Ambulance waits: 'Can you please tell them to hurry up or I shall be dead' | Hacker News Reader

Ambulance waits: 'Can you please tell them to hurry up or I shall be dead'

bbc.com

19 pointsanon2020dot0020 comments

Everything about the NHS is a joke.

Unfortunately it's become like a religion to the British and so it's impossible to constructively criticize and as a consequence it is unlikely to ever improve.

Trying to see a GP is like having to queue in Soviet Russia to get bread.

It's intentionally being let down as part of a wider strategy, here are Doctors and people close to the issue. https://youtu.be/897tkuD6g38

"It is the design of the legislation and a culmination for US corporations to dominate the system".

"X cannot fail, it can only be failed" always ends so well.

It's fairly common to see people on HN say that the NHS can't be on the brink of collapse because we've been saying it for year. EG, one example from 20 days ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31531180

What they don't realise that that people started saying "Don't make those changes, it's too risky", "ok, you made those changes and we're starting to see the results, and it's not great", "change is accelerating and danger lies ahead", "we've already seen massive increase in risk and now we're starting to see increases in harms in these sentinel groups", "we're starting to see harms, including significant harm, in all groups", etc.

We've known for years that English ambos are in real trouble.

When I lived in Germany, I used a local (private) practice for my immediate needs. This was covered by my statutory (yet still private) insurance from a Krankenkasse. I usually could get a next week appointment or wait in the queue 2-3h and see my doctor on the same day. You can go for commercial insurance (which they actually call private) and cut these times.

Now, living in England and using the (fully public) NHS, I can't even get a GP appointment in the next 4 weeks. And the surgery mostly gives you only telephone appointment. And no, you cannot just walk in and wait to see a doctor. Appointments only. This is not even only my surgery's problem.

The waiting time for specialist doctors are even more ridiculous.

Germany does also have clearly higher healthcare costs per capita, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea....

Though as far as I understand Germany also has an older population which explains part of it. But in any case the German system isn't exactly cheap.

Then you can very much see it with your own eyes! Thanks for the link.

One thing to consider is that the NHS is a centralised and socialised system (barring the NHS internal market, which is in the process of abolition), whereas the German system has mandatory but private insurance which would involve more administrative costs, not to mention money spent on marketing and the like, so the costs are not directly comparable, and in general Germany probably spends more of the money on non-medical services.

The level of service you recall from Germany was common in the U.K. until a few years ago, or certainly ten years ago this was my experience in every practice area I lived.

GP practices are all private in the U.K., the visits are only paid for by the NHS. Precisely why GP wait times have gotten so bad I can’t say, but the real-terms funding cuts the NHS has experienced over the past decade likely contribute.

Of course, you can top up with private care in the U.K. also, and this seems to be becoming increasingly common.

Hasn't Britain been having mass immigration?

I thought it was the opposite, people leaving due to brexit

The aging demographics of developed countries inevitably mean that economic growth will slow while healthcare demand increases. Thus regardless of whether the healthcare system is private or socialized, there will be more and more care rationing. In some cases that rationing will take the form of long queues.

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