Health Coverage in the UK

Great Britain has insurance much like many other countries in the world. It is called the National Healthcare Service or the NHS for short. It is supervised by the Department of Health.

The NHS gives you free health care. However, there is a catch; you will need to be a British national to be eligible for the free health care.

Before the NHS became free there were more infant fatalities than after. This was because the natal care was too expensive or was not available in the area where the person lived. This is not all of the benefits of having the NHS entails. Life expectancy has also risen considerably after the NHS was in stated.

Of course there are some negative side effects of having a national healthcare system. 55 million people in Britain are eligible for the NHS. That means that for certain surgeries a waiting list exists. That list can be as long as for a year. The UK government tried to combat that with giving the patients an option to choose their hospital that has a shorter waiting list or no waiting list at all.

With the NHS you also have your own general practitioner or GP for shot. Making appointments with your GP is simple and quick. It only takes making a phone call and set the appointment. All of the staff that works for the NHS is vigorously trained like any other doctor in the western world. A recent study showed that more then 70% of the British citizens are happy with the service that they have received by the NHS. Although the same study also showed that they would like the waiting lists to go down.

It took awhile for the NHS to catch on and be up to speed but imagine a world where there was no NHS. A lot of people would be dying because of something simple like cough medicine.

Beside the NHS there are other private options to consider. Many people do have next to their NHS, a private health insurer. They might pay a premium for the private insurer but, if a surgery needs to be done, they might be better off with the private firm instead of the NHS. It all depends on if there is a waiting list for the surgery that needs to be performed.

There are exceptions of course to this rule. If somebody needs a surgery to save his or her life then they will have priority over not acute cases.

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