[vkazanov]

As someone in the same income range, and many friends in comparable spot, I have to say that NHS is sometimes ok.

Here's an NHS case.

Case 1. My friend's wife had her body going numb, like, completely senseless. They didn't have a private insurance back then. It was maddening hard to get past the GP. And then there were numerous tests, and queues, and... She had a viral brain infection that was, luckily, easy to fix. Could go horribly wrong should they wait for a couple more months.

The problem is that GPs are afraid to assign tests other than the most simple blood tests (unless it's an obviously broken bone).

Case 2. My wife fainted in the middle of a family dinner. It looked serious, and I recognized the sympthoms thanks to dr. ChatGPT. Our car was at service that day. I was trying to get an ambulance but calling all the publicly available NHS numbers but all we got were endless questioneers. We had to force the situation by taking a taxi right to the hospital door. She had an urgent surgery the same evening, quite serious.

Again, there's just TOO MUCH backpressure from NHS at the entrance. Once you get past these filters, it actually it decent.

OTOH, with my highest tier private insurance I had an MRI scans, kidney checks, blood tests all done within a week or two, mostly because of how I had to coordinate things between various private clinics. Not fast, sure, but acceptable.

[vidarh]

"all the publicly available NHS numbers"? The number you should call if it looks serious is 999 (or 112; same thing). If they don't send an ambulance, then sure, that's a problem (and one worth filing a complaint about), but the times I've called 999 the reaction has been immediate.

As for tests, one of the reasons they "are afraid" has nothing to do with being afraid, but what is medically indicated. A lot of private services will do everything "just in case", the NHS won't. That means you often get people wondering why they've not been sent to an MRI for example (as one of the most common examples), because it's only actually affecting outcomes for a very small set of diagnoses. But some GPs certainly do get it wrong, and people need to be more aggressive about changing GPs if they feel they're not being heard.

[vkazanov]

Yes, I know, 999 was what we called.

So how it works, unfortunately, is that GPs get a lot of pressure to not do things "just in case". But "just in case" is the only way you can notice things that are wrong on a deeper level.

What, for example, is "back pain"? In 90% of the cases this can be fixed by, say, 10 sessions with a physio. But sometimes it can mean something serious, like a spinal disk injury.

Or sleepiness. 98% of that can be fixed with lifestyle and diet changes. But sometimes this can a sympthom of something scary.

Or my wife's example: didn't feel quite right for 3-4 weeks then fainted. Turned out to be serious. The full GP discussion would have taken weeks.

Or my friend's example: increasing numbness, nothing serious at first. Major brain infection. The GP actively tried to downplay things.

I don't know if there is a solution to this. Right now it feels that without chatgpt-assisted self-diagnoses and being aggressive with getting over the GP wall the system tries to avoid helping out.

[HDThoreaun]

On the other hand doctors on the US prescribe far too many tests. These tests are generally set to have a 5% false positive rate so if you prescribe 14 tests you’re more likely than not to get a false positive. From talking to doctors it seems extremely common for something like that to happen and it’s always a headache when it does.

[archagon]

How much do you pay for your private insurance?

[vkazanov]

Wasn't me, it's a corporate perk