So as you may or may not know England has one of the best health

care systems in the world and it's something that we get asked a lot about

because it's quite interesting it's not the same as it is in other countries and

just in case any of you don't know NHS stands for national health service so if

we're saying NHS it just means our healthcare system in the UK in England

in England they do have similar health services in Wales Scotland and Ireland I

think they do differ slightly so we're just gonna say this is what happens in England

because we know that this does happen in England yes

the only one amazing thing that did happen to me in Scotland was that I had

tonsillitis so I went to the NHS obviously I was seen very - I think

within an hour I was seen and I was given a prescription and I was given

antibiotics containing penicillin which usually would cost around seven eight pounds...

for free so Scotland had free prescriptions yeah so that's

just one little tip fact yeah. -Well that's the first main thing about the

NHS here is that any prescription one prescription will cost you seven pound

eighty-five I think it is so no matter how much that medicine costs that

medicine will cost probably hundreds of pounds but it's subsidised by the

NHS so we just pay seven pound eighty-five per prescription exactly and

it does not cost at all to go and see a doctor

it's completely free I say free we all pay our tax here and part of our taxes

go towards funding the NHS and still it is a system that hasn't got enough

funding behind it although we've only had positive experiences with the NHS

there are some people in the UK in England that have not had so many

positive experiences and you'll still find people out there that are slating

the NHS when the people inside the people that are working so hard the

doctors and nurses do an incredible job they are the unsung heroes definitely

there's not enough people working for the NHS so I know that there are

things like courses that are subsidised and so for example university will cost

£9000 a year but if you want to train to

become a nurse there's no cost at all because they want to encourage people to

come and study and work for the NHS but yeah even using hospitals is free so if

you have a last minute emergency and you need to call the emergency services and

you need a big treatment going to the NHS for that is completely free. I think

my brother when he got seriously ill he went to intensive care for like three

months and then was in rehab for like three months that ultimately would have

cost our my family millions if we're in the U.S. like my parents would have had

to sell the house because it would cost something

ridiculous like a hundred thousand pounds per week or something to keep my

brother... no way! On all the machines, to pay for all of the fees and all the medication so it's just so

foreign to us to think of a healthcare system where you would have to pay for

it like you you've said I think about in American films and things you see

families that can't afford to pay the bills for health care but that's just

not a thing in the UK so it just seems really really odd that that's a thing to

us obviously it's not odd but it's just not something we can relate to and

similarly I think another thing that seems odd to me like when I'm watching

an American film is the idea of say for instance we're in a scene and I'm like

you lost your job you're fired with that you lose your health care in

America there's no health care, yeah because losing their job they lose their healthcare benefits but in in the UK in England specifically

you can't just fire someone remove all of their health care privileges you have

to like give someone a reason give them a certain amount of time, like a notice period

and like I just think that that makes us probably different as people because

like we're not so much on edge yeah maybe we're more on edge, maybe that's a

big statement like you know just the idea of like absolutely nothing is

certain ever you could go into work today and you could lose your job and

you could not have a job tomorrow I think that's the scary thing cuz

my parents have a house in Florida in the US and there's been talk of being

like "oh maybe we'll move here one day" but my parents, the main thing holding

them back is the fact that if they did move there they wouldn't have any health

care they would have to pay for their own health care yeah they wouldn't move

out there and get a job and health care included in a job because

they'd be retired by then, so yeah it's just that's the main thing

I think that puts people off moving to not just America but other countries

that don't have national health care systems is the fact that health care can

cost so much money yeah and we don't realise how lucky we are no I mean I

don't have any idea how much it would have cost ... don't if anyone's been

following us this long but back when I had my throat surgery

in 2012 I had vocal nodules on both sides of my vocal cords and I was

on a wait list for about six months with the NHS so I had my initial appointments

and I said oh this is the problem they put cameras down my throat they were like

yeah you've got this problem we can do an operation and fix that you can go

private you can be seen immediately if you pay £12,000 pounds something like

that or you can be on our waitlist and we'll get round to you when we can it

wasn't a tragic problem it was not life-threatening

it was just something that was affecting my vocal quality, my ability to sing and

just my ability to talk without feeling exhausted yeah I had sort of like vocal

therapy a couple of times after the operation and that was all included for

no money all just money that we as taxpayers all put into this big pot yeah

and everybody is looked after. Yeah I think that's what some British people

resent is having to pay extra taxes for the NHS we don't know we're going to

research and do a video on UK tax but I do think that we pay slightly more tax

than people do in America for example but I would have thought it more than

pays for itself when you think that we don't have to pay

anything except £7.85 per item that we get from the chemist yes and the way

the prescriptions work is that every time you need to get your prescription

again, so for instance say you're given a prescription of special tablets

for migraines sometimes I get migraines so I have a prescription from the doctor

and every time I go to collect 30 migraine tablets I pay £7.85

once they run out I get my prescription renewed I go to the chemist

and I say here's my prescription I pay £7.85 again yeah and that's it

and that is kind of capped it's been £7.85 for a while I think yeah it's

been around the £7 mark yeah exactly but if you are under 16 or if

you're over 60 then your prescriptions are free I think as well if you are

unemployed then they're free and there are certain other things as well yeah if

you're in full-time education and you're sort of and 18 as well, there's all sorts of

things if you're receiving Jobseeker's Allowance or if you're receiving any

benefits from the government because you're not able to support yourself

completely on your own then you're also able to get free prescriptions yeah

so there are... well I think the NHS is amazing yeah it's great it's actually the

biggest employer in the UK and it's apparently I think it's the fifth largest in the

world which is incredible it's a massive machine and I think it's really great I

just realise that I take it for granted all the time yeah like right now I need

to get - I do need to go to the doctors for something and all it's just a case

of me getting on the phone and just making sure I can get an appointment

I'll probably be seen within a week yeah in London it's harder you know sometimes

you have to wait a bit longer for an appointment but you'll get seen yeah and

if you really need to be seen immediately you can go to A&E which is

like accident and emergency and you can just sit in line and get seen, or if it's not

quite an emergency you can go to a walk-in clinic which there may be like

an hour wait or something depending how many people are there but you can just

walk up and see a doctor that day yeah even if it's not quite an emergency

another great thing that I will try and link down below if I remember is an

article from an American that's moved to the UK and I remember he was comparing

the health care systems yeah and was saying like the pros and cons of

both of course there are cons to the NHS but overwhelmingly he said he would

choose a National Health Service over the private healthcare just because of

the the worry of being able to make those payments and paying for health

insurance it's just not worth you know the angst that it causes I can just

about afford my phone bill let alone a health care bill and and that's the other

thing isn't it that people just say your health is the most important thing yeah

so how could you live with the fear of potentially having

like a £30,000 bill or more to keep yourself alive, to keep a family member alive

it's just so stressful yeah and not just that like obviously if you've

got insurance you probably wouldn't have to pay that much but the fact of then

having to pay insurance every single month just in case something goes wrong

the insurance companies are making a killing yeah they definitely are that's probably

why they're not going to change anything in the U.S. is because these massive companies are making

so much money from it yeah yeah but it was established in the 40s

so we've had it all our lives our parents have had it all their lives yeah so um

yeah it's just something that you don't tend to think about every day yeah like

right now my dad needs to have keyhole surgery in his knee and there

are two options he can stay on the wait list that he's on with the NHS and they

offer you an appointment and if you can't make it then that sucks for you

you've got to wait for the next one or you can just pay to be seen privately

and go and get seen you have the option of both you always have the option and

the NHS don't have anything against anyone working privately in fact a lot

of NHS doctors also work in private clinics

just to double up their salary a bit more because they don't get paid a very

good amount from the NHS it's not a great salary so they have to pick

up these extra shifts privately also that's a nice fact as well that if you

work for the NHS you get discounts across the country loads of restaurants,

shops, experiences give NHS employees discounts yeah so lots of my friends

when we're going out for meals say like oh do you do NHS discount?

and some don't but lots of them do yeah and I think it's a nice way to

reward people who do work for the NHS who don't earn a huge amount of money by

giving them discounts and just showing your respect to them that do that yeah that's really

sweet but I hope that was informative for you guys I'm sure we've missed out

certain things and if you'd like to see more on that then let us know and

I'm sure we can do another video on it we just thought it might be helpful for

you guys because similar to when we spoke about the education system in the

UK a lot of you were like oh great yeah I didn't know that or you were actually

able to add stuff because you've got extra knowledge that we didn't know we

just thought that this video would also be helpful for anyone who's interested

yeah definitely a bit of a fun fact I love learning about other cultures and

things like that. yeah let us know what the health care systems are like where you

are we'd be interested to hear yeah and we

will see you on the next video, see you soon, bye!