Originally Posted by Command_doh

Originally Posted by blonde_guy

Don't forget the health tourists......I'm sure I read that a sizeable proportion of illegal immigrants are HIV+ and come here in a bid to try and get free healthcare

Hmmm, whilst it is true that we cannot refuse £100k p/a treatment to refugees (or economic migrants, depending on your perspective), I think the numbers you are talking about is inflated somewhat.

Last time I looked, 25% of UK asylum applicants were HIV +ve vs about 0.1% of the general population. The drugs alone cost £25,000 per year. That's one reason why people are risking their lives to get in to the UK. Increasing numbers of uninsured Americans are claiming asylum in Britain to try to get medical treatment.

Meanwhile, the NHS refused Herceptin to British women with cancer because the £30,000 per year cost to save their lives 'could not be justified'.

Often AIDS refugees are from sub-Saharan Africa where the disease is rife and there are no free drugs. If you were HIV +ve, lived in an African toilet and your only chance of survival was a bogus asylum claim at Heathrow, what would you do?

If your asylum application fails but you come from a basket case like Somalia, the government can't forcibly deport you. In this case, you'll be on free NHS treatment for the rest of your life. Interestingly, UK citizens who are absent from the UK for more than 3 months lose their entitlement to NHS treatment.

Originally Posted by Command_doh

I'd be more concerned with the significant number of generic health tourists that G.P.'s happily sign up and refer for treatment without any check as to whether they are entitled to free healthcare or not.

Read a puff piece about this in the Guardian once. It described hospital managers taking credit cards off wealthy Nigerians and wheeling the unentitled out of the hospital doors.

There was a piece in another paper a couple of weeks later about a day in the life of an admissions manager in a large, London hospital. He was supposed to ensure that all new admissions were entitled to free treatment or could pay if they weren't entitled.

It was a vision of hell. He'd been branded as 'institutionally racist' by the hospital's diversity manager - The Kiss of Death. The hospital's Chief Executive wouldn't stand up to the diversity manager for fear of a career ending accusation of racism and a raid on the hospital by the Commission for Racial Equality.

The IT department wouldn't let him access the computer system due to him being an evil racist. Hence he had to trawl the wards to find new patients. Very often, ward staff wouldn't let him in on the basis that he was an evil racist who might harm the patients by doing racist things.

When he did locate a foreign patient, they would be moved to another ward. The nurses and porters would refuse to tell him where the patient had gone, on the advice of their respective unions.

The African women who fly in to have their babies are only the tip of the iceberg. I know of cases where people have mental illnesses that flare up every couple of years. They fly to Heathrow and walk in to the nearest mental hospital. One South African bloke does this on a regular basis. The NHS even pays for his flight back to South Africa because it's cheaper than keeping him in hospital after he's stabilised.

It's estimated that health tourism costs the NHS £200 million per year. We've lost 30,000 beds from the NHS since 1997.

Originally Posted by Fallschirmjager

Apparently in our lifetime we will use the NHS 2000 times. The average person is in contact with the health service once a fortnight whilst collecting an estimated 1,330 prescriptions. I'm 40 and have never used the NHS (and med centre) more than 100 times. Is Britain full of hypochondriacs or is the NHS just trying to justify the vast amounts of money they waste?

NHS Linky

Some people take up the slack for others. My dad's been pretty badly Ill on and off for the last three years and must have spent about 6 months in hospital in all that time. I don't think i ever met as many doctors and nurses in the last 20 years than I have while dad's been ill.

In fact, up until I did my back in 6 weeks ago, it was about 15 years since I was last given a pescription.

Apparently 1 person in 20 who is of working age works for the NHS. This is a scary statistic, when compared to how many people actually earn income for the Nation v's those whose income is dependent on them. This is why you see fat gits on the telly who way 30 stone complaining that they shouldn't have to pay to have their stomachs stapled it should be done on the NHS. Personally I would give them a £5 a week food ration and watch the weight fall off, whilst saving the tax payer a fortune on benefits (and perhaps a 50p padlock on the fridge or perhaps move it to the bottom of the garden etc.). And don't get me started on the people I am funding to have boob jobs, and other non essential cosmetic surgery......

The main issue for me is not the size of the organisation as it has simply grown to meet the demands put upon it, but the attitude of people that refuse to take responsibility for their own health and believe that the NHS is there as a service to compensate for their poor judgement and lack of self discipline.

I think that it is great medicine and heath care has moved on, and that you very rarely see people with genuine health issues compared to what I remember when I was young (there was always one kid in the school who had a big shoe 'cos one leg was shorter than the other or wore callipers etc.) For me the NHS is a great insititution, that is being abused by too many. It is fantastic for people who are genuinely ill, but should not be a second home for hyperchondriacs, and fannys.

E_C

Originally Posted by Ancient_Mariner

If your asylum application fails but you come from a basket case like Somalia, the government can't forcibly deport you. In this case, you'll be on free NHS treatment for the rest of your life. Interestingly, UK citizens who are absent from the UK for more than 3 months lose their entitlement to NHS treatment.

Not the case anymore, Ive lost patients over the last year or so who have been forcibly deported irrespective of their HIV status.

Clicky Thing

Originally Posted by terroratthepicnic

She did say she wished all patients were like that.

If you were she'd be out of a job.

Originally Posted by Fallschirmjager

Apparently in our lifetime we will use the NHS 2000 times. The average person is in contact with the health service once a fortnight whilst collecting an estimated 1,330 prescriptions. I'm 40 and have never used the NHS (and med centre) more than 100 times. Is Britain full of hypochondriacs or is the NHS just trying to justify the vast amounts of money they waste?

NHS Linky

You malingering waster, although I did once go to A&E for getting bitten by a mouse and worried about tetanus, but I did guide the cat onto the target to finish it off afterwards. :D

I creamed my car into a wall in 1987 on leave and the fcukers billed me for the ambulance, glad I haven't payed in since I left in 1997, suckers! Compared to most other European nations the NHS is a farce. Its about as first world as Nigeria.

Most of you don't use the NHS that much because you're probably fairly fit and healthy plus you probably self medicate if you catch a cold or have a sore throat etc. (I've been to the GP twice since I retired from the Army 15 years ago, once for tonsillitis and once for an ingrowing toenail which I ended up dealing with myself, anyway).
However, I worked in a GP surgery and I can assure you that some people use the surgery virtually every day. OK, many of them are elderly but the majority are the worried well who will come to the GP for paracetamol (got the sniffles and I get free prescriptions) or with a runny nose. Even got "my blister has burst and I want a nurse to put a plaster on it". Our senior GP used to do his own night calls up to 12 years ago. He used to get two or maybe three calls a night (most were dealt with come and see me in the morning). This went up to 8, then 10 then 20 a night. When he got an urgent call at 4 in the morning to a "very ill" baby and found it was nappy rash, he handed over to an out of hours service.
Sorry to say, the vast majority of those who "use" the services so much are from abroad who demand their right to see a GP even if it is an incredibly minor problem. They also see no problem in making an appointment and failing to turn up then demaning another one. Even had one who would make an appointment for every Monday and then phone up to swop it for someone else in their household who invariably be ill on that Monday just to take up the appointment slot.
So, that is how the averages get bumped up.

2000 times !!! Fcukin hell I'm way under target despite being an accident prone ex bike racer (ok I was shite)

Ive barely scraped 100 in my glittering 38 years on this rock

Originally Posted by exbleep

Most of you don't use the NHS that much because you're probably fairly fit and healthy plus you probably self medicate if you catch a cold or have a sore throat etc. (I've been to the GP twice since I retired from the Army 15 years ago, once for tonsillitis and once for an ingrowing toenail which I ended up dealing with myself, anyway).
However, I worked in a GP surgery and I can assure you that some people use the surgery virtually every day. OK, many of them are elderly but the majority are the worried well who will come to the GP for paracetamol (got the sniffles and I get free prescriptions) or with a runny nose. Even got "my blister has burst and I want a nurse to put a plaster on it". Our senior GP used to do his own night calls up to 12 years ago. He used to get two or maybe three calls a night (most were dealt with come and see me in the morning). This went up to 8, then 10 then 20 a night. When he got an urgent call at 4 in the morning to a "very ill" baby and found it was nappy rash, he handed over to an out of hours service.
Sorry to say, the vast majority of those who "use" the services so much are from abroad who demand their right to see a GP even if it is an incredibly minor problem. They also see no problem in making an appointment and failing to turn up then demaning another one. Even had one who would make an appointment for every Monday and then phone up to swop it for someone else in their household who invariably be ill on that Monday just to take up the appointment slot.
So, that is how the averages get bumped up.

I don't mean to be rude. My Dad needed a head scan a few years ago, he was told, 6 months, which it took. I was working in Belgium at the time and suffered some headaches. My Dad 72, who would have been classed as voulnerable, still needed 6 months to wait to be checked. Fcuk me it took twenty minutes for me in Belgium.

Don't kid yourselves, the UK NHS is a money pit farce. It only cost me 240 euros as well which my insurance covered.

I'm sure there are good individuals doing good work, but the whole thing is a fcuking joke.

As an expansion on Sarge's point

Does the Hallamshire PCT still have 2.1 managers per bed as a ratio ???

Talk about non jobs