I disagree. The NHS has been around since at least the 1950s. It should have grown along with the population.
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Immigrating to the UK
- Thread starter AchmatK
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Sinbad
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Chronic underfunding and mismanagement
You misspelled “The Conservative Party”.
Sinbad
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Sorry you're right
Chronic underfunding, nasty twits
The UK political nonsense has been quite fun to watch since the whole brexit thing happened. But now that I'm on my way to UK soon....ish... it's less amusing and more worrying.
I hope they do something about brexit in the next 5 years so I can enjoy EU a little more freely.
I hope they do something about brexit in the next 5 years so I can enjoy EU a little more freely.
What would you like them to do, exactly?
Sinbad
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control ****ing Z!
Tman*
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Our household Schengen visa journey over the last 6 months has not been easy.
My SO had to apply for a Schengen visa on 3 occasions for 3 different EU visits. On each occasion she was only granted a one month visa.
I was lucky enough to get a 6 month visa in Oct 2022 (which I fully exploited with 5 Eu visits), but now thats is due to expire I cant get an appointment for a renewal.
Anyone know of countries with quick processing times?
The Voice
Honorary Master
Our household Schengen visa journey over the last 6 months has not been easy.
My SO had to apply for a Schengen visa on 3 occasions for 3 different EU visits. On each occasion she was only granted a one month visa.
I was lucky enough to get a 6 month visa in Oct 2022 (which I fully exploited with 5 Eu visits), but now thats is due to expire I cant get an appointment for a renewal.
Anyone know of countries with quick processing times?
Schengen visa process is really odd. My BIL’s MIL used to live in Switzerland. He and his wife applied for Schengens to visit her: the wife got a 6 month visa, and he got 5 years. EU shenanigans at its finest.
killerbyte
Expert Member
Well they are employing diversity managers because apparently diversity is more important than health care. Frankly I don't care if the Doctor or nurse helping me is an Irish Ginger with one eye, as long as they are good at their jobs.
The Voice
Honorary Master
Bureaucracy is one of the major issues drowning the NHS. An exaggeration, sure, but you’ll have any number of people “managing” a GP practice, with other people managing them, and so on. Each decision has to go through 50 hoops before it’s signed off, and each manager and hoop costs money - it’s a massive, mostly unnecessary, overhead across every NHS trust. The entire system needs a reset to make it fit for purpose. It worked really well 70 years ago, but it hasn’t kept up with the exponential growth of the population, and has just become so bloated.
Another expense of the NHS is the doctors and other specialists. The majority of them aren’t resident. If you’ve ever been referred, you’ll notice that you see a “consultant”. They’re all contractors and they cost the NHS a LOT of money. A good friend of ours works in recruitment for the NHS, specialising in finding placements for these consultants.
Messugga
Honorary Master
That's not true. Consultants are often employed directly with the NHS as they are in SA. It's just a title specialists have. Source: for the time being I'm stilled married to a doctor working for the NHS, busy with the process of registering as a consultant.
The Voice
Honorary Master
Same here. I’ve had treatment from people of every colour from all corners of the globe here in the UK. Problem with diversity is that there is a shortage not only of medical staff of a specific ethnicity, but in general, so the problem is they’re holding off on hiring much needed staff because they have to wait for a specific demographic to apply.
Dave
Honorary Master
@Messugga is correct about consultants, it's a job title, not a description in this case.
One other clarification, GP surgeries are in but separate from the NHS Trusts, they are run as separate businesses owned/operated by one of the GPs or by a partnership of GPs (though more are being bought up by larger healthcare companies in recent years).
Messugga
Honorary Master
Yes, I believe GP surgeries are contracted in to service a specific area, but they're independent, which is why their service can be really inconsistent between various areas.
The Voice
Honorary Master
Cheers for the clarification. Only have what my friend says to go on. She places consultants around the country for periods of around 6 months at a time, and my brain just equated that to contracting.
Dave
Honorary Master
This explains the various titles
Messugga
Honorary Master
Sounds like locum work. Temporary gigs for staff when the permanent employee isn't working for whatever reason.
DapperDanMan
Honorary Master
Dave
Honorary Master
Do you know how to spell disingenuous?
Couple who fled Ukraine war move back instead of living in Notts
They cited “terrible” housing conditions and high costs
www.nottinghampost.com
A British-Ukrainian couple who fled the war in Ukraine have decided to move back to the country after failing to find acceptable housing in Nottingham. Joe Place, a British 29-year-old PhD student and content writer from Sheffield, and his wife Iryna, a 34-year-old Ukrainian working as a content manager, left their home in Kyiv in February to escape the conflict in the country.
Mrs Place had received a Ukraine Family Scheme visa and because the couple had this and employment in the UK they could not then apply for the Homes for Ukraine scheme.
Initially house-hopping between family and friends after arriving in the UK, Mr Place said they looked for a long-term place to live in Nottingham or Sheffield but were met with “terrible” housing conditions, high costs and rental requirements they could not meet.
After struggling for seven months to find a permanent home, the couple returned to Ukraine in September and are now living in the western city of Uzhhorod – despite the prospect of electricity and heating outages due to Russian missile strikes. “This comes to the problem that everyone in the UK seems to be facing with finding (a rental),” Mr Place said.
The couple, who met while they were both teaching English in Ukraine in 2019, will continue to go “back and forth” to the UK to see friends and family and for Mr Place’s work – but the majority of this he is doing remotely in Ukraine.
Mr Place said it would cost them up to £1,500 a month to rent in the UK, compared with £500 in Ukraine, and housing agencies and landlords were asking for a previous year’s tax statement or six months of income in a UK bank account, which they could not provide.
He said money the couple already had in their Ukrainian bank accounts was not accepted and landlords had been repeatedly turning down their applications. “(£500 is) kind of expensive here (in Ukraine),” he said.
“The west of Ukraine, where it’s safer, the house prices have gone up quite a lot and the rents have gone up – a lot of the locals struggle. But obviously for us coming from the UK … this is still really affordable.”