Honest British vs American Healthcare Comparison // Is the NHS Good?

but you're not being this isn't like world war ii you're in some bomb shelter where somebody's like sawing off your leg with a stick [Music] hey guys welcome back to the girl gun london channel if you're new here my name is caitlin i've lived in the uk for almost 10 years as an american expat and today i am going to talk about the pros and cons and my experience of the nhs first things first let's just jump right into it because i feel like this video is actually really important for me to make because there's a lot of questions in america about what it might be like to have a nationalized health service there's a lot of fear mongering about the experience and i feel like people might have heard of the nhs even more in today's day and age again given the situation when you see articles about the uk and about their response to the situation you might hear them talk about the nhs and part of the reason why the uk currently is doing really really really good in their vaccine production and their vaccine dispersal vaccine giving vaccine rollout is because there is a centralized health system here and so when the nhs took charge of the vaccine rollout it was so easy they've got everybody's contact details who was registered which is basically everybody in the uk and everybody kind of knows the drill and it's just probably a lot easier to roll out than in somewhere where it might be slightly more disjointed so let's first say what is the nhs the nhs is the national health service so when we talk about it i'm referring to just the nhs in the uk there are some differences and um there's nhs england nhs scotland wales and then northern ireland has its own name it's not actually nhs but similar and so each kind of devolved country is in charge of their own healthcare system but it's all also one if that doesn't really make sense but just go with me here let's just talk about the nhs and it applies to most of the uk so the nhs is the national health service and it basically means that the health care system here is nationalized it is not by default private like it is in the u.s so what does that mean well it means a lot of different things and it means some positive things that mean some negative things and i'm going to talk about my own experience with the nhs throughout this video to kind of give you my perspective but this can be very different from someone else so you know always do your research and take what i'm saying with a grain of salt because i'm one person but i will speak to my honest nhs experience okay so how is this paid for so the nhs isn't strictly free in the sense that we do pay for it through our taxes so british people are accustomed to paying more taxes through their employer or if they're self-employed at the end of the year in order to go towards the greater good and to help fund the nhs obviously there is other funding but a lot of it has to do with higher taxes means that we can afford and nationalize health service or at least we hope we can afford there obviously is always some struggle with funding at times but in general yes the argument that it is not free is true because we have higher taxes but as i'll get into the fact that i don't have to worry about the cost of an ambulance really is something that i am definitely a fan of so i don't mind paying those higher taxes now how does it work when you have an emergency in the uk so if you have an emergency you would go i mean there's multiple different things i could talk about and different lines you can call and blah blah but let's just say basics if you have an emergency you go to the local a and e which is an er they call it the accident in emergency or i call 999 991 999 is the emergency number here in the uk and they send an ambulance out to you they would take you then to the hospital and emergency treatment in the uk for anybody is free if you are here as a visitor and you have an emergency and you break your arm and you need to go to the hospital that care because it is emergency care would be free follow-ups and medications and things like that as a visitor who does not pay in to the nhs you would then technically be on the line for owing some money it's not going to be as much money as you pay in the u.s but for everybody no matter where you're from emergency treatment in the uk is free and this is life-changing for some people i used to work with americans who were visiting the uk and they would have an emergency and not do anything about it or like panic about calling an ambulance because they thought they were going to be hit with a bill british people find it so strange that you could be billed for needing an ambulance same thing with childbirth you don't pay on the nhs when you're having a baby like that's an emergency that thing needs to come out of you the idea that the hospital is then going to send you a bill for having a child is just so foreign to them overall emergency means you go to a e you get an ambulance by calling 999 and point of care service for the emergency is free i have been to multiple a nes in my like 10 years here and i have had to wait similar to how you would in american hospital but i think the longest i've waited was like two hours maybe three hours when i came in with something that maybe wasn't as much of an emergency but i was a student and i didn't i didn't understand how to use the healthcare system i hadn't registered with a doctor and i was pretty sure i had bronchitis or something i just couldn't shake so i went to a e and they do kind of triage you a bit so if you come in not breathing they're gonna take you right away if you come in saying i think i have bronchitis you're gonna have to wait but overall i have been to the amy multiple times and have had no negative experiences and i'll talk a little bit about like what it actually looks like inside hospitals in a minute but in terms of the actual a e experience not really that much different to an emergency room let's talk about how it works when you don't have an emergency so because it is a nationalized system it's actually really easy to find your doctor because it's based on your postcode what americans would call a zip code sometimes you'll have a choice if there's multiple in the area sometimes you won't it might be that you live in a village and there is the doctor's office for the village and that's the one that you go to now they also call doctors offices doctor surgeries and i was really confused when i first moved here because i was like why is everyone having surgery like everyone i talked to was like well you should register for the surgery and i was like i don't need surgery i think i just have bronchitis but um they call it a doctor's office a doctor's surgery no actual surgery performed there so you would register with your local gp general practitioner they call it basically a family doctor within the gp they're going to be multiple doctors say there's 10 doctors every time i make an appointment i can request a certain doctor and the receptionist or the online system will tell me when the next appointment with that doctor is however many people simply book an appointment and it's with whichever doctor so the idea that you have one doctor isn't really the case here you can make it the case if you are like adamant about just seeing this one person but a lot of people consider all of the doctors at their doctor's office experts and professionals and they're just willing to talk to the next person that's available about their problem so they consider kind of all of the doctors at that doctor's surgery to be their doctor this obviously does have some downsides when it comes into having to explain your situation if it's ongoing to a new doctor and i found that a little in the past i prefer to we prefer to go to the same one but if that person's not available and we really need help then that's fine we'll go to someone else but i do like the idea of the american way of having one doctor who is your doctor for continuity of care but they take great records and the doctors will just pull up your file all of your lab work all of your stuff i haven't been negatively affected by going to multiple different doctors but i do see how americans do like the one doctor per person kind of system so you book an appointment with the gp it's about 10 minutes long and there is definitely kind of you feel a pressure um not necessarily by the doctor but just by the system to make sure that you're not going too far over and above your limit because they have other patients to see that can be a downside of the nhs where they have a lot more people to serve and they are limited on time but you can book a double appointment if you need to and a doctor is not going to rush you out after 10 minutes if you keep bringing up a whole list of extra problems that are related to your initial problem they might say you know seeing as how this is an emergency let's make you another appointment to come back in but overall i haven't had any really negative experiences with feeling like 10 minutes is not enough because you go in you say your problem you talk about it and they refer you on or they prescribe your medication or give you their verbal advice and then you go on your way let's talk about referrals so again there's a lot to talk about with the nhs so sorry if you're getting slightly lost in all of the different things leave your questions down below but so a referral would mean that you go to the gp you say i have a problem with my skin they look at it and they say hmm yeah i do think that might be a problem sometimes they would just say oh it's this here's this medication or you're going to be fine or whatever but sometimes they might say yes i think we should have a specialist look at that and then they refer you onto a specialist so a dermatologist or a gynecologist or a podiatrist or any number of specialists and so what this means is that on the nhs you do not have direct access to a specialist until you go through your gp once your gp refers you on and you then have appointments with this specialist the specialist again in nhs specialist can then make appointments with you directly there so when i had to go to the dermatologist a few years ago and i went on accutane and i had to do multiple follow-ups i didn't have to go to my gp every single time to get another appointment with the dermatologist once i was in the dermatologist system and i had been referred by the gp then i was able to make appointments directly through them there are pros and cons to this as well the pros being that a lot of things your gp can take care of so they don't have to overload the specialist again a gp is very highly trained and there's so many things that they can just say you don't need a dermatologist i know what this is and here's the solution but obviously the cons being that there is kind of a hoop to jump through every single time you feel like you need to see a specialist so again pros and cons now let's talk about prescription costs because this is going to be an area where the nhs is a pro times 100 million it's priceless so in certain countries in scotland you don't even have to pay for prescriptions in england you do but it's about i think it's currently nine-ish pounds it hovers like eight nine pounds per prescription no matter the prescription and that would be like when i went on accutane which is a very very very expensive prescription in the u in the u.s when i went on it my month-long accutane treatment until my next dermatology appointment was like eight pounds every time so what it would have cost me on the us system versus the uk system is just not comparable and they do have regular pharmacies there's usually pharmacies within the doctor's offices and if you are pregnant your prescriptions are free i think students get them free there are plenty of people who also in england get them free birth control is free again i say free yes we do pay higher taxes for these kinds of things but on an individual level the idea that i can not worry about what's being prescribed to me and if it's expensive or generic or this or that is truly one of the best parts of the nhs okay let's talk about the quality of care and doctors on the nhs i can only speak to my experience and my experience has been i have never had an experience where i felt like i was not getting quality care and quality treatment by an experienced doctor the nhs is not some sort of like second rate you don't have to do as much schooling because it's not private like the doctors are well-trained experts in their fields and a lot of nhs doctors will also work privately as well sometimes which i'll talk about in a second so even going private here doesn't mean that you're getting a doctor with more experience or more knowledge the nhs is filled with amazing educated doctors and i have never ever felt like the doctor him or herself wasn't giving me the best treatment that they thought possible now that does bring me on to what i would consider to be a con from my perspective but that's from an american perspective that was very used to being able to basically just like demand whatever tests and medication i wanted here in the uk there's a much more conservative approach overall in not doing testing if they feel like you need it but doing extensive testing for what they feel like is no reason there's more of a wait and see kind of approach sometimes whereas i feel like in america we would be like well you're paying for this anyway so if you want an mri go get the mri whereas here it is a nationalized system everybody needs to be helped and supported so they're not necessarily going to just throw the book at everybody who comes in with a stomach ache they're going to wait and see and as things progress or if they see warning signs where you talk about anything that raises a red flag then you will get referred on to whatever tests that you need but i feel like i have to be an advocate here for myself a lot more than in america where my doctor would almost be like we're doing this we're doing this we're doing this whereas here i definitely feel like i have to go in like knowing what solution i want and what kind of testing i would be comfortable with and again i said i would be honest in this video so that is a little bit of a con for me and i know a lot of american expats really um struggle to adapt to this kind of situation but at the end of the day taking responsibility for your own health and learning to be the squeaky wheel isn't necessarily the worst thing that's ever happened to me and i've never been adversely affected by anything like that i've always i want to say gotten what i wanted which is true i've always gone in saying you know i have really bad acne this was years ago and i really want to try accutane my dermatologist in america had recommended it and the uk doctor was like well i'm not sure that it's bad enough for accutane how we would prescribe it here and i was like listen please and they're like okay yeah there's a bit more of a conservative wait-and-see approach but that's also kind of just uk culture in general right like americans are like there's a problem let's all rush to it and like you know do all these kinds of things and the brits are like hmm why don't we just stay calm and see what happens so i'm not completely saying this is like an nhs problem this is like a british culture thing but definitely expect a more conservative approach and a more wait-and-see approach to treatment now that being said if there are any red flags or they suspect that something could be cancerous or could be a serious problem there is a fast track to referral so it is i believe a two-week promise of if they see any warning signs of anything serious they will make sure that you are seen by the specialist or that you have the test or whatever you need to have within two weeks to an american this seems like a long time because i'm used to saying well i'm free tomorrow if you think i have this problem like i will show up tomorrow here it is two weeks but the nhs also has like incredible um cancer care cancer treatment like they know what they're doing it's just a little bit slightly longer of a timeline but if you are suspected to have a serious problem and i'm not talking about during these times because i know there is pressure on the nhs to deal with the other situation but in normal times if you have a serious problem you are going to be seen by somebody and you are going to be in the system you're not going to be waiting like six months if they suspect that you have cancer or something like that okay so i have one more con and the ultimate pro to end on so the other con in my experience as an american using the nhs is that the quality of the actual buildings and the environment in the hospitals and in the doctor's offices they're just not as flashy as those in america and you know what that makes sense the money that the nhs has needs to go into the life-saving treatments and the doctors and the actual things that matter as opposed to me being like well my doctor's office doesn't feel like i'm sitting in like the living room of a five-star hotel which sometimes it does in america and you know american hospitals in general like they're some of them are really beautiful it feels like a hotel i used to work at the children's hospital of pittsburgh and that place was like disney world for kids and it was just gorgeous and that same kind of flashiness first of all it doesn't exist here in the uk overall secondly it doesn't exist on the nhs simply because they're maintaining the buildings but they're not going to choose for a fresh cone of paint to go before the mri machine that is actually going to impact people's health care so i can feel at times as an american using the nhs that you would go into the physical surroundings and it just doesn't look like as bright and sparkly as i'm used to but that's a small price to pay for the ultimate pro which is i never worry about coming down with any sort of serious illness and what financial impact that could have on me and my husband i never have to worry if i get appendicitis in the middle of the night and have to go to the hospital i don't worry about the bill if i just need a regular doctor's appointment i don't have to worry about the co-pay or how much i need to pay and is it worth it paying is my problem bad enough i just make an appointment and that freedom is something a lot of expats here in the uk really value and what prevents a lot of people actually from moving back to america because on the whole we can talk about you know the differences in how the hospitals look and maybe you're not always going to get a private room often you're not you might be on sort of more of a ward but you're not being this isn't like world war ii you're in some bomb shelter where somebody's like sawing off your leg with a stick this is a modern functioning in some ways very innovative health service and the fact that you get that for paying higher taxes but without the individual concerns over going bankrupt because you have a serious illness is pretty much priceless i mean british people look at american like gofundmes when people have some sort of medical problem and are both shocked and horrified and really sad for those people that that has to be part of their life that you could lose all of your life savings because of something that your body did to you that you didn't even have any control over okay so that brings me to the end of the video on the nhs i hope that you've learned something i hope that your mind has been opened in some way to talking about the differences and pros and cons okay so that brings me to the end of the video on the nhs i hope you enjoyed leave your questions below again i would love to have a dialogue about the pros and cons of the nhs versus other healthcare systems around the world nothing is perfect but i do feel very grateful to be able to use the nhs while i'm here in the uk don't forget to subscribe if you want more uk british and expat content and i'll see you next time you

Channel: Girl Gone London

Views: 140,066

Rating: 4.8483343 out of 5

Keywords: nhs, living in england, living in england as an american, living in the uk, american expat in the uk, uk vs us healthcare, is the nhs good, nhs explained, american expat in england, living in the uk as an american, british vs american healthcare

Id: LaFWxLzTE58

Length: 21min 39sec (1299 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 04 2021