It's hard to understand how people view the NHS. Some people claim it's the national treasure, but how does that work if service is as abysmal as what you describe ?
But your experience of non-life threatening can be anything from good, to indifference/boredom to aggressive dismissal. This also applies to things that could be markers of something fatal, analogy would be they do little when smoke is coming out from under the door but do jump into action when the flames are coming out from under the door. Most of the interactions start on off the foot that you're assumed to be a timewaster too.
Keep begging my parents to just go private because I don't like trusting their lives to the random chance they have a good doctor when I can instead have one incentivized by their continued existence.
>>Keep begging my parents to just go private [...]
Except for this difference as we don't have the option to choose private care except for a out-patient services (e.g. physical therapy) and certain drugs & therapies. I'm speaking primarily about Ontario and British Columbia, but I think the other provinces and territories are similar.
Hospitals, diagnostic services and physicians are all funded by public taxpayer dollars at both the provincial and federal level, but it is indeed a single healthcare system.
There have been some workaround attempts in BC (such as the Cambie Surgery Centre, which lost a court case recently-ish) and AB's recent move to give contracts to Catholic health care providers, but the only true "private" option in Canada is the airport.
I could go on about this at length and how it makes me a pariah amongst a flood of anti-American conspiracy theories, but this is a thread about the UK (of which I'm also a citizen) so I'll resist.
Legitimately was a worse and slower service than I would have had at my grandparents' place in Eastern Europe, it's a disgrace. It still makes me angry that it's the experience I get after paying 1000s of £ in NHS contributions.
Where I am from the village health services act as gatekeepers for the more central services. Just in my direct circles I know of several situations where the central services gave the village services an earful for failing to refer people faster, in at least one case directly leading to death.
Those central services also seem to get further away every few years.