The language barrier is usually raised first, when people are asked why they'd go private, but I think that's out of politeness. Certainly Alicja, 25, who paid £60 to see a dermatologist in Tooting for her eczema, sounded less than plausible when she explained: "I wasn't sure that I would be able to understand a GP. Medical language can be quite specific." (her English was perfect).
The dermatologist elaborated: "I wouldn't want to make a generalisation, but where language isn't a problem, there is sometimes disappointment. GPs don't refer people to specialists. There must be a reason for that, and I guess it's economical."
Piotr Miklewski, a 29-year-old practice manager from PMC in Ealing, said: "There is this stereotype that the UK prescribes paracetamol for everything."
Wiki, 29, who broke her rib ice-skating, said: "And they don't x-ray you. In Poland, you would always be x-rayed for a broken rib in case it was endangering your lung". She added, "The doctor told me to take a paracetamol"...
Personally speaking, I would never knock the NHS for its paracetamol name, the reputation it has for never referring anybody, never prescribing antibiotics, never scanning anyone and trying not to waste x-rays. It makes us sound thrifty and stoic.
But if we think people are travelling here to make the most of our health service, we're dreaming.
This is the kind of thing I'm talking about, when I talk about managed care on steroids.
Yes, I'm another foreign ingrate daring to criticise the way the system works. Theoretical universal access to health care is an excellent thing, and everybody should have that; that definitely doesn't mean there's no room for improving how the system actually works on the ground.
I can personally back up the hesitation to refer or order diagnostic testing, to the point that it reminded me of being uninsured in the US, when suddenly you don't need all the expensive tests. (There is some happy medium there.) I didn't get sent for any nutrient status testing or bone scans, or referred to a gastroenterologist--as is standard practice elsewhere--after the celiac not-quite-diagnosis. He also didn't send me for all the usual tests to diagnose that. Nobody even suggested supplements. Some complications, like fractures and hypocalcemia seizures and lots of misery from severe deficiencies, may have been avoidable if that had happened. That particularly lazy, pennywise GP fouled it up in the records so that I also can't get low-cost gluten-free food on prescription, which I didn't think was an accident at the time. And still don't. That one also wouldn't refer me to a dermatologist over something I was concerned might be skin cancer. (Good thing it seems not to have been.) The next one left me on the cheapest first-line drug for type 2 diabetes, even though I had constant diarrhea and other nasty side effects for almost a year (until I just went off it myself, and stopped going there), and that malabsorption really crashed my health on top of the celiac.
Our local hospital is bottom of the barrel, with very poor CQC ratings and abysmal patient satisfaction ratings, especially for the A&E/ER department. They're actually being sued by a bunch of people for human rights violations now. I can believe all of that. The only trip I've made there for a knee injury that had me throwing up from pain, my partner and I had to repeatedly insist that they x-ray it (yes, my kneecap was indeed cracked)--then sat for a couple more hours, with the dry heaves over a no doubt germy trash can my partner had to grab for me to barf into, before they came back and sent me away. With no pain relief at any point (on Christmas Eve, so I couldn't even buy the paracetamol/Tylenol) and my ankle wrapped up. It was a good thing I already had a cane, because nobody gave me any crutches or anything, with a cracked kneecap and that leg giving out with much weight on it. I was happy to get out of the place by then, anyway. I couldn't make this shit up if I tried. The total farcical absurdity is rather funny in retrospect--almost the comic epitome of bad ER care--but not at all at the time. And that was with someone else there advocating for me.
But, the thing is, similar experiences have turned stereotypical among people who aren't as used to that kind of thing, when pretty much every hospital in England is rated better than ours. Some systemic problems there, yeah. And it's a decent bit of the reason I've been having to avoid medical care. I just don't trust them to place priority on my wellbeing over cost-cutting, even more with the austerity funding cuts.
If I weren't really concerned about language issues (when communication is already hard when I'm sick or in pain), I'd honestly be tempted to try a Polish clinic. I've seriously considered trying to find a private GP, anyway; good thing we can just about afford it, even though AFAICT that would also mean paying for prescriptions which are technically free under the NHS because diabetes.
