Californian Reacts | How does the NHS in England work?

This animation is a whistle-stop tour of how the NHS works in 2017 and how it’s changing.

Video Chapters:
0:00 - Introduction
1:05 - Reaction to NHS
9:10 - Final Thoughts & Questions

#NHS #UKHealthcare #Healthcare

[philipcochran]

The NHS started in 1948. Everyone is covered through general taxation. I would be broke and dead without the NHS.

[giteausuperstar]

I genuinely don't think there's anyone in the UK who hasn't either had their life saved, or the life of someone they know saved. I would have died in 1997 if it wasn't for the NHS

[kirsteneasdale]

The NHS is not an ‘industry’. It is a ‘service’, as it should be.
Also, those Americans who like to throw the word ‘socialism’, like it’s a dirty word - Is your education system, rubbish removal, police force, ‘socialist’ ? because they are paid for, from your taxes too.
The NHS is paid for through National Insurance which is a minuscule tax when compared to what you would pay for insurance in the US.

[bigoz]

I lived in the uk for 26 years and used the NHS a few times for different things. Never had an issue with it at all. It also save my mother twice from different cancers, for which I will be forever greatful. The wait times most people complain about are for non emergency treatments. My mum went to her doctor for what turned out to be cancer, 2 days after that appointment she was getting a biopsy done, by the end of the following week she was in recovery after major successful surgery. The NHS and all who work in it are amazing. The surgeon who performed my mum’s operation called her from his holiday in Switzerland 3 days later to see how she was doing. Great service!

[richardcastro-parker]

The NHS in my opinion is the greatest institution in the world. It has kept me alive without crippling debt.

[janes]

Americans always seem to say the NHS has long wait times so let's look at this. At about the same time I and an American lady I know needed the same surgery (for different reasons - hers much more serious than mine). It took 16 weeks from my first GP appointment about this until the day of my surgery. My American friend was told that her health insurance (via her husbands work - she was too sick to work) would not cover the surgery and so her husband had to start job hunting. He found a job with health insurance that would cover her surgery but she would have wait for 1 year before it was covered. She ended up having her surgery after waiting for about 3 years. I had no co-pays, she had to save up a lot of money to cover co-pays. The American system has way more delays and bankrupts people. Give me the NHS any day.

[TheSirSpence]

I'd be interested to know what you feel like a long wait time is? Sure when I wanted a Vasectomy it took 6 weeks, but when I had a heart issues I was in a hospital bed in minutes. Both were free of charge

[DarkSister.]

The NHS is brilliant, a few flaws yes, but my husband has Cystic fibrosis and he had a double lung transplant 4 and a half years ago, he's fit and healthy and has excellent care... He had about 6 months to live before it. I have bipolar disorder and rheumatoid arthritis, and again, I have excellent care. The NHS is something we are all proud of in the UK 🇬🇧❤️

[stephwaite]

I found it odd that you spoke of relatives working in the "Health Industry" we would be more likely to say working in "Health Care" or working in "The NHS" not in industry.

[claregale]

There are definitely areas that need an upheaval but on the whole the system is good, the NHS has looked after my mum when she had cancer and my daughter when she had heart surgery cannot fault the nurses doctors etc the back bone of the NHS !

[paulwalker]

The NHS has actually been around since 1948..

[stephenlee]

Hi
As a Brit, we generally love the NHS.
We complain, a lot, about thing we love and want to protect and improve.
We complain about the football team we support, the manager is rubbish, unless we just won something, even then it won't last, next week/season we will complain.
It doesn't mean there is something wrong with our football team or our NHS.

If you need immediate attention you can generally get it.
There are wait times and some (most) have become longer due to Covid (changes in ways things are done).

If you have insurance or can pay, you can 'go private', which may shorten wait times.
'Going private' may also get you a more pleasant room, nicer food, move convenient appointments, but almost always the same doctors.

In the past the NHS has made some interesting and poor financial decision.

We tend to worry about US medical industry trying to set up here and effectively cream off the more profitable procedures.

[davidhoward]

The NHS is a treasure, good luck trying to explain it to an American... Nye Bevan quote says it all

[dirtbikerman]

The NHS started in 1948 and all of my experiences have been great and I've been looked after very well.
I was born in 1980 and when I was younger I thought every country did it this way.

[wellingboroughanddistrictua]

I was born with a dislocated hip. Before the NHS was founded, the cost of putting it back would have been prohibitive for my working class parents but, because I was born in 1958 it was all sorted out, free at the point of delivery. Since then, I have been fairly healthy, I have had cataract surgery on both eyes and a full hip replacement due to arthritis (my parents were warned this was likely due to the original dislocation). I had to wait several months for the cataract surgery, but I had been living with the cataracts for years before than anyway, and I had to cancel several appointments for my hip replacement because of other things happening in my life so I can't complain about the six months it took between diagnosis and surgery.

The problem currently is the disease which we dare not name. All of the NHS resources have been concentrating on dealing with that recently, so things that aren't life threatening have been delayed. This has created long waiting lists, which the NHS is now trying to deal with. Serious cases are triaged, so if people are waiting, they may be in pain but nothing worse. The other problem is the bureaucratic jungle the video attempts to explain, which means that money is spent on administrators and consultants (not the medical sort) rather than on front-line services.

There is a lurking fear of privatisation. As the video said, the NHS pays private providers for various services and this has attracted a lot of US "Healthcare" companies who want to increase their profit margins, initially around the edges, like making hospital patients pay for meals, but ultimately by making the system closer to the US model. Trump openly talked about this on a visit to the UK and a number of Conservative politicians are known to be sympathetic.

[generaladvance]

Not had to receive much NHS care myself (thankfully) but the couple of times I have it has always been a positive experience. I don't really care about paying into it by tax despite not really using it, as I know I'd get the same should I need it.

[michaelatkins]

The NHS is fantastic but our GP section needs some serious looking into The NHS needs to stop paying private GPs and use there own more

[Shane-zxps]

I’m not British, but I know about the NHS and I have to say it’s a brilliant organisation and long may it last, in the USA if you don’t have insurance your left to die like a nobody, but yet we have plenty of money for weapons and move into countries and cause a lot of our own young men to die needlessly, and what changes after we leave these countries?.. nothing..imagine we put our money in people and it’s health system, now wouldn’t that be a beautiful thing to do…

[salsa]

Ignore the 2013 change. It was so destructive to NHS operations, it decentralised local NHS pacts to make ccgs.. the 2013 change put all commissioning onto local gps tripling their workload. The big wait times are a and e because it is clinical priority a sprained ankle is lower priority to someone having an asthma attack. Referral wait times are usually 6 weeks except cancers which are set at 2 week maximums from referral to scan and 2 weeks to first treatment. The NHS is paid via taxes so there is no payment on demand, no bankrupting Bill's fir an ICU stay. Also medication prescriptions are £9.95 per item on prescription but there are 5 excemptions to this so cancer patients, hormone meds, diabetes, epilepsy etc are free. You can still have private medical insurance so you can have the option to be referred to a private medical facility for treatment or even for NHS choose and book (the private hospital does part of the care for the NHS under contract usually outpatients). During the pandemic the private hospitals were taking on routine appointments as the NHS hospitals filled with covid patients, this freed up beds in NHS hospitals for critical patients and elective/routine procedures were done at private hospital facilities. Also because the NHS is a single system it was the first nation in the world to fully approve vaccines following rigorous testing, and also start a full national immunisation program, it was able to do that because the scientists work in tandem with the NHS under extremely high quality regulatory standards. The NHS has the infrastructure in place to deliver PPE, medicines and vaccine to every nhs site meaning we didnt have to open massive covid testing centres and cause delays because it was all there ready.... none of this federal v state nonsense. Also the NHS has a long history of education about polio, TB, smallpox, mumps, measels, rubella etc. The NHS has a extremely high standard of care (the facilities might not be looking like a 5 star hotel but the quality of care is good). The NHS covers virtually everything (some things it cant afford or hasn't passed NICE approval - equivalent of FDA approval) but those examples are very rare.

[maureenjones]

I had my children delivered in a N.H.S. hospital and on my second child I had a bad time but was taken care of magnificently in hospital and after care at home. They do a brilliant job. x