[ljf]

We have free at point of need healthcare here in the UK, and still have a lot of choice in private healthcare if you want it.

In the nearest city to me there are 3 major private hospitals, and if you head into London there are loads of them.

Private is still able to compete and to be profitable. Just no one needs to die from preventable diseases.

(not saying NHS is perfect, it is a shadow of what it should be right now)

[ajb]

Sort of. My understanding is that private hospitals largely opt out of most of the difficult stuff, because the NHS is there to take it on. So they're good if you're waiting around for a hip replacement but not so much for other things.

[tialaramex]

Right, essentially every private hospital's response if, say, a patient they're giving a boob job suddenly becomes unresponsive is to... call the NHS. Yeah, the medical staff will be better than your neighbour or some random passing guy in the street when it comes to knowing how to put you in recovery position or attempt CPR but those hospitals won't have a crash protocol beyond too bad call the NHS.

I spent eight hours at an Accident & Emergency department at my city's hospital a couple of weeks ago (Those electric scooters look easy enough, I have a driving license, I watch the training video, then at midnight I thought I'd try one, signed it out, crashed into a lamp post within seconds, broke my hand and busted my head open. Oops. Signed the scooter back in, walked to the Urgent Care, it shuts late at night, walked towards hospital, saw a cop - "Hey, I can't see my head, I can feel the wound, is it bad?" "You should get a taxi to A&E. I'll call you one"). There is no private emergency care, private cosmetic surgery sure, and lots of private non-urgent care, like knee replacement or whatever - but no emergency care.