Would you be willing to be part of the UK to get better healthcare?

gormdubhgorm

I was thinking about all this 1916 stuff. The proclamation "cherishing all it's children equally" etc.
But the fact is we have a two tier health-system with a lot of people stuck on trolleys.
If there is one thing Britain has that we wish we had it is the NHS.
Is it worth giving up Irish sovereignty so that all the Irish people can be treated equally in a fair and free health-system?

TheHillOfDoom

The NHS is a mess.

diomed

No, never.

nkav86

Absolutely not, I would prefer if our ministers could live up to the responsibility that they so badly desire and do the job they were hired to do. That said I realise they can't perform miracles and get everything perfect but a little effort on behalf of the irish people would be nice

nkav86

Sorry op, I apparently needed a rant!

Brindor

Over my non existent Trolley :^)

micosoft

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

I was thinking about all this 1916 stuff. The proclamation "cherishing all it's children equally" etc.
But the fact is we have a two tier health-system with a lot of people stuck on trolleys.
If there is one thing Britain has that we wish we had it is the NHS.
Is it worth giving up Irish sovereignty so that all the Irish people can be treated equally in a fair and free health-system?

We don't need to go that far. We already have joint transplant services. We could essentially sign Ireland into the NHS and the Republic become a individual trust.

It's always been my contention that a Healthcare system needs to be a certain size as a lot of the capabilities (Procurement, Drug Approvals) are the same size regardless of number of patients. It would drastically improve quality and efficiency. Divide those costs against 65 million rather then 5 million and you will get more efficiencies and budget freed up for treatment.

The inefficiency in Ireland is largely driven by small size as well as a broken model.

gormdubhgorm

micosoft wrote: »

We don't need to go that far. We already have joint transplant services. We could essentially sign Ireland into the NHS and the Republic become a individual trust.

It's always been my contention that a Healthcare system needs to be a certain size as a lot of the capabilities (Procurement, Drug Approvals) are the same size regardless of number of patients. It would drastically improve quality and efficiency. Divide those costs against 65 million rather then 5 million and you will get more efficiencies and budget freed up for treatment.

The inefficiency in Ireland is largely driven by small size as well as a broken model.

This seems like a very celver simple idea! I wonder what the British would want in return though?

NIMAN

TheHillOfDoom wrote: »

The NHS is a mess.

Couldn't agree more, and I am a user of it.

Where did this myth come from that the NHS is some sort of fantastic service that the world should aspire to?

So would I join the UK to avail of the NHS? Catch yourself on.

jam_mac_jam

Wait a week or two to see a doctor. No thanks. There is also a two tier system in the UK. So no I think there are easier ways to reform or improve the healthcare of the country rather than joining the UK. How is the North doing, have they significantly better healthcare. Apart from Dentistry which is more affordable I don't see a huge difference.

end of the road

NIMAN wrote: »

Couldn't agree more, and I am a user of it.

Where did this myth come from that the NHS is some sort of fantastic service that the world should aspire to?

So would I join the UK to avail of the NHS? Catch yourself on.

agree. it's founding principals and ideals are sound, but successive governments and management keep messing it up.

end of the road

end of the road would rather die then join britain. i am irish and irish i shall stay at all costs. ireland is a republic and a republic it shall stay at all costs. if people want to rejoin britain, consider experiencing the real thing by moving there

NIMAN

Of course the principle is great, but its like the health service in Ireland. No matter how much money they throw at it, it never really gets any better. As I said above, I use it as I kept my GP in NI. And it can take me 2 to 3 weeks to get an appointment to see him. All year round, all the time. Plus my father died whilst on the waiting list for 18 months for a heart bypass.

But it annoys me that it is used as a stick to beat up the Irish authorities with. Its in as big a mess as our health service is, and it has the annual budget of a lot of small nations.

Also, to see all the campaign literature from our political parties saying "we will fix the health service" - ah, no you won't. You could double the budget and it still wouldn't work properly.

end of the road

NIMAN wrote: »

Of course the principle is great, but its like the health service in Ireland. No matter how much money they throw at it, it never really gets any better. As I said above, I use it as I kept my GP in NI. And it can take me 2 to 3 weeks to get an appointment to see him. All year round, all the time. Plus my father died whilst on the waiting list for 18 months for a heart bypass.

believe me i agree. realistically it needs stripping back and rebuilding. i'm sorry for your loss.

NIMAN wrote: »

But it annoys me that it is used as a stick to beat up the Irish authorities with. Its in as big a mess as our health service is, and it has the annual budget of a lot of small nations.

oh i agree. believe me i agree. it annoys me as well, i see through it all.

NIMAN wrote: »

Also, to see all the campaign literature from our political parties saying "we will fix the health service" - ah, no you won't. You could double the budget and it still wouldn't work properly.

exactly. it's all lies, and it can't be fixed as it is . i don't know what is the answer, but governments and politicians lieing about it isn't going to change anything. the people see through the lies and spin

micosoft

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

This seems like a very celver simple idea! I wonder what the British would want in return though?

The Govt basically pay into it. In return we get the health care system. Some NHS capabilities would be based in Ireland so we would benefit from the system equally to the UK (so Ireland might host the Drugs Procurement Agency).

One major benefit is that all are medical staff shift onto NHS contracts (or go away). The standardised NHS Consultant Contract is both more reasonable and standardised than ours - an effective way of breaking the power of the consultants in our system, one of the biggest issues (leading to bed blocking, bizarre public/private contracts etc).

The reality is medical inflation is running at 15-20% per annum as more specialised treatments come out every year. We need to do something radical to create a sustainable model...

micosoft

NIMAN wrote: »

Couldn't agree more, and I am a user of it.

Where did this myth come from that the NHS is some sort of fantastic service that the world should aspire to?

So would I join the UK to avail of the NHS? Catch yourself on.

There is no fantastic health care service anywhere. Not Canada. No Japan. Not France. Not Sweden. There are better and worse. And there are trends we need to keep an eye on.

The US has an excellent system (even for the poor - real myths around that) but they spend an incredible 17.2% of their economic output on healthcare. To put this in context the US spends €8,050 per person on healthcare while we spend €2,862 and the EU average is €2,200. Regardless of health system philosophy they are big differences in numbers. The US a lockstep ahead of us. Ireland paying an "inefficiency" price for being a small country.

The reality is that demand for healthcare outstrips supply and some hard societal decisions are going to have to be made over the next few decades.

I still strongly believe joining the NHS will give us better overall outcomes in the medium to long run.

amorset

Ignorance is bliss here for some people. I've raised children under both systems and the hse is a disgrace. I currently under nhs had never to wait more than a couple of weeks for treatment whether it be physio, speech therapist, paediatricians etc. Kids always see a gp immediately and I will if I insist, otherwise it's not urgent and I'll wait, that's fair to keep to service moving. I could go on about the regular attention the nhs monitor my kids ongoing medical condition. In the hse, this condition was left to me to figure out.
I'm not up on general waiting times for other services but my mum is waiting 2 years for a hip under hse, my father in law got it done in 7 weeks.
Of course all free including medicine which is one big rip off in south.
So no matter what anyone says here, nhs with its problems is a public service that hse can only dream of. I can't believe that u have to pay 40 % tax, then usc, prsi and then pay private health insurance and still pay gps and ae for their service. Can't u see its ridiculous.

By the way of course u wouldn't join a nation for a health service, that's stupid.

demfad

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

I was thinking about all this 1916 stuff. The proclamation "cherishing all it's children equally" etc.
But the fact is we have a two tier health-system with a lot of people stuck on trolleys.
If there is one thing Britain has that we wish we had it is the NHS.
Is it worth giving up Irish sovereignty so that all the Irish people can be treated equally in a fair and free health-system?

You are also becoming part of a State with a deplorable foreign affairs record. Would you be happy with Irish people, your kids going out to fight in wars such as the recent Iraq wars. WE are not a perfect Republic but we have enough experience of life in the UK to give that a big NO. IF we can get education sorted, the rest should follow more easily in time.

ancapailldorcha

What people need to bear in mind is that the UK is not a homogeneous entity and in this regard, the NHS is no different. NHS trusts are a sort of postcode lottery with quality and waiting times varying hugely. I've lived in Manchester, Oxford and now, Brighton & Hove and I've waited anywhere between 3 days and 3 weeks just for a basic GP appointment. In addition, you have "phone appointments" where you talk with a nurse over the phone. Miss the call and you have to wait for another as if it were a formal appointment. The NHS in a city like Southampton will likely outperform the HSE though I think I'd rather have private healthcare in Ireland as opposed to either.

Mr.Nice Guy

The last time Ireland was part of the UK Dublin had some of the worst levels of infant mortality in Europe. And the conditions of the slums were appalling. I think the notion that Ireland would be much better off under the control of London is misguided.

In answer to the question: no, nay, never.

Pugzilla

NHS is a terrible system.

ancapailldorcha

TheHillOfDoom wrote: »

The NHS is a mess.

Pugzilla wrote: »

NHS is a terrible system.

This is a forum for serious discussion. Please try and add more than pity comments like this.

bk

micosoft wrote: »

We don't need to go that far. We already have joint transplant services. We could essentially sign Ireland into the NHS and the Republic become a individual trust.

It's always been my contention that a Healthcare system needs to be a certain size as a lot of the capabilities (Procurement, Drug Approvals) are the same size regardless of number of patients. It would drastically improve quality and efficiency. Divide those costs against 65 million rather then 5 million and you will get more efficiencies and budget freed up for treatment.

That is actually a great idea! While it sounds a little weird at first, when you stop and think about it, it is actually the same way many big private companies work too.

Take the example of Sky Ireland, they are just a division under Sky UK. Sky Ireland doesn't have it's own R&D budget, it doesn't develop it's own set top boxes, EPG, encryption, etc. Instead it just uses the services of it's much larger parent company. The same is true of it's marketing department, accounting department, etc. All based in the UK parent company, benefiting from the size and scale of the parent company.

And that isn't unusual, Virgin, Vodafone, Three, they all work the same way.

Only Eir is slightly different, but then they really don't do their own R&D either, instead using Chinese R&D (Huawei).

And that is just the industry I'm aware of, I'm sure the same is true of many others.

So it really isn't such a crazy concept or idea and is in fact something you could take further to EU level with say something like a European wide equivalent of the FDA, etc.

gormdubhgorm

micosoft wrote: »

We don't need to go that far. We already have joint transplant services. We could essentially sign Ireland into the NHS and the Republic become a individual trust.

It's always been my contention that a Healthcare system needs to be a certain size as a lot of the capabilities (Procurement, Drug Approvals) are the same size regardless of number of patients. It would drastically improve quality and efficiency. Divide those costs against 65 million rather then 5 million and you will get more efficiencies and budget freed up for treatment.

The inefficiency in Ireland is largely driven by small size as well as a broken model.

bk wrote: »

That is actually a great idea! While it sounds a little weird at first, when you stop and think about it, it is actually the same way many big private companies work too.

Take the example of Sky Ireland, they are just a division under Sky UK. Sky Ireland doesn't have it's own R&D budget, it doesn't develop it's own set top boxes, EPG, encryption, etc. Instead it just uses the services of it's much larger parent company. The same is true of it's marketing department, accounting department, etc. All based in the UK parent company, benefiting from the size and scale of the parent company.

It makes perfect sense on paper even if the logic of it makes my patriotic sensibilities very uneasy! If E. Dev was alive now I wonder what he would think of it because it seems very similar to his "external association" idea.
But this would only deal with healthcare.
We get on fairly well with the Brits this days (Even Gerry, but he obviously would not be a fan of this!)
Unfortunately the two main parties in this country are still behaving like two rival GAA clubs. Even though the reasons for their differences are purely historical. All that is different is the colour of the jerseys! Both of them now abide by the same treaty that split them originally. At least just tpo the extent where they do not want to overthrow the state/get rid of the Brits by force.
We are probably too narrow minded a country to even consider this option. Despite the fact that a large porportion of the country revolves itself around British pastimes, British music and British sport/teams etc.

Sleepy

There'd be definite gains to "out-sourcing" some HSE functions to the NHS, particularly things such as drug approval and procurement imo.

As usual, the problem would be the unions. Couldn't have HSE pen pushers being made redundant now, could we?

Speedwell

Oh, God, no. We need a system that recognizes healthcare not only as an individual human right, but as the health of the society itself. We need to do quite a lot better than the NHS, even if we need to invent something uniquely our own. Without health, no other human right has any meaning.

Charles Babbage

Sleepy wrote: »

There'd be definite gains to "out-sourcing" some HSE functions to the NHS, particularly things such as drug approval and procurement imo.

As usual, the problem would be the unions. Couldn't have HSE pen pushers being made redundant now, could we?

This kind of thing is where the EU can have a role, especially in things like drug approval.

maryishere

I only wish we had a health system as good as the NHS in this country. ...having seen parents on trolleys etc etc. Our health system pays ten times more for the exact same drugs for example. No wonder our system costs a lot more but is worse.

Jim2007

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

If there is one thing Britain has that we wish we had it is the NHS.
Is it worth giving up Irish sovereignty so that all the Irish people can be treated equally in a fair and free health-system?

Dear lord, where did you get the idea that the NHS is so much better: here is an example.

Yes Ireland needs to fix it's healthcare system, but it needs a real solution not a replica of what it already is.

uck51js9zml2yt

The Slovak system is good.
Everyone pays insurance to companies who pay the medics.
Free healthcare for under 18.
Clinics run from 7 am - 3 pm approx.
Seeing a consultant isn't a chore.
My son saw a cardiologist in a few days and say a surgeon 2 days after.
Had 3 dates given us for surgery which is now over.
6 month minimum for surgery in drumlin and had to go private to see a cardiologist in temple st quickly.

micosoft

Look - we need to introduce a modicum of fact to this debate on health. In Ireland it has been hugely politicized to the expense of the patient. And of course the Irish determination to create "received wisdom" despite the facts. We really are a country where rumour and at times outright misrepresentation become "our facts".

First off we are far from the worst or even too bad compared to the UK. The WHO study included accessibility, fairness in financing and outcomes. Notable that our Health system is ahead of Sweden, Finland, Germany and New Zealand for overall outcomes. (I see your anecdotal story and raise data).

Overall efficiency Rank|Uncertainty Interval|Member State|Index|Uncertainty Interval
1|1 - 5 |France |0.994 |0.982 - 1.000
2|1 - 5 |Italy |0.991 |0.978 - 1.000
3|1 - 6 |San Marino |0.988| 0.973 - 1.000
4|2 - 7 |Andorra| 0.982 |0.966 - 0.997
5|3 - 7 |Malta |0.978 |0.965 - 0.993
6|2 - 11 |Singapore |0.973 |0.947 - 0.998
7|4 - 8 |Spain |0.972 |0.959 - 0.985
8|4 - 14 |Oman |0.961 |0.938 - 0.985
9|7 - 12 |Austria |0.959 |0.946 - 0.972
10|8 - 11 |Japan |0.957 |0.948 - 0.965
11|8 - 12 |Norway |0.955 |0.947 - 0.964
12|10 - 15 |Portugal |0.945 |0.931 - 0.958
13|10 - 16 |Monaco |0.943 |0.929 - 0.957
14|13 - 19 |Greece |0.933 |0.921 - 0.945
15|12 - 20 |Iceland |0.932 |0.917 - 0.948
16|14 - 21 |Luxembourg |0.928 |0.914 - 0.942
17|14 - 21 |Netherlands |0.928 |0.914 - 0.942
18|16 - 21 |United Kingdom| 0.925 |0.913 - 0.937
19|14 - 22 |Ireland |0.924| 0.909 - 0.939
20|17 - 24 |Switzerland| 0.916 |0.903 - 0.930
21|18 - 24 |Belgium| 0.915 |0.903 - 0.926
22|14 - 29 |Colombia| 0.910 |0.881 - 0.939
23|20 - 26 |Sweden| 0.908 |0.893 - 0.921
24|16 - 30 |Cyprus| 0.906 |0.879 - 0.932
25|22 - 27 |Germany| 0.902 |0.890 - 0.914
26|22 - 32 |Saudi Arabia |0.894 |0.872 - 0.916
27|23 - 33 |United Arab Emirates| 0.886 |0.861 - 0.911
28|26 - 32 |Israel |0.884 |0.870 - 0.897
29|18 - 39 |Morocco| 0.882 |0.834 - 0.925
30|27 - 32 |Canada| 0.881| 0.868 - 0.894
31|27 - 33 |Finland |0.881 |0.866 - 0.895
32|28 - 34 |Australia |0.876 |0.861 - 0.891
33|22 - 43 |Chile| 0.870| 0.816 - 0.918
34|32 - 36 |Denmark| 0.862| 0.848 - 0.874
35|31 - 41 |Dominica| 0.854 |0.824 - 0.883
36|33 - 40 |Costa Rica |0.849 |0.825 - 0.871
37|35 - 44 |United States of America| 0.838| 0.817 - 0.859
38|34 - 46 |Slovenia |0.838 |0.813 - 0.859
39|36 - 44 |Cuba| 0.834 |0.816 - 0.852
40|36 - 48 |Brunei Darussalam |0.829| 0.808 - 0.849
41|38 - 45 |New Zealand| 0.827| 0.815 - 0.840

Second there won't ever be a fix or a perfect Health System. Healthcare inflation is beyond any other consumer good. Peoples expectations are increasing for healthcare even if the decrease elsewhere (airlines). We will always be playing catch-up. Anyone who claims they have a magic wand is simply dishonest. In actual fact, as medical technology continuously improves we are going to have to take harder moral questions around treatments and life expectancy. We need to have a realistic conversation around our expectations and personal responsibility around healthcare.

RobertKK

Irish people have a longer life expectancy than British people...join the UK to die younger?

Lockstep

I've lived under both systems and the NHS is far and away superior to the HSE in my experience: anytime I needed to see a GP urgently, I could simply go to an NHS walk in centre and see a doctor within an hour or so. When I needed surgery (necessary but not life threatening), the walk in centre GP arranged it and the surgery was completed within a week.
Likewise, my partner moved to Ireland from the UK recently and the thing she misses most is the NHS.

A major problem with the HSE is the deductibles. Working full time on the minimum wage in Ireland leaves you with very little income for hospital visits and yet your income is still too high for a medical card. Major flaw with the Irish system.

micosoft wrote: »

Look - we need to introduce a modicum of fact to this debate on health. In Ireland it has been hugely politicized to the expense of the patient. And of course the Irish determination to create "received wisdom" despite the facts. We really are a country where rumour and at times outright misrepresentation become "our facts".

First off we are far from the worst or even too bad compared to the UK. The WHO study included accessibility, fairness in financing and outcomes. Notable that our Health system is ahead of Sweden, Finland, Germany and New Zealand for overall outcomes. (I see your anecdotal story and raise data).

Your data is extremely outdated: it's from 2000 and predates the HSE.

More recent healthcare studies place us much much worse

micosoft

Lockstep wrote: »

Your data is extremely outdated: it's from 2000 and predates the HSE.

More recent healthcare studies place us much much worse

The WHO analysis was the last holistic analysis of every health care system in the world, not just cherry picking one element of the system (A&E) which we are all aware is problematic and relying on anecdotal stories from Newspapers during seasonal events. I know it's hard for some people to understand but a health system does not start and end in A&E.

The Irish Health system is immeasurably better funded and relatively better managed under the HSE then the Health Board System. I'm not sure what you are trying to say? That our health care pre HSE was better? A staggering claim given every indicator says otherwise by a significant margin.
- Expenditure went up dramatically from 2000-today. Not even a blip for the recession in vast increase in expenditure.
- The rate of increase in life expectancy actually accelerated during this decade.
We are if anything in a better position then the WHO report indicates.

Lockstep

micosoft wrote: »

The WHO analysis was the last holistic analysis of every health care system in the world, not just cherry picking one element of the system (A&E) which we are all aware is problematic and relying on anecdotal stories from Newspapers during seasonal events. I know it's hard for some people to understand but a health system does not start and end in A&E.

The WHO data is based on 1997 reports: when your source is nearly 20 years old, it's not very reliable for contemporary Irish healthcare, especially when Irish healthcare has fallen in recent years

If you look at other aspects of Irish healthcare such as doctors per capita or hospital places , we also fare extremely poorly.

Likewise, a recent independent survey found our health service to be one of the worst in Europe.

I'm not sure what your point is about "cherrypicking" newspaper articles and anecdotes. They're pointing to reports.

micosoft wrote: »

The Irish Health system is immeasurably better funded and relatively better managed under the HSE then the Health Board System. I'm not sure what you are trying to say? That our health care pre HSE was better? A staggering claim given every indicator says otherwise by a significant margin.

I dunno if our healthcare was better under the HSE or if things have improved markedly under it but given the sweeping changes that took place to Irish healthcare, I'm not sure why you think data two decades old proves contemporary Irish healthcare is of a decent standard. Can you provide sources for "every indicator says otherwise" when the two reports I've shown above show contemporary Irish healthcare faces serious shortcomings.

micosoft wrote: »

- Expenditure went up dramatically from 2000-today. Not even a blip for the recession in vast increase in expenditure.

Health expenditure does not guarantee quality. For example, the US spends huge amounts per capita on healthcare and yet, 25% of this is eaten up in admin costs, compared to just 16% in the UK.

micosoft wrote: »

- The rate of increase in life expectancy actually accelerated during this decade.
We are if anything in a better position then the WHO report indicates.

Of course our life expectancy increased: we're a developed country and able to access the latest in technology. Life expectancy has increased across Europe since 1990 but this is not necessarily due to our healthcare system. There are other factors such as road deaths dropping by 60%.

I don't think our healthcare is the third-world one that some detractors claim it is, but considering the amount we spend on it and the high out-of-pocket expenses it costs citizens to avail of our public system (GP fees, emergency room charges etc), we hardly have a high-class one by European standards.

Pugzilla

A significant portion of the complaints you see in an Emergency Department should have been managed by GPs. This crowding and the long waiting lists for clinics/elective procedures is what the public and media see.

If you have a genuine emergency, the response time and care you receive is generally excellent.

Niemoj

I've never had problems with the HSE other than the waiting times, if you're going private there's none of these but if you've a MedicalCard then you'll be waiting hours in A&E and weeks if not months on a waiting list.

Having said that it's better than nothing and to answer your question OP a million and 10 times, NO!

catbear

The assumption is that if run by the NHS the irish health service would be improved but then the NHS would to contend with logistics of spreading UK level of service to a much more sparsely populated Ireland.

Now if Ireland's population growth hadn't been altered by the Famine and it's aftermath and continued at the same growth rate as Britain then we'd have a more densely populated country of over 20 million with a health system that could be comparable to the NHS.

I think considering the difference in the population densities between the UK and Ireland we actually have a pretty decent service in HSE.

recipio

I have some experience in working in healthcare and I feel the core problem is an ultra conservative mentality in the Dept of Health. GPs need a new model - it is onerous running a small business which is essentially what they do.
NHS docs have their costs funded and salaries and pensions paid. Irish GPs must fund all of this that is why you will see a GP in NI in a state of the art surgery and a GP in the Republic in a converted sitting room.
It used to be called leadership.:rolleyes:

TheHillOfDoom

recipio wrote: »

I have some experience in working in healthcare and I feel the core problem is an ultra conservative mentality in the Dept of Health. GPs need a new model - it is onerous running a small business which is essentially what they do.
NHS docs have their costs funded and salaries and pensions paid. Irish GPs must fund all of this that is why you will see a GP in NI in a state of the art surgery and a GP in the Republic in a converted sitting room.
It used to be called leadership.:rolleyes:

Recepio - here in the UK, a standard GP appointment will typically take 2 weeks. If you're not bad enough for A&E, but need a GP, you're screwed.

recipio

TheHillOfDoom wrote: »

Recepio - here in the UK, a standard GP appointment will typically take 2 weeks. If you're not bad enough for A&E, but need a GP, you're screwed.

All GPs in Ireland and the UK work on an appointment system - they have to or they would be inundated with patients. Urgent cases are nearly always seen on the day. The big problem with our health service is the lack of connection between primary and secondary care. GPs could sort out a lot of medical problems if they could access basic scanning services quickly but that seems anathema to the HSE. The result is a hopelessly inefficient healthcare system

gallag

TheHillOfDoom wrote: »

Recepio - here in the UK, a standard GP appointment will typically take 2 weeks. If you're not bad enough for A&E, but need a GP, you're screwed.

Never in my life have I, or anyone in my family waited more than a few days on seeing the GP, there is also a walk in service every morning if you are bad or beldoc who will come to your house or arrange an out of hours appointment within 2hrs if really bad. All free of charge including all medicines.

Godge

RobertKK wrote: »

Irish people have a longer life expectancy than British people...join the UK to die younger?

This is the key point.

djpbarry

recipio wrote: »

All GPs in Ireland and the UK work on an appointment system - they have to or they would be inundated with patients.

GPs in the UK (or London, at least) are already inundated – hence the ridiculous waiting times for appointments.

djpbarry

gallag wrote: »

Never in my life have I, or anyone in my family waited more than a few days on seeing the GP…

Well, you’re lucky then, because the number of people who have to wait a week or longer to see a GP has been rising steadily for the last few years. The latest NHS GP Survey shows almost one in five people now have to wait a week or longer – that’s an absolutely ridiculous situation.

dpe

I lived in the UK for 30 odd years and never had to wait more than a couple of days for a GP appointment, and I lived in places as diverse as Hull, Manchester, London, Oxford, Marlborough. It didn't matter. Having tried the NHS and HSE, there's no comparison, certainly not at the free care stage (my wife had direct comparison of the HSE and NHS maternity systems and it costs about €4000 to get to the same base level of care as the free NHS service, and even then you don't get as many scans or a guaranteed private room).

The individual doctors in Ireland are just as good as the UK, but the support systems aren't in the same league.

Its really simple though; Ireland doesn't pay enough tax for the levels of service we want; no one wants to hear it, but we pay less tax per cap than the UK (and a LOT less than the Scandis), and despite not needing to spend much on defence, we suck away the benefits on social welfare, not health. And its actually worse than it looks because Ireland has a younger population than the UK.

recipio

I'd be willing to rejoin the UK full stop. We don't seem to have the money or the ability to run a modern state. Imagine the Healy Raes in Westminster :eek:

Pugzilla

Most of you have not worked in healthcare. Talk to staff in the NHS and they will tell how bad it really is. They're going on repeated strikes for a reason.

Lockstep

RobertKK wrote: »

Irish people have a longer life expectancy than British people...join the UK to die younger?

Do we? Our life expectancy seems to be almost identical.
see here

djpbarry

recipio wrote: »

I'd be willing to rejoin the UK full stop. We don't seem to have the money or the ability to run a modern state.

It's not that long ago that the IMF had to intervene here in the UK - people have very short memories.

recipio wrote: »

Imagine the Healy Raes in Westminster

There are plenty of "characters" in Westminster that I'd put on a par with the Healy-Raes.

I'll never understand this inferiority complex that so many Irish people seem to have with regard to everything British.

maryishere

djpbarry wrote: »

It's not that long ago that the IMF had to intervene here in the UK

It is only a few years since the IMF and the UK had to intervene here to bail us out, and this little country of 4 million odd souls owes something like €200,000,000,000.00 and is still borrowing. That despite have got God knows how many billions of grants / training funds / development funds / agricultural subsidies / motorways etc from the EEC / EC since the seventies. And who were and are the 2 biggest contributers to EC funds - Germany and the UK.

And our HSE is stll worse than their NHS, despite our vat being higher, and the HSE costing much more per heads of population here than the NHS costs in the UK. Even medicines cost a lot more here. Maybe Ireland does not have economy of scale to negotiate decent deals on drugs / medicines. Or maybe paid weekends to Dromoland castle / Ashford castle cost too much here.

djpbarry wrote: »

There are plenty of "characters" in Westminster that I'd put on a par with the Healy-Raes.

Who? Are there any there you would put on a par with the like of Charlie Haughey, the squire of Kinsealy, or Bertie Ahern ( de lad who didn't have a bank account when he was minister for finance but who won his money on de races and digouts from his pals).

n.b as someone else said of Healy-Rae: Contracts worth hundreds of thousands on the roads, property buying at controversial Allsosps auctions (which he criticised earlier), and now Irish Water critic Healy-Rae signed lucrative utility contract.......
With politicians like that now possibly going to get a cabinet post, what hope is there?