There are lots of different healthcare systems across the world but I don’t believe that there is any nation, no matter how advanced or wealthy it might be, that has ever directly copied Britain’s NHS. I wonder why? Could it be that the NHS model is just a woefully inefficient and outdated way of delivering comprehensive healthcare? Or could it be because healthcare systems run like the worst of the nationalised industries of Britain’s past, like British Steel, British Telecom, the electricity and gas boards and British Rail, don’t really have good outcomes for either the patients or the taxpayers who fund systems like the NHS? It could however be that an unaccountable system, often run for the benefit of staff, can end up being absolutely lethal?
After seeing this latest NHS horror I’m wondering whether or not those nations that refused to copy the UK NHS didn’t want a health service that routinely killed those whom it was supposed to help? After all the last thing any sensible government would want is a healthcare system that routinely killed dozens babies by way of staff incompetence over a period of ten years. This is what the NHS has done in the central English county of Nottingham.
The BBC said
Dozens of babies died or were left with serious injuries at a city’s hospitals, an investigation has found.
Channel 4 News and the Independent reported that 46 babies suffered brain damage and 19 were stillborn in Nottingham between 2010 and 2020.
More than £91m in damages and costs were paid out, according to the report.
In response, the chief executive of Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) said: “We apologise from the bottom of our hearts”.
NUH runs the city’s Queen’s Medical Centre (QMC) and Nottingham City Hospital.
In recent years, both hospitals’ maternity services have faced repeated criticism from families, officials and employees.
Last year, Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors rated both units as “inadequate”, highlighting serious concerns including staffing, poor leadership and a culture that did not learn lessons.
In addition to the cases of brain damage and stillbirth, the latest investigation also reported 15 other deaths, and highlighted failures to investigate.
It said that in some instances, “key medical notes were missing or never made, while others were completely inaccurate”.
When I read the continual litany of appalling treatment that Britons get from the NHS I ask myself ‘Why should I clap and cheer for this shitty healthcare system’? It also helps me to understand why many Americans who value the right of medical consumer choice and the private insurance system who don’t want to import to the USA the murderous shower of crap and incompetence that is the NHS.
We could have had a far better healthcare system than we get from the NHS. We could have had a split system where the private sector provides the healthcare which is paid for by a combination of taxpayer funding and insurance which many other nations have. Sadly in Britain we are ruled by fools and knaves who out of cowardice dare not tinker or reform a socialistic healthcare system better suited to the Soviet Union of the 1960’s than an advanced Western democracy of the 21st century. The NHS is unfit for purpose and all too often its staff can barely be arsed to help the people that they are paid handsomely to care for. We need something better, we deserve something better than the truly godawful and often lethal NHS.
Max lives in the UK and gets exemplary healthcare. His medicine has to be paid for on receipt but he has health insurance so he can claim back the costs. Max is my cat, he enjoys better healthcare than me.
One problem with the collective perception of the NHS is that parts of it are actually very good. Even when people receive fairly indifferent service from the NHS, they judge it from the viewpoint that they think that they don’t have to pay for it. If only our tax bill could be itemised so that we could see what the government was wasting our money on, maybe people would at last realise that the NHS gives terrible value for money.
Some bits are indeed OK. Moorfields Eye Hospital in London which saved the sight of my late father on several occasions when he worked as an engineer, is one of them. The problem is the good bits are not the majority. I certainly agree that if every taxpayer had an itemised bill showing just how much money the NHS wastes on worthless guff and on compensating those whose treatment has gone bad, then they might think differently.
“…an unaccountable system, often run for the benefit of staff…”
That is the nub of the problem.
And a problem that has got worse over the last 18 months
Personally I wouldn’t want the US system either. At its best the US system is probably the best in the world, but the last time I looked infant mortality in the US was higher than the UK and life expectancy (both male and female) was lower.
Those are three key bench-marks for a health service and on that basis the US system isn’t so great either – at least unless you have a platinum plated health plan or else a lot of money.
I also know of Americans who have died of treatable diseases such as diabetes simply because they could not afford medication.
So whilst I do agree with you F211 that the NHS is not all its cracked up to be, I have major reservations about a US type system as well.
I certainly agree with you about the deficiencies in the US system. I have seen those who have good or reasonable US health insurance get doctors appointments considerably faster and better quality treatment from the US than can be had in the UK. For example an American with healthcare insurance probably will not have to wait at least two weeks for a GP appointment, which is what we’ve been told to have to wait to see a GP about an ongoing and worrying gastric problem with our son.
In Britain nobody goes bankrupt paying medical bills which is something all too common in the USA but if I was an American I’d think really hard whether or not I’d want to abandon an insurance based system, even with its faults in favour of Britain’s one size fits all failing or rather failed NHS.
However the choice does not have to only be between the US system and the NHS. Other European nations and places like Singapore seem to manage quite well and have good outcomes with mixed provider systems supported by a combination of state subsidy and individually purchased insurance.