How To Survive GETTING SICK in the UK!

- Today we're gonna be answering

some of your medical questions in English.

So if you come to London and if you have any emergency,

any medical problem, and you want to explain it,

this is the video you need.

And to help me with this video is my good friend Ed,

who are you?

- So my name's Ed Hope, I'm a junior doctor in the U.K.

and I run a YouTube channel as well.

I talk about medicine in a fun, simple, entertaining way.

So thanks for having me on.

- Thanks for being here.

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So if you come to London and you have a medical emergency,

what's the first thing you need to do?

- Okay, so I guess for, broadly speaking, any emergency,

you need to know how to get in contact with people, right?

- Right.

- So basically to contact all the emergency services,

so the police, fire, and also to get the ambulance

you need to know the number which is any phone

and you dial 999 and then you'll speak to a receiver

you will then take any, you know, take the details

of what's going on and be able to talk you through.

- And then who should they ask for?

- The good thing about the receivers is they're

super well trained, so it's basically just listen

to the instructions that they're talking to you.

- So if their English isn't perfect, they'll be okay?

- Absolutely, again they'll be well trained,

they use very simple English,

and if they were struggling with it,

they'd obviously try and use techniques

to try and get out what they need.

Also worth mentioning, the number 111.

So we have a number that we.

- I don't know this number.

(laughing)

- So this is basically the kind of NHS direct number.

So this is if you need any kind of, not emergency help,

but if you kind of need some urgent medical help

but you don't know who to talk to,

that's the number you can call from any phone as well.

So 111 and they can, it's 24 hours, and they can give you

access to any kind of medical advice should you need it.

- Over the phone?

- Yes.

- So you can describe what's happening

and they will help you?

- Yeah, absolutely, and often if you don't know where to go,

they can give you those points as well.

For example, if you have a really bad toothache

and you don't know any dentists in the area,

which I guess you wouldn't if you're traveling to the U.K.,

they can tell you which emergency dentists

are open at the time and how you go about

getting an appointment as well.

- Damn that's cool.

I didn't even know that existed.

- (laughing) Yeah.

- Okay, so I asked you guys what were your main concerns,

your main questions about traveling to the U.K.

and dealing with the healthcare system.

Pretty much the majority of people asked is it free

and will they die waiting?

(laughing)

- Is that what they asked?

- Yeah.

- Is this the type of impression that we give to the world?

- Yeah this is where us communists--

- This is it.

- Do healthcare wrong apparently.

AbdelFG, how does the NHS work?

(laughing)

- Easy, it's easy.

Basically we tax people and then we pay the medical people,

that's it.

- Easy.

- What is the big problem?

- What else do you need to say?

- Done. - Done.

- So the idea, is the NHS free,

I find this quite a funny question actually,

a lot of people get the kind of misconception

that the NHS is free.

Like one of the core principles here of the NHS,

is that it's free at the point of use.

So you don't actually pay for it when you use it,

but it still gets paid for right, as we know,

because we get taxed and we get national insurance.

So it's the people living in the U.K. through our taxes

and national insurance that fund the NHS.

- So it's like it's free but it's not free at all.

(laughing)

- Exactly, so it's free at the point of use,

which is really good 'cause really,

when you're really unwell you don't wanna

be worrying about how much it's gonna cost you.

So you pay for it every day in case you need it

in emergency like that.

But it's also important to remember

that not everything is free, okay.

So there are certain surcharges for certain things

like prescriptions, as we talked about, dental work,

to see an optician if you're getting your eyes tested,

so all of those have additional surcharges as well.

And often, a lot of people forget as well,

there is still a big private health service

within the U.K. as well.

- A lot of the people were asking, well if they're coming

from inside the EU or outside the EU,

and they have a hospital visit or a doctor's visit,

do they have to pay, and if so like how much?

- Really good question, because obviously we talked about

the NHS is funded by the residents of the U.K.,

so then how do we then extend those services out,

we're not really set up to take money from people

like other healthcare systems.

The way to summarize it,

if you've got your European health insurance card,

you have the same level of cover in the country you're in

as you have in the U.K.

- Okay.

- That's the be all and end all essentially.

- Right.

- So anything extra that you need to pay for,

you'd have to pay in your own country anyway.

So that's why people get travel insurance as well.

So the health card doesn't suddenly give you

all the care that someone in the NHS gets,

it just gives you the care up to the country

that you're coming from.

- Now when you're saying like the care,

you get treated the same, but the costs would be different

depending on your country of origin.

- Exactly.

- Done.

- It's pretty complicated, like I said,

I had to look this up to chat about it

because it was a new thing to me,

but you know, there are some nuances there as well.

So do check out the links down below,

they're very well written, very clear,

and they give the sort of precise terms

that I'm referring to.

- I used to have students who were here

for like a year or two so they had the student visa

and one of them got swine flu and yeah,

they didn't have to pay for their hospital visit.

- That's interesting because you know I talked about

there are certain nuances as well, so certain things

like particular infectious diseases that have

a wider public health thing, they're covered for everyone.

- Oh.

- Yeah.

- So if there's another swine flu and you get it.

- Fine, doesn't matter where you're from,

that'll be covered.

(laughing)

There's a list of things in the links below

that tell you what's covered and what isn't.

So things you'd always get care for things like

sexually transmitted infections,

significant infectious disease that's kinda,

could be a wider public health issue,

all of that if covered full.

Imagine coming to seeing a doctor and we say,

oh it's gonna cost this to treat and you think,

I won't bother, and then you infect 100,000 people.

So certain things are automatically included

and that's why I said there are certain nuances.

(laughing)

- BL door, do they kill people?

- No.

There was a bit of a hesitation there but absolutely no.

- Elanis Morissette.

- Alanis Morissette?

- Not the same one, not the same one, it's with an E.

If you need an ambulance, who pays for that?

- It would be funded from the NHS, so out of taxation.

So if you call 999 and they think you do need an ambulance,

that will get sent to you and they'll be

never any charges for that for anyone.

- Someone in my family got sick in America

and they needed an ambulance, and I think it was like

$1000 just for the ambulance ride.

- We're very lucky aren't we?

- It's nuts.

- But that would put people off.

- Right.

- You'd think, wouldn't it?

- But I'll drive myself.

My foot's come off.

(laughing)

- Endanger more people by driving.

- Another question, can you ge PrEP in England?

- PrEP is pre-exposure prophylaxis,

so people who are at risk of getting HIV,

maybe they have a partner with HIV.

So yeah, I'm not too sure about that,

I have given out post exposure prophylaxis, so PEP before,

so that is available, and as we talked about earlier,

you know we said there's some nuances

that people can get free medical care,

infectious disease and sexually transmitted infection

is one of those things that would be covered as well.

- Super common complaint.

See said Jenny, I've got a sore throat and I would like

to ask for medication, what is that called?

- Okay, so if you've just got a sore throat

and you just wanna deal with the symptoms

because you've had a sore throat before,

it feels very similar to your previous sore throats,

you can just get some pain relief for it,

so paracetamol or ibuprofen, something like that.

If you had more concerning things, so this is the kinda

worst sore throat you've ever had and you know you

got other symptoms like feeling really unwell

and difficulty rousing from the bed,

then you may therefore wanna get some medical help.

So most infections of the throat are viral

so you just need to treat the symptoms,

but some of them can be a bacterial infection

and benefit from antibiotics,

so that's maybe another medication

that your doctor will prescribe if they think you need it.

- Right.

So you mentioned like ibuprofen, paracetamol,

you can get them from these shops.

Go with the store brand ones, they cost like 20p

and there's no difference between those

and the expensive brands, right?

- Exactly, they're exactly the same drug

although some of the brands will put other medications in.

For example, they may put some caffeine in

to kind of perk you up, so do read the box,

but the actual medication name itself,

the actual drug name itself is often exactly the same drug.

- Oh okay.

So this next one, Golden Violet is asking,

why do GP's cure everything with paracetamol?

(laughing)

- Well paracetamol itself won't really cure anything

apart from help your pain and maybe

reduce your temperature as well.

It's generally because maybe they're not concerned

of anything serious going on so they're

just controlling the symptoms of what's going on

until your body's able to heal itself.

- Right.

- That's essentially what the GP would be doing.

And if it hasn't healed itself, the GP will rely on you

coming back in and then formulating another plan.

- So whenever I go to another country and I'm sick,

I've got a cold or I've got the flu,

people will say, you need to go to the doctor,

you need to go to the hospital.

No I don't, I need to sleep and drink water,

you don't need to go to the hospital for that.

- You're right.

I think we give a lot of power to them medical profession

that we're curing all these things,

but most of the work is done by your own body.

So unless the symptoms are kind of,

unless we need some intervention, often the body,

if we give it time, will be able to heal itself.

- Oh, interesting point.

So a load of my students told me,

and I didn't know this until I traveled outside,

that you can get like ibuprofen, paracetamol, aspirin,

just in a shop, in like the same place you buy food,

but in other countries no.

- Yeah, oh I thought you were gonna say

the opposite of that actually.

So yeah, I don't know the ins and outs of where

you can buy stuff outside of the U.K. but clearly

those things you can buy in shops here,

but I thought you were gonna go the other way

because in a lot of parts of the world you can actually buy

things like antibiotics just over the counter.

- Without a prescription?

- Exactly.

- What?

- Yeah, so many of the illnesses that you treat yourself,

when you go to the pharmacist, you may find that you can't

necessarily get the things that you want here.

- Wow.

- In which case you may then need to go see a doctor

to have it prescribed to you.

- Now would you say that that's part of the problem

with some viruses and diseases

becoming antibiotic resistant?

- Mm-hm.

- Because people are just self medicating?

- Yeah, so absolutely, you're right.

So bacterial infections, they can evolve and change,

they become resistant to the antibiotics,

and that is one of the main reasons.

So not just antibiotics being taken by humans

but also in the agricultural business as well.

- Right.

- But that's a much wider.

- That's a bigger question.

- Big, big scope.

- That's a much bigger question.

Francesca Lukes, he's asking,

how do you ask just for a routine exam?

What you're asking about is a checkup.

- We don't tend to do just kind of routine medicals

for anything particular.

I mean we do, we would call it a doctor's checkup,

but there's only, there'd be fixed times that you'd

be invited to that if you're a resident of the U.K.

There may be a certain requirement for your job

that they want a checkup beforehand,

and that's, you'd phone up your GP and probably

give the details of why you'd need that.

But it's not something that is routinely done in the U.K.

- Makes sense.

- Mootir Tabib is saying, how an I make a GP appointment?

- So the best thing to do is call 111

and they'll be able to give you access to,

first of all whether you need to see a GP,

they may direct you to the pharmacist or things like that.

- Can they give you a prescription?

- No, they can't, it needs to be a doctor

that prescribes something or an advanced nurse practitioner,

(laughing) but we won't go into that.

If you're unsure of the area then you wanna phone 111

and they can tell you what GP's are in your area.

But as we said earlier, not all GP's would necessarily

be accepting patients that particular time.

So it's worth calling the nearest GP to you

and then if they can't help they often know

the practice in the area that can accept appointments.

- Isabella Denati is asking,

why do so many Spanish nurses migrate to the U.K.?

- Wow.

- Have you found that?

- Yes.

There's so many nurses and other healthcare professionals

from all over Europe and the world.

I mean particular from Spain actually.

- Spain, Spanish, why?

- And Portugal as well.

I mean I don't know the, I'll have to ask them,

but it's certainly true in my experience as well.

Yeah, and also they tend to be very highly skilled as well.

Maybe it's the NHS pinching them,

but certainly that is a thing.

- Our pay can't be that bad.

Edimercio, he asked, I've got lactose intolerance,

how can I ask if a meal has it or not?

You could just say, is it dairy free.

Okay, this is kinda subjective, Matthew is asking,

is it a good service?

I mean according to the taxes they take from your salary?

- I mean we try our best.

I mean, we are funded by the people,

we're there to serve the people.

- Just as an example, when I had my tonsils out

I had to wait six months I think,

but I wasn't dying, I could've waited longer.

Yes, six months is a long time to wait,

but it was free and I wasn't dying.

There are other people who needed

to have surgery before I did, right.

- That's a good way to look at it.

Some people aren't always so calm with that approach,

but that is a way to see it.

The people that I see and treat, they understand

that we prioritize based on urgency.

So if you are often waiting in a hospital,

it's not because we wanna keep you waiting

or anything like that, it's because we have,

we don't think you're as sick as other people

and don't need urgent care.

So that's the beauty of it,

is we don't see people based on

anything other than the urgency.

So it doesn't matter how rich you are in the NHS,

you won't get someone pushing in front of you like that.

We know that if you're sat somewhere waiting,

it's generally that we're comfortable with you waiting.

- Which I like, I much prefer that,

that everyone's treated equally

and depending on how sick you are, rather than,

well I pay more money, therefore, I get treated faster,

that's disgusting.

- Or I've been waiting longer than someone.

You know you wanna know that people

are getting treated who are the sickest.

- Okay dude, thank you.

That was really, really fun.

So I love his videos because he explains

everything medicine in movies and TV, and in general,

in such an easy to understand way.

So if you have any interest in medicine,

or just TV and movies in general, check out his videos,

especially now you have that Marvel series.

- Thanks man.

- Freaking love that.

(laughing)

So you can click around, you can click here and find that,

somewhere around here.

- So I can see it there, yep.

- You can see it there, right?

That video's great but what do you think of that video?

- Iffy.

- Yeah.

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