U.K. health care

I received a letter from a private clinic in Belfast telling me that I’d been referred and asking me to ‘phone them to make an appointment. I did as requested and was offered an appointment at a private clinic in Co Derry yesterday at 10.15am. I accepted it naturally and my husband and I set off at 9am yesterday and arrived there at 10.10am. Went in, checked in at reception and was directed to a lovely, bright waiting room. Tv on and ladies football showing Australia vs France. A delighted husband! Consultant called me in and put all my medical details up on screen and discussed everything with me. I was examined and once dressed brought back to discuss the situation. Within minutes,I had agreed to have surgery. I asked which hospital I’d go to and was told I’d be operated in that very clinic as an NHS patient.
I was and still am delighted. While I was in the waiting room I met up with 2 ladies I hadn’t seen for a while. They too had been referred by the NHS.
Isn’t it good to know that there are still people being given wonderful care from the NHS.

But it's not the NHS is it?

They have farmed you out to the private sector because they don't have the resources to treat you themselves.

I don't think anyone doubts the quality and dedication of NHS care, the problem is accessing it!

And of course the cost. All we hear about is, because of shortage of money people can’t get the service or medication they need but then they pay a private hospital for someone else’s treatment.
The money they save from that could pay for someone else’s quicker cancer consultation or someone’s medication that then cannot have because it is too expensive

In truth, the problem is the massive shortages of doctors and nurses. Over the years, the powers to be have closed down wards in hospitals all over the country instead of building more to accommodate the populations increase.
Not only that, consultants are working in the private sector too.

NHS Consultants have always worked privately. Usually 6/10 NHS, 4/10 private practice.
The problem I think is that now, most NHS staff, be it medical, admin or housekeeping, can earn more by working as Agency staff.
This is a massive cost to the NHS to enable safe levels of services to continue to be provided.
Non medical NHS staff have been trained, and qualify usually at no, or generally much reduced cost to themselves, versus earning capacity, then change sides and go work for the private sector, to then be engaged via an Agency to do their "old job".
So a ward, that cannot safely operate as they do not have minimum levels of staffing, end up actually paying the exact same person at least twice as much to do the same job!

On the question of staff, assuming for one microsecond that Bojo's promise of 40 new hospitals containes a single grain of truth, where were all the staff needed for those supposed to macically appear from?

It's an inescapable truth that much of the staffing problem in the NHS, particularly in the care sector, is because of the loss of EU workers brought about by Brexit.

There has always been a shorted of doctors hence the need to poach them from other countries. Compound the problem by insisting nurses have to have degrees and they then become too posh to wash patients and you get a shortage of them too and more poaching. The NHS is so big it is more or less leaderless. No government has managed to address any of these problems and they then can't meet the needs of modern more complex medical practises. There is a philosophy of reducing bed spaces, faster turn arounds etc to save money which are management ideas not medical.

Mac3blade wrote:I received a letter from a private clinic in Belfast telling me that I’d been referred and asking me to ‘phone them to make an appointment. I did as requested and was offered an appointment at a private clinic in Co Derry yesterday at 10.15am. I accepted it naturally and my husband and I set off at 9am yesterday and arrived there at 10.10am. Went in, checked in at reception and was directed to a lovely, bright waiting room. Tv on and ladies football showing Australia vs France. A delighted husband! Consultant called me in and put all my medical details up on screen and discussed everything with me. I was examined and once dressed brought back to discuss the situation. Within minutes,I had agreed to have surgery. I asked which hospital I’d go to and was told I’d be operated in that very clinic as an NHS patient.
I was and still am delighted. While I was in the waiting room I met up with 2 ladies I hadn’t seen for a while. They too had been referred by the NHS.
Isn’t it good to know that there are still people being given wonderful care from the NHS.

Brilliant, they do that here in Spain too, it isn't just the UK.
I'm under the Spanish health system here and following tests went to our local private hospital for treatment. If the state hospital is unable to cope why not use what's available?

What does it have to do with living in Spain?