Britain has become, by my reckoning over the last few decades, a place which could be described as a crap public healthcare system with a nation attached. Worship of the National Health Service seems to have replaced, for too many people, attendance at their local Anglican church.
But what are people worshipping when they deify the UK healthcare system? They are certainly not bowing down in respect and awe to a first class healthcare system and most definitely not anything that could honestly be described as ‘the envy of the world’.
Whatever area of the NHS you look at you will find tales of horror. You will find unnecessarily dead or damaged babies in NHS maternity units and elderly Britons who’ve paid taxes all their lives treated like dogshit on someone’s shoe by both hospitals and community medical providers. In my own family and friendship circles I’ve had one relative killed by NHS incompetence and an unwillingness to consider something other than rigid tick box medicine, a cancer patient put in a side room full of soiled linen and dirty laundry, another relative who nearly had the wrong leg operated on and the birth of my own child nearly turning to tragedy because of a grossly incompetent administration of an epidural during childbirth. I despise the NHS and have damned good reasons for feeling as I do. That doesn’t mean that I believe that the UK should copy the US system, that is a system with numerous faults, but other nations can easily provide us with examples of how to run a comprehensive publicly accessible healthcare system that has neither the problems of the US system or the British one. The one good thing that can be said about the British NHS system is that nobody goes bankrupt via accessing NHS treatment. However that good needs to balanced by the concern of patients that they will get the sort of substandard treatment that the NHS has become world renowned for. Non-bankruptcy verses death by incompetence is not a decent choice when it comes to healthcare.
I’ve written extensively here about the problems facing Britain’s NHS. These problems include the aforementioned incompetence of staff but there is also the incredible degree of waste and bad management that the NHS afflicts itself with.
Dentistry is one of those areas covered by the National Health Service that are symptomatic of a system mired in sclerotic beauracracy, poor management and in some cases having the wrong things funded. It’s almost impossible now for the average working person to get registered for an NHS dentist and get dentistry treatment with them, unless of course you are a dinghy diver who has just rocked up illegally on a South Coast beach and is in detention. Waiting lists are long and spaces few in dental practises that do NHS work and even if you can get registered and can afford the co-payment fees you will find that your NHS dental experience has all the delay and charm of an East German bread queue.
The comment copied below from a diabetes forum gives some idea as to the shocking state of NHS dentistry. It’s truly horrible to see experiences like this especially when one realises that such experiences are probably being had by thousands of Britons up and the country.
My 16 year old granddaughter started with, what she thought, was toothache last Friday. She was staying over at ours with her cousins and was popping painkillers the whole time. She couldn’t pinpoint the actual tooth but alarm bells rang when she said the right side of her face ached all over especially when she put one foot in front of the other. She could barely open her mouth at this stage and was struggling to eat. I immediately thought it could be an abscess, as I’ve had the same thing in the past. Unfortunately, her NHS dentist took her off their books last year as she refused to have a brace fitted, they wanted to fit it as she had two “ crooked” teeth. She didn’t want it fitted as she wasn’t bothered about the look of her teeth and had heard it was painful. I’ve never noticed anything amiss. Coincidentally, 16 year old grandson has also just had a brace fitted and he’s not quite sure why. It’s annoying and hurting him very much with food getting stuck in, especially apples. Are they getting paid mega bucks from the NHS for fitting braces, who knows? Because of this her mum, our daughter, rang the emergency dentist on Saturday, no appointments locally but she could go to a town 45 miles away, over an hours drive! Was told to ring again on Sunday morning at 8.30, no local appointments either Sunday or Monday. Daughter doesn’t drive and her hubby was working. She then did an E consult with GP surgery, they said it was a dental emergency and to contact the emergency dentist! She rang A&E, they said the same, rang 111, they said the same. Granddaughter is starting her GCSEs today and is in a right state. We called our dentist, private, and she’s got an appointment at 2pm today, her exam is this morning, Mr Eggy will take her, her parents work full time, and now for the best bit. £104 just for the appointment and medication if needed, extra for X-rays or any work undertaken. Of course we will cover the cost, they just couldn’t afford it. I hope it isn’t an abscess but we couldn’t chance it as it can be very dangerous. I just think the dental system is totally broken, ( like the NHS) she’s a child for goodness sake. We were all so frustrated and angry that it had to come down to “if you have money we’ll see you.” As a lifelong working class socialist, I feel I’ve let the side down, but I had to swallow my pride as my granddaughter’s health is my priority.
NHS dentistry is a broken service but in that it is no different from the NHS as a whole. It’s a broken down socialist idea which has failed like so many other socialist ideas. I don’t think that the commentator who says they are a ‘lifelong working class socialist’ has ‘let the side down’, they’ve just done what a lot of us have already realised and that the NHS by its very nature as a socialist entity, is not run for the benefit of patients a lot of the time but for the benefit of the staff of the NHS. It seemed a nice idea back in 1948 that the State would provide healthcare, including dentistry and it was an acceptable concept when that’s all the NHS did and when basic competency was something that the NHS and its staff aspired to. However now that’s not the case. The NHS is now a bloated wasteful monster that cannot provide the quality of level of service to it’s patients that it is supposed to but its executives and management have nice comfy corner offices, which is what happens in all socialist and socialist inspired organisations. We might not be able to rely on the NHS to fix our teeth but at least we can lose them and live in chronic dental pain knowing that someone somewhere has a nice cushy NHS Diversity and Equity job on money that should have been spent on stuff like dentistry.
I believe in nations having healthcare systems that are freely available for their citizens and which don’t cause bankruptcy for their customers. But maybe it’s time to admit that the NHS is not exactly the best way to go about this aim.
Thanks for covering this story. One thing that gets me about people who are proud to declare themselves to be socialists is that they seem unable to join the dots when the fact that socialism is a bad idea hits them square in the face. Presumably the problems are all caused by underfunding by the evil Tories, although at least they can’t pin the dentist blackmailing kids into having braces fitted on Thatcher.
Without the NHS you would have to pay for your own health care. In this case they had to pay anyway and in fact are paying twice, paying taxes for a service that they are unable to access.
To give credit where it is due, I am a type two diabetic and receive excellent care from my local surgery. It is worth noting though that I take an active interest in using diet and exercise to keep my glucose levels under control and try to be a model patient.
No problem for the coverage. I apologise for not getting it up earlier but I was in ‘enhanced parent mode’ due to my wife being away for work.
I agree with you on the subject of socialists suddenly finding out, sometimes painfully, the truth about socialism and its failures. Reminds me of an old boy I once knew who was a staunch supporter of Fidel Castro. He could not accept that any of the criticisms of the Cuban Communist Party were valid, he contributed a lot of his valuable time and money that he didn’t have in supporting the Cuba Solidarity Campaign and really and truly believed that Castro had created a workers paradise.
There’s an increasing number of Britons who are paying twice for health services, not just dentistry, because the prospect of excessive waits for vital treatment, NHS incompetence and being treated worse than an East German citizen queuing for bread, by the ‘envy of the world’ terrifies them.
Some bits of the NHS are truly excellent but there’s not enough excellence and too much of the opposite. The best way I can find to describe the NHS is ‘patchy’.
The fact that diabetic treatment is good may be down to the fact that it saves money in the long run. Diabetes can be very unpleasant due to a whole host of complications connected with it. Properly managed I would describe it as more like an inconvenience. There are certain foods that I can’t eat and it is basically compulsory for me to take regular exercise.
My wife and I went over to a private dentist several years ago because we couldn’t get a place at an NHS one. We have stuck with them ever since due to the excellent service and the fact that we could afford it. When I had a loose crown, I rang first thing in the morning, the phone was answered straight away and I had an appointment booked for 09:45 that day. The crown was re-attached free of charge, but I was informed that it wasn’t a permanent fix. It lasted about six months before coming loose again. I am currently in the process of having an implant. I don’t know whether these are available on the NHS or whether they are classed as being cosmetic. Obviously this is expensive but it is the best and most permanent solution.
In my original comment I said:
“Presumably the problems are all caused by underfunding by the evil Tories.”
And there it is:
“12 years of Tory rule has made nhs a complete mess.”
Maybe I’m a coward but I prefer not to argue about politics on the diabetes forums. They are a friendly community mainly concerned with supporting each other in dealing with diabetes and its associated problems and I don’t want to start making enemies. But really, has there ever been a time in living memory when the NHS hasn’t been a bit of a shit show?
It’s not cowardice, it’s just that there are some environments where it’s inappropriate to discuss politics. I abide by the convention not to talk about politics or religion on the Ham radio bands and I rarely do so on the CB bands unless it’s to discuss how the local council have managed to make a pigs ear out of our heavily potholed road system. Some places are appropriate for politics such as general discussion boards online but less so in a forum dedicated to flower arranging for example.
Maybe in the early days the NHS wasn’t a shit show but I recall the incident where my late father had the wrong leg marked up for an operation happened during Callaghan’s time. There has unfortunately been a large degree of shit show-ness associated with the NHS but that might be because it is a nationalised industry, phones were the same when it was Post Office Telephones.