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Pah! I'd say that would be a bargain the US. It would cost a hell of a lot more than $80-$120. Unless you went to a dental college or something your probably looking at $500-$1000 a crown!
I had a gold crown added recently, £800. Dental and optical are the two areas in which you still pay hand over fist for stuff.
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I've skim read this thread, but did you know that the US government spends more per head of population on healthcare than the UK government, despite the UK system being state funded? The US healthcare system is a frightening example of what happens when free markets are left to operate without proper regulation, namely it is a cartel of large companies that are inefficient and fail to provide a decent service but do make staggering amounts of money for their shareholders.
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You should be able to choose your own consultant.
you can choose your own specialist consultant -- in any borough. and you can be referred to another one if you don't like the one you're seeing. most gps will just refer you to the closest specialist (or the one with the least waiting time), but you can do some research (ie. take responsibility for your own health) and find one that you think is more appropriate for your needs.
and if your gp is not willing/able to take your case seriously and do what you want them to do for you, you can seek a second opinion.
don't just sit back and be passive about your own healthcare!
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True Nigel; had that come about by the nationalisation of private clinics I'd celebrate it; but it's come about by the underhand privatisation of the NHS, so I don't. Anecdotal evidence is always to be treated with caution but I know quite a few GPs none of whom are happy with what's happening and a couple who have direct experience of tendering being rigged to ensure that new practices are run by private companies.
The rationale, not that I believe it, is that private providers are more efficient. But in the name of efficiency, it seems inevitable that something has to give: quality of care, cost of hiring and firing, etc. I haven't seen the performance data so I can't say. But in related areas there have been huge problems with mismanagement, such as in the procurement of IT systems. Again, I don't know the inside story - I'm not sure anyone does - but I get the impression that when public servants hold the purse strings private providers just smell money.
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Many of you know that my girlfriend has a history of spinal problems. She was born with very severe scoliosis (spinal curvature) and has had to put up with the effects of both that and her earlier treatment ever since. We have been at the sharp end of the NHS constantly for 10 years
Whilst the NHS has provided treatment all her life, and certainly to a better level than Ireland has provided some of her friends with the same condition for example, it has made the whole thing a bureaucratic nightmare. Leaving aside the filthy and poorly maintained hospitals, the out-of-date drugs and procedures (because providing the latest stuff is more expensive), the sheer bloody-minded bureaucracy of the NHS is staggeringly stupid. It is the bureaucracy that makes the NHS so expensive and inefficient. For example, My girlfriend had to register with a doctor in Shropshire and spend half the year up there because our local one in Tower Hamlets is snowed under with dole scroungers. TH will not pay for her drugs, nor much of her treatment. On being told by TH that she could not see the specialist who had treated her all her life we then had to wait a year and a half to be referred to a specialist of their choosing, who promptly said he could do nothing and referred her to the original specialist after all. We then had to wait another year or more for the operation. Which took place in a hospital so filthy and horrible that I'm surprised anyone survived.
Last year when after several visits to several specialists who diagnosed all sorts of shite that had nothing to do with her real problem (e.g. "you have chronic pain syndrome - take anti-depressants and painkillers" as opposed to the real solution: "you have a collapsed disc - we will operate") we got fed up of being moved from pillar to post and she went straight to the best scoliosis consultant in the country. She paid £150 for his time and he said "I know exactly what is wrong. I can fix it, and I am going to take you on as my NHS patient." Which he did. We then had to wait months for the appointment for the operation. At the pre-op her blood pressure was very low so they referred her for some tests. This being the NHS that meant "your operation is cancelled. Go back to your GP. Get him to refer you to a testing place, get some tests, come back and we will put you on the waiting list again." The testing place cancelled the test because they broke their only testing equipment and have only just now had it replaced. If it had been private they would also have referred her for tests. Which would have been downstairs, lasted an hour, and then back upstairs to get on with the pre-op.In the end my job offered medical insurance that covered her and her pre-existing condition. She phoned up and said "I've got insurance" - they phoned back and said "right, how's next week for you". She was operated on, given her own nurse 24 hours a day, had a room with a minibar, movies on demand, a wine list, amazing food, and, yes, Bupa etc can do the complicated stuff. Spinal surgery - no problem. 5 weeks later she is as right as rain for the first time in many many years.
So yeah, if you get hit by a car and rushed off in an ambulance then the NHS is perfect. If you have a chronic condition it's fucking useless - and it's because it's all about process, paperwork, dogma, and not about healing the sick. You get different treatment, different drugs etc depending on where you live. You used to get disgusting filthy hospitals staffed by workshy cunts, but my more recent experience tells me that has changed for the better. Private medicine is awesome - you get no restriction on treatment, location, they treat you amazingly, your hospital is like a 4 star hotel and yet along the way every stage is a profit-making venture. It beats me why the NHS cannot be run as efficiently as private medicine.
I agree to an extent with chronic problems. I think it depends on what the NHS is like in your area. My mum was in a horrible car accident many years ago. It should have been my dad driving the car at the time, and thankfully he wasn't, because he sits with the seat further back and his head would have been crushed by the B Pillar which ended up where the passenger seat was.
My mum started suffering neck and back pain a while after the accident, and she went to the see her GP who prescribed Ibuprofen. After months of usage she kept going back and saying there must be something wrong, I'm eating these things like smarties and the pain isn't subsiding, if I don't take them for one day I'm in agony. The GP kept insisting it was nothing and it would sort itself out. After 2 years of popping so many painkillers her stomach lining was fucked and so on top of a damaged back and neck she now has IBS to top it all off. Despite changing GP, who did many different tests they could apparently find nothing wrong with her that couldn't be cured by yet more painkillers. She finally found a private Osteopath who worked wonders and she had to pay him £40 a go, once a month or she would get to a point where she couldn't sleep due to the pain. It took a decade of hassling her various GPs for her to get referred to a physio and now with the combined Osteopath and Physio she is much better, but she is not fixed. If she stops seeing them then a month down the line she will struggle to pick things up and eventually sitting and standing cause too much pain.
I have had gastro problems since I was very young, I don't want to go into great detail to gross anyone out but I basically have the stomach of a middle aged to old man. I have a mild lactose problem anyway, but my metabolism is ridiculously high, I have to go to the toilet literally minutes after eating a meal, and I can spend a long time in there. From the age of 10 I suffered severe wind so much so that I've been to A&E on a few occassions because my parents thought I had Appendicitis. I've also suffered heartburn and indigestion from an early age. I can't let myself get too hungry because if I do then I get heartburn which can't then be cured by eating. I have to eat a tiny little bit at a time or the heartburn will just get worse. I went to see my GP who just kept telling me this was normal. Normal!? How many people do you know that go for a shit 7 times in a day? How many people do you know that if they don't eat for 5 hours have heartburn so bad they feel like they're going to be sick at any minute? My GP did nothing. My dad bought BUPA health insurance and took me to see a specialist, who couldn't help me either. I had an endoscopy, I've got cool photos of my stomach and intestine but apparently there's nothing wrong with me. I'm destined to a life of ridiculous bathroom timetables and constant eating.
By comparison, I damaged L3 and L5 in my spine from years of BMX riding and improper warming up, and too many spins. I went to see a different GP than my family one, it was in Liverpool because I was at university there, she sent me straight to a physio, I waited about 2 months on a waiting list during which time I was sensible, stayed off my bike, took it easy, only took painkillers when it was too unbearable to get out of bed (I remembered what happened to my mum) and the Physio was a godsend. For a start she was hot, always makes a difference when you're being treated by a pretty girl :) Every week I got my back massaged to iron out the damage I'd done during the week and I'd get taught stretches which should help me. Eventually once I mastered all the stretches, I'd be doing less damage every week until I went there and I had the manoueverability I had when I was younger. She discharged me and that was it. I have to do those exercises every day for the rest of my life or my back will just get worse and worse again but I was very satisfied with the NHS overall. It made a nice change, I was expecting the worse considering my mum's ordeal and my problems with my gastro system.
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Hmm, the NHS is a beuracratic mess, and the frontline staff (administrative, health visitors, midwives, GPs) are often substandard. Consultants, specialists and surgeons are amongst the best in the world however.
Our baby got into trouble during labour and this went unnoticed because the standard of care and attention during labour was so poor - had to have an emergency c-section in the end and that was when we saw the other side of the NHS - ruthlessly efficient, amazingly skilled.
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I'd hate to be a nurse (or a policeman) doing a job because it needs doing and they want to help people, getting underpaid and being called lazy cunts by the people that they are meant to be helping. doing their best in a system that isn't perfect coz it was fucked up by successive governments of both major parties.
If you were that kind of nurse I wouldn't be calling you a lazy cunt. I chose my words carefully to describe certain individuals who were doing the job only to pay for their night-courses "in computers", who had no interest in helping anyone, flat out refused to do anything, and were not so much doing their best as watching the clock. These people made my hospital stay unbearable.
But as I said at least twice, things have changed for the better. All the nurses I have met since then have been the polar opposite, be they NHS or private.
The GP system could be better.
At the moment with the NHS every referral to another treatment provider has you going back to your GP and trying to get him to refer you. This costs a fortune, takes months and doesn't work. In the private sector if one treatment provider thinks you need to see another they refer you directly. After all they are the field experts, not your GP - they should know. Then there is the "free at the point of use" thing. In France a GP visit is still free but you pay and then claim it back. This pretty much eliminates people going in for ridiculous things like hangovers and colds, and leaves surgeries free for the really unwell.One other thing I wish they would get rid of is the doctor's note system. If you take xx number of days of work you need to go to your GP and get a doctor's note when you return. This means GPs' surgeries are clogged up with people who no longer have anything wrong with them, taking up doctors' time writing them notes which only say what they have told him to write in it. It's a bloody farce and is no better than self-certification.
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Does anyone know of a free women's clinic? Drop-in service? Near W5? I don't even know where to start!
What sort of clinic are you looking for? family planning? well women etc?
www.nhs.uk has a search function through which you can find some of these,
otherwise you could ring NHS Direct on 0845 46 47 and they should be able to help
or and this option is likely to provide the most reliable and comprehensive information though possibly not as accessible/forthcoming as nhs direct, you could speak to your local pct.
use the nhs uk search and your postcode to find out which pct manages your area.
hope this is helpful
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Does anyone know of a free women's clinic? Drop-in service? Near W5? I don't even know where to start!
The one in Uxbridge does free drop-ins on saturday mornings. I can't remember exactly when or what for though, and it's quite a trek from W5, but I have their number somewhere if you want it.
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I would love it if any of you would chime in on the MSNBC politics boards. Then you can see just how assinie and uninformed our electorate is.
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Blimey, the American are incredibly politic as if it their religion, they love their politic yet at the same time they refuse to trust in it, how bizarre.
in the UK, we also have private health care as well as a national health care, the best of both world, so what exactly have they got to lose? if they end up having a national health care, it doesn't mean that private health care is going to disappear, it'll still be there.
nothing better than having an option than none at all.
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Blimey, the American are incredibly politic as if it their religion, they love their politic yet at the same time they refuse to trust in it, how bizarre.
in the UK, we also have private health care as well as a national health care, the best of both world, so what exactly have they got to lose? if they end up having a national health care, it doesn't mean that private health care is going to disappear, it'll still be there.
nothing better than having an option than none at all.
Welcome to my hell Ed. They don't see that it's a contradiction. I even pointed out that that the fiscal estimate for ten years of private health care in the States is FORTY TRILLION DOLLARS!!!! And yet they argue that National Health care is too expensive at 2 trillion over 10 years.
Stupid...
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I can now speak from experience, having just been to A&E after going over my handlebars cos some guy went into the bike lane.
Ambulance: got there in 10 minutes, awesome staff, they brought my bike with me
Hospital: a bit grimy but when aren't they, really nice dr., grumpy old nurse, xrays taken right away, in and out in about 3 hours. That's fantastic!
The Dr. said that I may still see a bill from it, but as of now, no one took payment information, no one asked for income info to see what payment bracket I was in, no one turned me away cos I didn't have insurance (though I did have my cc). The only thing that bugged me was the grumpy trauma nurse seeming to imply that b/c I'm on a tourist visa I shouldn't get to be seen and her comment about "Well, why don't you just get insurance?" stfu.
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You guys are doing great. I get the impression that NHS isn't perfect. But, would you like to see it gone. And have private corporations take over?
Perhaps a drop in your tax rates and have the freedom to choose your own plan from your own choice of corporations.Do you feel that a profit driven entity should be entrusted with the health of your nation?
Do you feel it would be better to have a profit driven entity making decisions on what may be your costly life or death care?
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Private health care is costing Americans 2.77 trillion dollars per year. It is due to double in ten years. It will cost over 40 trillion dollars over the next ten years. Approximately 40 million Americans are not covered. Their primary care physicians are the county hospital emergency rooms. This is bankrupting hospitals due to having to treat people that have no means of paying for their care. The ailments they present with are usually exacerbated by the amount of time they have gone untreated. This makes the treatment to mitigate their ailments more costly. If they were able to be seen in the beginning of their sickness they most likely may be able to treated with a far less costly prescription.
It will cost well over 40 trillion dollar over the next ten yearsToo see what your American friends are saying click here:
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You guys are doing great. I get the impression that NHS isn't perfect. But, would you like to see it gone. And have private corporations take over?
Perhaps a drop in your tax rates and have the freedom to choose your own plan from your own choice of corporations.even if there were a significant drop in me taxes, I wouldn't like to see the NHS ceased.
Its better to avit and not need it....than to need it and not avit. innit? -
You guys are doing great. I get the impression that NHS isn't perfect. But, would you like to see it gone. And have private corporations take over?
Perhaps a drop in your tax rates and have the freedom to choose your own plan from your own choice of corporations.Do you feel that a profit driven entity should be entrusted with the health of your nation?
Do you feel it would be better to have a profit driven entity making decisions on what may be your costly life or death care?
A drop in taxes would have to be equal in premiums for an equitable service. As a sensible human being who lives a life of moderate health risk it would be foolish not to have insurance of some description. I'm not going to kid myself that shit doesn't happen to random people and in many circumstances I am just another innocent bystander. On top of that, our environment is getting ever more carcinogenic so the risk of random cancers is also getting higher. Cancer treatment is really costly and I wouldn't want to pay for it myself.
Profit driven care is poor care because care costs money. I'd rather results driven care with an appropriate and acheivable reward mechanism.
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Profit driven care is poor care because care costs money. I'd rather results driven care with an appropriate and achievable reward mechanism.
I agree entirely
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What can you tell us Yanks about Healthcare in the UK
Posted by
@VeloSniper
You might want to state that they were private in the 19th century. Quite a while ago.