Good & Bad Things About The UK

[sweet sensation]

Im on a bit of a thread role today lol!

Inspired by the King of moaning Danny C I decided to do a thread about the good and bad points about the UK.

Ok to make it fair to everyone, you can only list 2 points per post and they have to be 1 good and 1 bad and you have to say why you posted them

Ok I'll start

Good Point Jeez Im struggling lol!! errrr ok just for shooms
You can take holidays from the minute you start a new job

Bad Point
The weather

[Stylee]

Good thing = The north west
Bad thing = bowlers is apparently closed and no cnut told me, im sure i was there the other week tho??

[amymars]

Good - Our diverse scenery and landscape, ranging from historical tudor towns to big industrial cities.

Bad - High Council Tax.

[mrshifter]

Good Thing - Free Health Care

Bad Thing - Ridiculous levels of political correctness

[sweet sensation]

Originally Posted by mrshifter

Good Thing - Free Health Care

But is that really a good thing?

Im sorry but in general maybe it is, but Ive had bad experiences with the NHS

Plus my dad had to wait 9yrs for a new kneecap cos they told him he was too young to have one when he needed one!!! Because of this he has also had to have a hip replacement and he now has severe arthritis! If you paid for the service I doubt he would have had to wait 6 months!

[amymars]

My grandad has been refused one for a smiliar reason.......its silly.

But having said that, me and my sister had our ears pinned back on the NHS......if it was private maybe this wouldnt have been possible.

Maybe no NHS would stop the misuse of services. Apprently middle classes are much more aware of services available to them for free, such as counselling for example. and might 'over use' their GP, when there are more deserving candidates.

I don't know. I certainly use my GP a lot. Maybe its good, maybe its bad.

[Amelie]

Originally Posted by sweet sensation

But is that really a good thing?
If you paid for the service I doubt he would have had to wait 6 months!

He always has that option. The thing is with the NHS imo, is we pay in a small amount and we get so much more. I know for one i will have used the NHS far more in is cost than i can ever pay in. If i am not happy i could pay more as in other countries, and recieve better treatment private (allegedly).

I am actually proud of our helth servie

[sweet sensation]

Originally Posted by Amelie

He always has that option. The thing is with the NHS imo, is we pay in a small amount and we get so much more. I know for one i will have used the NHS far more in is cost than i can ever pay in. If i am not happy i could pay more as in other countries, and recieve better treatment private (allegedly).

I am actually proud of our helth servie

But the price of private is ridiculous! We did look into it. If people paid for healthcare then it wouldnt need to be so expensive as everyone would be paying for it. Maybe it might make 13 year old girls think twice about getting pregnant

[amymars]

Originally Posted by sweet sensation

But the price of private is ridiculous! We did look into it. If people paid for healthcare then it wouldnt need to be so expensive as everyone would be paying for it. Maybe it might make 13 year old girls think twice about getting pregnant

Without free services such as Brook and the free sexual health lessons we receive at school, a lot more 13 year old girls would get pregnant surely? Unfortunatley there will always a minority who ignore everything.

[marchwiel]

Beware: another boring biomedical post coming

Originally Posted by sweet sensation

Plus my dad had to wait 9yrs for a new kneecap cos they told him he was too young to have one when he needed one!!! Because of this he has also had to have a hip replacement and he now has severe arthritis! If you paid for the service I doubt he would have had to wait 6 months!

Sarah, this is not necessarily a reflection of your dad's case, as I do not know the details but, simply because you can afford to pay for a knee or hip replacement does not necessarily mean you should have one.

Knee and hip replacement surgery are pretty major operations with a consequential mortallity risk, which should not be taken lightly. Also, when he was told he was too young to have one, from a prosthetic material point of view this most likley inferred that he was still very mobile and active and as such there is a distinct possibility that he would accelerate the degredation of the prosthetic knee forcing the need for a revision (i.e. the taking of the prosthetic knee out, and a new one being put in) when he was not so young (and the mortality rate much higher). Also, the success rate of prosthetic knee revisions is sadly, very low, due to the vast amounts of bone that are removed in the first operation and the taking of the first one out.

[Amelie]

Originally Posted by sweet sensation

But the price of private is ridiculous! We did look into it. If people paid for healthcare then it wouldnt need to be so expensive as everyone would be paying for it. Maybe it might make 13 year old girls think twice about getting pregnant

I am rusty on this so forgive me. I think the whole point of the Welfare State in this counrty was to ensure that all individulas had reasonable security (in all aspects, health, housing, income blah blah). The idea was for the health side of it to be totally funded by taxation, as it ws rather foolishly pressumed by the architects that once we had eradicated the main problems of ill health of (then) society such as sanitary shiznit, poverty, and vaccinations we would be alright lol. Of course once we had that under our belt, lifestlye diseases from being a rather affluent counrty went tits- obesity, smoking releated cancers, strokes, joint issues (lol, i actually was saying it as in osteo, but hey- the number of mental health cases from too much green lol is also an issue). We also have a massive problem with the post war baby boomers, and the fact that they outweigh the amout of young people paying into tax shit.

I guess its obvious that funding as we are at the mo is not working, and yes if people paid more in then maybe we would get an improved service. I would make a guess that the problem of deciding who paid what would be a huge ethical can of worms. You would have to certinly allow vunerable groups (elderly, children, disabled and low income peeps) exclusion. Then of course people would abuse it, as with everything. I also think that is this were to happen, it would be the people in the middle, that is not poor but not rich that suffer the most. You could also argue that it is unfair for people to have to pay for treatment for cases such as rta's that they have been involved in, or the victims of assault and stuff.

As or teen pregnancy, as they are not really thinking much about their own future when having unprotected sex, i seriously doubt that they are thinking about the cost implications. Forcing them to pay for treatment could, potentially be dangerous. It could force people into terminations when emotionally they do not want that, and on the flip side it could encourage teens to 'hide' the pregnancy for fear of the cost of ending the pregnancy until its to late for them to make an autonomous choice. Besides, not all teen mothers are drain to the NHS, there are some good ones out there

[sirius]

Good things: Historically, probably the most inventive and pioneering place on Earth in terms of the actual advancement of mankind through science and technology.

Bad things: The way this nation is busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre, (to paraphrase somebody from about 35 years ago). No longer world leaders, but a nation of numpties and savages, and laughing stock of the planet as the fucking mad house its now become.

Sirius.

[Amelie]

Originally Posted by amymars

Without free services such as Brook and the free sexual health lessons we receive at school, a lot more 13 year old girls would get pregnant surely? Unfortunatley there will always a minority who ignore everything.

Yeah i forgot that, maybe it would be more wise to up the sex ed in order to stop teen pregnancy.

[sweet sensation]

Originally Posted by marchwiel

Beware: another boring biomedical post coming



Sarah, this is not necessarily a reflection of your dad's case, as I do not know the details but, simply because you can afford to pay for a knee or hip replacement does not necessarily mean you should have one.

Knee and hip replacement surgery are pretty major operations with a consequential mortallity risk, which should not be taken lightly. Also, when he was told he was too young to have one, from a prosthetic material point of view this most likley inferred that he was still very mobile and active and as such there is a distinct possibility that he would accelerate the degredation of the prosthetic knee forcing the need for a revision (i.e. the taking of the prosthetic knee out, and a new one being put in) when he was not so young (and the mortality rate much higher). Also, the success rate of prosthetic knee revisions is sadly, very low, due to the vast amounts of bone that are removed in the first operation and the taking of the first one out.

Ok I know what you are saying and he was told that if he had it then he would have had to have another one in so many years later, but my dad wasnt even 60 when he had his accident at work and he was in a hell of a lot of pain with it. He had all the tests, magic eye and all that just to be told you will need a new kneecap but youre going to have to wait until youre at least 65. Over the years his pain became unbearable to the point where he had to take early retirement. He was still relatively young when the accident happened, but the injury made him seem older cos he couldnt walk properly. Like I said earlier he then damaged his hip so badly that it needed replacing cos he was putting all his weight on the one side of his body to ease the pain

He needed to be active when it first happened cos he was a single parent!

Over the years I watched him get more and more depressed with it and I felt completely useless

Anyway without going into anymore detail, none of us agreed that he should have had to go through all those years of pain I think every case should be judged differently and I think the NHS were just doing everything by their book.

This has gone completely off topic lol, so I'll end it there!

[lottie]

good point . friends and family are here

bad point. the god damm weather