interestingly the doctors and nurses who work there might call it understaffing.

I much prefer NHS Wales. For a start they don't make me fork out £22 for medication every month for having a chronic illness. Secondly, the staff at Heath Hospital (University Hospital of Wales) are spot-on - polite, courteous, knowledgeable - whereas in my experience the staff at both the Royal Cornwall Hospital (Treliske) and Derriford Hospital in Plymouth don't know their arse from their elbow and can be quite rude and unsympathetic. In fact you have to go all the way up to Taunton (Musgrove Park Hospital) before you reach a decent hospital - the Royal Devon and Exeter is OK, but not brilliant.

+1. In my department, there a 33% drop in staffing at my level (more due to lack of sufficient applicants). Which means everyone else has to work harder to make up the extra work.Without a similar rise in pay.


This is something that really irks me. People with, say, an underactive thyroid requiring thyroxine supplements do not have to pay for any medication whatsoever. However, those with other chronic conditions such as asthma or diabetes still have to pay for their prescriptions. IMO, we shouldn't have to pay for medication.

+1 and according to a report I saw it would cost the NHS in England something like £300 million per year to give everyone free prescriptions. This sounds like a lot until you realise the NHS budget is in excess of £100 billion.

In reality you'd only £8.60 a month with a PPC, which still isn't free but is a lot better.

Thanks for this, this will be useful for when I have to move back across the border.

Slightly unfair as England doesn't have the geographical issues that Scotland and Wales have to cope with.

We do have political issues though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnett_formula

North Devon Hospital in Barnstaple is really good - supposedly the best acute hospital in the country.

Which was good news when I needed my appendix out in '08