I find in my experience that if anyone criticises any function of how the NHS is run, we want to lock them in the Tower and throw away the key.

Anyone else have any other/better examples?

31 comments

  3. I have to say it, while we might all be thankful that our healthcare system isn’t as bad as some other parts of the world, the NHS can be exceptionally shit. It needs funding properly.

  4. Cyclists. I am a cyclist and I feel the hate even when I’m not being tailgated, almost side swiped shouted at, almost ran over in a plethora of ways

  5. Thinking traditional British food is better than it objectively is. I think it’s a nostalgia thing, associating it with happy childhood memories etc.

  9. There an assumption in this country that anyone over the age of forty, or gen X and above, benefitted from the housing market going into overdrive after the millennium ticked over. Well plenty of us were shafted by it. I’ve never been in a position to buy anything until, well, hopefully sometime soon, and stupidly I once worked out that I’ve paid out over £250k in rent since I was 18.

  11. Job-stealing migrant here: any time I mention the questionable quality of UK housing, the natives get weirdly defensive.

    Terrible insulation? Well, it doesn’t get as cold here as in Scandinavia, so we don’t need insulation. (Your heating bills and the fact that grannies freeze to death in their own homes every winter suggests otherwise.)

    Awful plumbing? Well, you see, our houses are very old and in Victorian times bla bla bla. (Fun fact: until the 1950’s, only Brits lived in houses. Everywhere else, people lived in yurts.)

    Black mould? Yes, that’s normal, you just have to [insert description of elaborate cleaning and airing rituals here]. (It’s not normal.)

    Etc. The plugs are good though, you guys should have pushed harder for them to be the EU standard back when you had the chance.

  12. Having had to use the NHS quite a bit over the decades, as a customer I have been surprised at times how little communication between various parts takes place.

    Every time you get referred from one dept or hospital to another you seem to get the same repeated questions about your medical history. Nowadays I give them a copy of a list I made myself and a list of meds… which they then copy by hand or type into a pc.

  13. I don’t know anyone who thinks the NHS is run well… I assumed it was generally acknowledged to be poor.

  15. Despite the NHS being mediocre at best. It went into hiding during covid and it is still there. GP appointments have become ridiculously bureaucratic (Go on, ring your GP and try and get an appointment to see them about an issue you want to discuss, before Covid my surgery was always very good. The times i needed to call them i could get appointments with one resulting in an immediate hospital visit that saved my life. Now an utter disgrace.). Operations cancelled left right and centre in hospitals. I dont know if it is a top down thing, but everyone is still on full pay for doing half a job.

    In my are of the country right up until the final wave of covid pretty much all the local cluster outbreaks came about from nhs staff having get togethers with neighbours and friends, they were the primary source of community contagion.

    Just because another country across an ocean has an even worse system is no reason to continue to pretend that ours is any good.

  17. I can only speak for bits living abroad, but people always asking you to say “wa-OOH” (water) I’m sick of explaining that it is just a tiny portion of the population who speak with a dialogue that fits their stereotype. They are always disappointed when I say waTER.

  18. People who get really annoyed about people making tea in a slightly wrong way. Putting the water in the mug before the teabag, heating up water in the microwave, putting the milk in before taking the teabag out, boiling water again after it’s already been boiled once.

    I can’t imagine any of these things make a noticeable difference but people get really annoyed about them.

  21. The fact we don’t wanna take any responsibility for how backed up the NHS is. Want things to run smoother? Stop turning up to A&E with the fucking sniffles and/or ingrown toenail.

  23. The NHS is badly run though, it’s definitely not underfunded, just badly run. Most people agree; we are grateful and fortunate that we have it, but it isn’t great.

  24. I work for the NHS in the next town over – I used to work in my city but left due to mental health issues based on working in the “big” hospital.
    The other week my dad had a suspected stroke and I drove him 30 min to the hospital I work at because I knew the A and E wait was so much shorter than the one in my city. (He was fine btw)

    So – it really is a post code lottery as to the care you get.

    Oh, and if your GP surgery does “online consults” via the NHS app or their websites – it’s a much easier way to get an appointment than calling up at 8am 100 times (no exaggeration) to be told they’re out of appointments.

  25. It’s not so much a ‘chip on shoulder’ about the NHS. More of a ‘if we criticise it too much, those bastards will take it away’ type of thing.

    Ultimately in some instances the NHS is a bit shit, but we don’t let poor people die without treatment because they can’t afford it, and we don’t let a serious illness like cancer financially ruin regular people. But it is a bit shit, so if you can afford to, go private

  27. Some people seem get angry when you praise the royal family. Some love them, it’s always one or the other.

  28. Calling “football” “soccer”, people act as if it is some horrendous Americanization, when it is a specifically English name for the game that was very commonly used in up to the 80s. I found it very noticeable when reading my father’s diaries that it was “soccer” he was playing.

  29. The NHS is the big one. It’s deliberately run poorly so the government can push the narrative that it’s ineffective.

    People are wrongly led to believe that there’s only two options: the NHS, where you might get proper care if you’re in the right area/demographic, or the US system, where you’ll be bankrupt after a routine surgery.

    The truth is that every developed nation except the US has universal healthcare, and every nation with it does better than the UK in the majority of outcomes.

    The thing with the NHS is it’s become a sacred cow that can never be criticised. And when something can’t be criticised, it can’t be improved. If you voice the opinion that the NHS in its current form isn’t fit for purpose, you’re somehow making a personal attack on frontline workers, despite the fact those same workers would agree with you.

  30. I hear first hand testimony about other countries that have free health care and it blows the NHS out of the water. Sure it’s free, but it’s shit. Often stay in pain because it’s much fucking easier

  31. Other people on relatively larger salaries than them.

    People perceive it as boasting especially when they don’t believe the work said person is doing is worthy of the salary they get.

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like