Let's turn the clock back to 1948

I know which I would choose.
NHS every time.
My DDiL was a senior specialist nurse at a major London hospital.
She decided to move to a newly built private hospital nearer to home as she disliked the commute
Well what a mistake! After a couple of months she begged for (and got) her old job back.

The work practices and management in the private hospital were not good. She felt sorry for the patients and felt the hospital was a money making machine.

Good luck tw3stars! That kind of think puts it into context.

Speaking as an American whose insurance ends 12/31 due to being made redundant, I’d love national insurance over here. If I cannot get a job soon, it will cost me $1,700 per month for the equivalent of my current coverage. I could get a policy for around $800/month but it doesn’t cover much and I’d pay about $5,000 in charges before the insurance started paying. Even with insurance, I pay $235 monthly for my asthma meds.
When I was in Manchester in 2019, I had popped in to see a doctor for a UTI and after consultation, lab tests, and Rx, I only paid £13 - it would have cost me $40 for the consultation, $65 for the lab work and $35 for the Rx.

What changes do you think are needed?

Although I have never known a time without the NHS, I have to say that I am firmly with those who think that our health service is now far from being "the envy of the world" and there has to be a radical rethink about how it will be funded in future. We have to accept that if we want even a "good enough" service, we have to be prepared to contribute more, as a proportion of our income. As one of the 7 million+ who have been waiting more than 2 years for treatment, I also now feel very anxious that if I had a heart attack or stroke, emergency care is so stretched that my chances of survival are much lower now than would have been the case 10 years ago. This has to change, but neither Labour or Tories want to risk losing votes by suggesting any new system that would dismantle a "sacred cow" that is no longer fit for purpose.

M0nica

I can only speak from my fairly extensive experience of the NHS over the last 10 - 15 years. Not dramatic illnesses but the ordinary bread and butter of family health problems with a mix of more serious issues.

I quite agree that it is not statistically proven material, but it goes well beyond the odd anecdotal incident. I accept that the NHS is excellent in emergencies, and I have experienced those, but beyond that good treatment only seems to exist if you are prepared to pay for it.

That's because the recipients of the "good treatment" are paying more for it.

How would it be if more money were to be available for all to have the good treatment?

Incidentally, I don't agree that good treatment is only available if paid for. As I've recounted before, a GP made a mistake about diagnosing my cancer and not referring me. I was so angry and upset that I went so far as consulting a solicitor, but in the end decided to direct my energy to making myself better. I had a face-to-face meeting with the Practice Manager and Senior Partner, who agreed to educate staff better about recognising the symptoms of lobular breast cancer, which doesn't always form a lump.

It was a mistake by an individual and I doubt if it would have been any different, if I'd paid for the consultation.

When I started treatment, it was superb. My consultant has a thriving private practice, but the NHS paid for me. I don't think anything could have been improved.

I don't think my heart attack treatment could have been improved either. Unlike your OH, MOnica, I did receive cardiac rehab. It was exhaustive, although, quite honestly, I found it all a tad patronising. It was for six weeks and each session lasted about four hours and consisted of talks about healthy lifestyle (yawn), circuit training exercises and a weekly blood pressure, weight and heart rate check. All of that could be done at home, using info from the British Heart Foundation and a little self-discipline.

Most of my contacts with the NHS over the last thirty years have been related to diabetes. I have an annual review and full blood, eye and foot checks. These have become less thorough over the last five years or so, but they're still available for free, as is my medication. I belong to an international diabetes forum and I know that this isn't available anywhere else. In the US, patients can't afford the best medications, so resort to all sorts of snake oil potions. They're astounded at the blood tests I receive as standard.

Privatized healthcare is like everything else that is privatized. You pay for the service and then you pay in addition for the private providers profits on top of that. Private insurance companies make huge profits in the US. The aim of any private company is to make as much profit as possible by providing as little as they can while charging as much as possible. Much of the cost of healthcare will always be paid out of the public purse unless the poorest sections of the community are to be denied healthcare almost entirely. Which happened in the past and may well happen again. But if not, in a privatized system, out of your taxes you will not only be paying for health care for yourself and your fellow citizens, you will be paying for the profits of multi national companies that are not even based in this country. Look at the railways, the power companies, the prisons. British workers are sweated by these companies, services are poor, profits are huge and extracted abroad. Is this really for the benefit of any of us here.

I was born a few days after the NHS - my brother was born five years before.

My mother spoke often of the importance she and other working class women had to place on having money kept back just in case they needed to take a child to see a doctor before 1948.

As for good treatment only existing if you pay for it .. . possibly . . . but if that 'good treatment' does go wrong - it is the NHS that often picks up the pieces. Over and over again.

Thanks for floating this, growstuff. A goodly reminder of what we need to fight for.

I can only speak from my fairly extensive experience of the NHS over the last 10 - 15 years. Not dramatic illnesses but the ordinary bread and butter of family health problems with a mix of more serious issues.

I quite agree that it is not statistically proven material, but it goes well beyond the odd anecdotal incident. I accept that the NHS is excellent in emergencies, and I have experienced those, but beyond that good treatment only seems to exist if you are prepared to pay for it.

M0nica

How are you all so sure that any alternative to the NHS would have been worse not better?

I'have asked this question several times, but none of those who say firmly that it would be has produced any evidence, because there isn't any, we just do not know.

Based on the percentage of GDP spent on healthcare, the NHS has provided one of the best healthcare systems in the world Monica. I’m certainly not shying away from answering your question, but note that it’s essentially based on your own value judgement that the NHS provides a poor service, and I’m not sure evidence will change your mind? Do you want some evidence from august bodies, can find it if so?

How are you all so sure that any alternative to the NHS would have been worse not better?

I'have asked this question several times, but none of those who say firmly that it would be has produced any evidence, because there isn't any, we just do not know.

I think you're right CBBL.

I would not be here without the NHS.
I was born prematurely (in Sept 1947) and had all kinds of complications. I did not have a swallowing reflex and had to be fed directly into my stomach. I had to be restrained for that reason (wriggling around would have caused damage). At one point, Doctor's advised stopping feeding me (they did not believe I would survive). I remained in hospital until I was 2 years old. I was "delicate" for many years, caught all the childhood illnesses (except for Whooping Cough) and had Double Pneumonia at the age of 7 (and stopped breathing). I was revived. Despite many pronouncements to the contrary, I am still here at age 75.

I think that society would be even more divided without the NHS. I think we are already seeing a return to pre NHS days, where only the wealthy, who can afford private treatment get immediate attention to health problems. The situation varies depending upon location - but I feel that it's going to take years of positive investment to make a real difference. I hope that happens, and I'd really like to be positive - but in my heart of hearts, I'm not sure it will!

I was born after rationing had finished.

I've probably benefitted more from vaccinations than anything else.

It's striking how much more efficient the NHS is now. When I had my tonsils out, I had to stay in hospital for five days and was thoroughly miserable. These days, it would be a day procedure.

I think that, as children in the late 1940s and 1950s, at a time of post-war rationing, our health was well protected.

Do you remember the cod liver oil, sweet sticky orange juice, calcium powder and virol malt extract our mothers spooned into us? - then when we were four or five the free school milk?

We might nor have appreciated it at the time but a lot of us are still here.

I found this article in "The Conversation" about healthcare before 1948.

It claims that those who gained most from the NHS were the "middle classes" and women and children.

theconversation.com/what-was-healthcare-like-before-the-nhs-99055

Sorry, you'll have to click on the link, but it's quite safe.

I contracted polio’ from the vaccine that I was given as a very young child so my life would have been very different. I received private treatment paid for by my parents as they felt that they could alter the dismal prognosis given by the NHS. Thankfully, with care and time and surgery when required, I recovered enough to lead a fairly normal life even though classed as disabled. The NHS has been brilliant too- picking up the procedures that my parents couldn’t pay for or couldn’t access easily. But for the NHS I wouldn’t have been able to progress as far as I did. BTW - there was no compensation for the initial ‘injury. My family just got on with what they had to do.

I’d like to see an NHS that had built on the level of service that was being provided in 2010, and was still top of the world rankings. We can all dream.

No one can possibly know whether they or anyone dear to them would have lived or died without the NHS.

If we didn't have the NHS we would have similar system like all those countries whose health services produce much better health results than we have. We forget all those who have died because the NHS failed them.

There is no eveidence to show that without the NHS there would be nothing. It just suits some people to assume that.

I would like to imagine a system that worked more efficiently and better than the NHS as it is now.

A chilling thought growstuff - the stuff of nightmares. I’ll blame you if I wake at 3.00am with this buzzing around my brain.

Here is an example of how it would be......

www.facebook.com/walkingthebreadline/videos/1346704038684062

* this link will probably only work for Facebook users

My mum would probably would have died giving birth to me and I doubt I would have survived either.
Since then, I have had life saving treatment on a number occasions.

In a couple of years my son, his cousin, and another cousins finance had appendicitis, pre being able to do safe surgery that would have taken out a swathe of the family

Denmark, and I believe the other Scandinavian countries had until about 1970 a similar health insurance scheme, then changed it to one that is entirely state funded

That is music to my ears, {grin]

What I like about state funding is that it cuts out unnecessary profit taking (e.g private health providers, insurance companies). And is more inclusive... it's hard to slip through the net.

my son and I would be dead.