> They travel back to EU for routine stuff, but when they need elective procedures or advanced treatments you just cannot get those back in the EU

Which advanced procedures aren't available in the EU? By the way, you can find private clinics in most EU countries if you don't want to use public health providers.

Yes, in the UK most professional jobs will offer private health as a benefit, plus NHS rules for getting on lists for operations are pretty fair, essentially if you can prove it’s affecting your life you can get operations for lots of things. There are the classic tabloid stories of people getting boob jobs and gender reassignment surgery on the NHS but I’m sure for the people affected it was a godsend.

My own brother got his ear pinned back when he was a teenager because he was being bullied about it at school. Cost nothing and happened within a couple of months of GP appointment.

And obviously being a highly developed western country you can find private clinics for just about anything you want.

I as chatting with someone in UK on Reddit who has some rare disease and trying to see what he could do to improve from it. Apparently he had reached a dead end with the UK medical system but his research indicated there are some doctors in the US who knew more and was desperately trying to find a way to get the same treatment. Sadly all his parents/sibling died from that disease so he had no support network. I felt really bad for him but had no way to help him. All I could suggest is he speak to a patient advocate. What would you have told him differently?

The NHS has been fucked by consistent cuts by the Tory government. Unfortunately they just don’t have enough money to cater for things like this. I would write to my MP but I know that’s just going to be a fart in the wind.

I have my own experience with this, I was/am a heroin addict and it took 12 months to get into any treatment at all. And A&E wait times are increasing year on year, either this winter or next there is going to be a crisis. Already we’ve come close.

I still maintain that for the vast majority of people and ailments the NHS is perfectly adequate, it’s just hobbled by the government at the moment. You could conduct a poll of almost any demographic in the country and they would say they would be willing to pay more taxes if they were ringfenced for the NHS.

> Edit: not anecdotal.

I think that is pretty much anecdotal as per definition.

to clarify, not anecdotal to me having primary sources, but yes anecdotal to those reading my anecdote.