This weekend we had our first interaction with the National Health Service in the UK. On Friday my son had a run in with an iron fence (The fence did not budge, his cheek did).

As a Canadian, national health care is nothing new. However, the UK approach was interesting from a few perspectives:

1. We went to a minor injury clinic. The full emergency room features of this hospital had been removed a while ago due to cut backs. There was a big sign that said ‘No doctor here’. We were treated by a nurse who was competent and very friendly (she did a great job). But, to see no doctor there was very interesting.

2. The line was the same (About 45 minutes), although there were significantly fewer people in the waiting room than I was expecting.

3. They did not ask for ID. This was the most shocking. In Canada, you go through a grilling before you are served and if you don’t have an ID card – good luck, they will turn you away. In Britain they asked for the name and address and then went on about serving our son. When I offered my corporate private health information they did not require it. Through the process I signed nothing and presented no ID.

Now, I know I look trustworthy and the kind of guy that most people just want to reach out to and help in whatever way they can (wink), but no ID was very odd. Over the weekend, I had a friend explain it in this way: The cost of implementing a national ID scheme would be billions and the associated support costs would be through the roof. Canadian’s are familiar with this. National Gun Registry and the proposed cost of $119M ballooning to over $1B ring a bell?

So, they implemented a policy of letting the immigration department do it’s job of controlling illegal residents and assume that whoever comes through the door deserves treatment.

WOW. Refreshing approach – how many millions/billions could be put back into the system by implementing this approach in Canada?