Hacker News Reader

Comment by Nextgrid | Hacker News Reader

The real failure here is that there's a market for these clinics in the first place, despite supposedly having a "national health service" for which we have to pay (quite high) taxes for. The NHS is not fit for purpose and hasn't been for a long time.

View on HN

i don't follow your logic here, at all.

The NHS doctor told him, he didn't have ADHD, 3 private clinics told him he did

and your reply is 'The NHS is not fit for purpose' ?

Because the waiting time for an ADHD assessment on the NHS is currently >2 years, which is why he was talking to the director of services rather than an actual practitioner at an actual assessment, and there are therefore private entities providing the service the NHS should be providing. As far as I’m aware the NHS actually sends most of its patients to the three profiled to be assessed, so really I’m not sure what an “NHS assessment” actually is.

My logic is that those clinics shouldn't be able to remain in business if the NHS did its job and was fit for purpose. Nobody pays £500+ if they have an equivalent, free alternative.

The reason he was able to get a diagnosis from the NHS is because he is a BBC journalist, and is able to navigate any bureaucracy as part of his work day and get paid for it, and ultimately does not suffer from the disorder and thus doesn't really care how long it takes for him to get seen by the doctor.

The average person would be stuck in a kafkaesque maze of bureaucracy and months-long waiting lists before they get anywhere close to a diagnosis (which is even worse if you actually do have a disorder and is impeding your day-to-day life and/or work) - that's why these private clinics have business.

Obviously the proposed solution is to privatize all healthcare, because what we have in the US should be a model for the rest of the world.

didn't they meanwhile redirect these 350 Mio GBP a week from the EU to NHS ?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com