An Alternate Perspective on the NHS

They say it’s all downhill after 40, but in my case it was more of a freefall. While I’ve never been particularly athletic, I’d always been active: a professional juggler for over a decade, with swimming and a little (very) amateur boxing thrown in for good measure. Everything was fine until I hit the big 4.0., at which point unbeknownst to me, my body decided to take early retirement. I had to have back surgery a few years ago; my stomach only works on an ad hoc basis, and the less said about my brain the better. In fact, it’s not much of an exaggeration to say that these days, the first thought which strikes me upon waking is ‘which organ is going to phone in sick today?’ 

For example, let’s go back to September, when I ‘celebrated’ my 45th birthday. We kicked things off anatomically speaking with a suspected heart attack (trapped wind, as it turned out), followed by a broken toe, before the main course – a nice, juicy hernia – and in the immortal words of René Artois, “It was only Tuesday!”

I dread to think how the NHS would have handled the situation (in short, it wouldn’t) – but then thankfully, I’m not in England at its mercy, but instead in South Korea. I doubt the NHS has ever been ‘the envy of the world’, but my recent experience at the hands of a foreign health service illustrates just how laughable such a statement is. For context, I’m in a hick town where the healthcare is not considered optimal (when ill to any serious degree most Koreans will gravitate to the famous hospitals of Seoul or Daegu) – but then, I’m a stupid foreigner, and am more than happy with the treatment I get a stone’s throw away. 

I took my hernia along to the local hospital on Tuesday (no appointment necessary), and was seen within ten minutes. An hour later and I’d undergone the requisite blood test, ECG, sonogram and, when that was inconclusive, an MRI scan. After another short wait, I was back in with the consultant (who had all of the scans uploaded to his PC). Surgery was scheduled for Friday; yes, you read that correctly. I was in and out within a day (they advised me to stay on for a few days), but seeing as lying in a hospital bed is tantamount to torture for me, I discharged myself without objection. Suffice it to say, I am almost back to ‘full fitness’, and eagerly awaiting the next non-functioning organ. 

Bear in mind a couple of things here: first of all, I’m an utter pansy when it comes to needles, blood, and pain in general, but was nonetheless well taken care of. Second, as my wife was taking care of the children I was entirely on my own (which makes things a little trickier to navigate – not just for me of course, but for the doctors and nurses themselves, seeing as my Korean is still pretty basic in terms of medical matters). Third, at no stage did anyone ask me my pronouns, or suggest I move my dick aside in order to check my cervix. The entire procedure from start to finish lasted less than a week, without any need to bounce back and forth from a GP. 

You’re no doubt wondering about the cost. While healthcare in South Korea is universal, a significant portion is privately funded. For most people this works out at about 5% of income – of which the employer pays 50%. In the end, the majority of Koreans pay around 20% of the cost of treatment, and many people have private insurance to cover this. In my case for instance, I have some form of life insurance which means I will get almost everything refunded. The monthly payment for Korean health insurance works out at about two-thirds of the average tax take for the NHS in Britain, but with two crucial differences: firstly, in Korea it is understood that your health is your responsibility – not the state’s. Secondly, when healthcare is necessary, the doctors actually want to see you! Treatment is of high quality, supremely efficient, and subject to choice. 

Let’s imagine for a second how that similar timeframe would have played out under the NHS. I’d no doubt have had to wait over a fortnight for a GP appointment, along with millions of others. Then, I’d have been recommended to a specialist – probably bounced back and forth multiple times before diagnosis was agreed, before finally signing myself up to the backlog of 7.5 million Brits on the NHS waiting list for treatment. In all likelihood, the process would have taken months, if not years.  

Naturally, as a Brit, I share concerns over privatisation. Indeed, the first question I asked myself of the battery of tests I had to undertake was ‘how much of this is strictly necessary, and how much is what one might term the ‘Kwik-Fit business model’?’ I spoke to several doctor friends about this, and they all said much the same: ‘One, the industry is regulated; two you can always get a second opinion; three, doctors just don’t operate like that here’. Being an inveterate pessimist I have my doubts, but I can recall several occasions of doctors refusing me health procedures in South Korea – purely on the grounds that they were unnecessary. Furthermore, the problems of state-run healthcare are almost certainly worse – having experienced both what one might term ‘over-enthusiastic’ private companies, and the negligence of the NHS, I know which one I prefer. 

Compared to such brutal efficiency, it’s hard to ignore the conclusion that the NHS has had its day. No matter how noble the origins, how well-intentioned the advocates, or how skilled the practitioners (once you’ve broken through the Fort Knox of the GP system), the ‘service’ in its current form simply isn’t delivering for NHS patrons.

It’s not just the chronic waste, the bureaucracy and the wokery – the NHS itself is founded upon a lie, ‘free at the point of use’; a lie which means those writing the cheques are spared concerns about the bottom line, and the ever-swelling list of non-payers is rarely called into question. In short, Brits are forced to pay for a service they effectively cannot access, because the service doesn’t demand value for money, and the world and his wife are free to sign up for it. 

Someone, somewhere is going to have to put serious NHS reform on the agenda (Farage tried briefly, but gave up after being roundly accused of sacrilege). Sooner or later however, fiscal reality will assert itself: caveats notwithstanding, the private sector does everything better than the government.

The proof of such a statement is in the pudding. Global healthcare rankings don’t lie, irrespective of which source you choose to cite. It cannot, for example, always be a coincidence that the top of the chart inevitably features Asia – take Statista, which makes the top five Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China. Out of interest, on the same scale the UK languishes at number 34. 

Of course, healthcare is a complicated and multifaceted picture – with the exact medical state of a country affected by a myriad of factors: GDP, culture, education, diet, and IQ being just some that spring to mind. One thing’s for certain however, mere government spending doesn’t cut it. To illustrate, South Korea spent 9.7% of its GDP on healthcare in 2022, compared to the UK’s 11.3%. 

Instead of throwing endless resources at the NHS that the exchequer can ill afford (as both Labour and the Tories are wont to do), the next administration really ought to start addressing some of our health service’s glaring flaws. For starters, how about reminding everyone that the service isn’t ‘free’ in any sense; genuinely tackling the disease of health tourism; calling time on woke nonsense, and junior doctors whose strikes cost it three times as much as their salaries. If the NHS were a private corporation, it would be facing foreclosure before Christmas. 

Please don’t mistake my criticism for glee – I am sad to see it. As an aside, I have a twin brother who is in much the same state of premature decrepitude – although in his case, he has the misfortune of being an NHS patient. Since February this year, he has managed to get two GP appointments – and is still very much ‘waiting’ for surgery. 

Going forward, if the NHS intends to serve as more than an advertisement to illegal immigrants and a pulpit for Guardianistas, then some form of private insurance is likely inevitable. If not, it’s time to put this sacred cow to bed once and for all. 

Frank Haviland is the Editor of The New Conservative, and the author of Banalysis: The Lie Destroying the West.

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