists for hospital examinations, but again, if anything is serious, you will get seen very quickly. The idea that millions of Brits in terrible pain have to wait months for hospital examinations and tests is not true. Failures tend to come from doctors not picking up initial problems/symptoms at the GP level and not requesting a swift examination/test, rather than waiting times.
Surgery?. Again, its a myth that 62m Brits have to wait. Any life threatening/serious illness that requires surgery is done immediately. Waiting times exist for non-life threatening surgery.
I do agree that waiting times should always
As I said, the NHS DOES have its problems, some minor and some very major. But it is a good system overall that works, despite its flaws. Most of the doctors and nurses are superb. Most NHS care, despite the horror stories, is good, sometimes very good, sometimes superb.
Part of the problem is the NHS now in 2013 does healthcare that is not necessary, wasnt what the 1948 NHS was set up to do, and could be done privately. The NHS needs to get back to its main roots: treating the ill and sick, not IVF and boobjobs. Doctors and nurses and healthcare professionals, not pen pushers.
Making private healthcare even more affordable and widespread would imo lessen the NHS burden. If can go private, do it. If later, you are hit by the recession and cant afford private, then the NHS is there to deal with you. After all, you still fund it by your taxes. Taxbreaks for private healthcare.
In short, you’d use the NHS only when you had to, and that would leave the NHS for those who genuinely need it.
The NHS has saved the lives of both my parents. The NHS has never let my family down, we have had first class care from them always. I am an ex-NHS admin worker, and have used the NHS myself as an outpatient.
I am not at all blind to its faults, but equally I will defend it when I read myths about it or think the criticism is unwarranted. Americans are now convinced that the NHS is a hellhole. In fact, if most Americans used it, I think they’d be pleasantly surprised at how good it actually is.
They might find faults with it, but neither would they find it a third rate service.
Paragraph 4 should read:
‘I do agree that waiting times should always be kept as low as possible’.