What Living in Two Healthcare Systems Has Taught Me ... And the 7 Things in the Czech System that will shock you!

I was born and grew up in the Czech Republic, and I’ve lived in Britain for almost as long as I lived there. So, I’ve experienced both healthcare systems as a patient and as a parent. I also see how healthcare works through the experiences of my friends and family.

Living in England and using the NHS is fine if you don’t need it. If you’re young and healthy, you might praise the NHS for the revolutionary system it once was after the war: free for all.

But if you need help, if you’re worried or become unwell, you’re in for a very sobering experience. Instead, you realise that this is a failing institution within a system that isn’t working.

“Are you sick enough to need urgent treatment?”

If not, brace yourself. This is going to be a long, bumpy ride, and you might want to give up halfway through simply because it’s so frustrating.

Most people with a health issue that’s bothering them are saying:

“Something isn’t right. Can someone please help me find out what it is?” The answer they get from the NHS is either: your test results are within the normal range, so it can’t be X; perhaps we could investigate Y or Z, but there aren’t enough symptoms or concerns to refer you. OR your referral isn’t urgent, and the waiting time is, on average, 6–12 months or more.

I am not exaggerating. These are just two examples I came across in the past week:

• A child with a constantly painful toe who needs a procedure to remove a piece of toenail. Urgent podiatry appointment: waiting time of 6–8 weeks. (So, in the NHS, this is an urgent referral for a child!)

• A woman in her 50s, previously an oncology patient, with blood in her stool. She had some checks done but she was also sent for a colonoscopy because of her medical history. Waiting time: close to one year!

  
  

I've Experienced Two Systems

Recently, I found myself needing medical help here in Britain. I was worried, and I wasn’t feeling well. I wanted to be checked over, have the appropriate tests and get some answers.

And I couldn’t. At least, not easily.

I use homeopathy and other natural approaches, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want conventional medicine. If something is wrong with my body, I want to know what it is. I want appropriate investigations. I want serious conditions ruled out.

Conventional medicine isn’t great at managing chronic issues; however, it is excellent at emergency medicine, diagnostics and testing. My approach has always been: check, test, investigate and then, with all the information, make an informed decision about treatment and healing.

What I found particularly difficult wasn’t simply the physical symptoms, but the uncertainty and the effect that uncertainty had on my mind.

When you’re worried about your health but can’t get somebody to investigate it properly and timely, your anxiety can increase. You start monitoring every symptom. You wonder whether you’re imagining it. You wonder whether you’re wasting someone’s time.

And eventually, you can start convincing yourself that perhaps you should simply put up with it.

That is something I find deeply uncomfortable about the current experience of healthcare in Britain.

Having lived in both systems has made me think about how differently some very basic ideas can be approached.

If you’ve only experienced the NHS, these 7 differences between the NHS and the Czech healthcare system might shock you — especially number 4!

1. In the Czech Republic, Children Have Paediatricians as Their Primary-Care Doctors

All children can be registered with a doctor specifically for children and adolescents. Paediatric care isn’t something you access only after a GP decides that your child needs to see a specialist.

This was one of the things that struck me when comparing the two systems.

The paediatrician is the primary doctor. That creates a very different starting point.

The doctor looking after your child is specifically trained and experienced in children’s health, development and childhood illnesses. And perhaps because of this, there is also a different cultural expectation around children’s healthcare. Which brings me to the next point.

2. Let’s Give You Medication For What We Know Is Wrong — Not Just "To Try It"

We’ve all experienced this countless times. You go to your GP and are given antibiotics or other medication because “it’s probably XYZ”. Or vice versa: you aren’t given the medication because “it probably isn’t XYZ”.

Why do NHS GPs seem to be guessing so often?

For example, one of the most basic ways Czech GPs can assess whether a patient is likely to need antibiotics is by performing a simple and incredibly quick CRP test. This helps assess whether there may be a bacterial infection and whether antibiotics might be needed.

Otherwise, you’re left guessing: is it viral or bacterial?

CRP testing is not routinely available at NHS GP surgeries, and whether a patient receives the test depends on the practice and the clinical situation. Personally, in my 22 years of living here, I have never been offered a CRP test at a GP surgery — either for myself or for my children.

Patients in the UK often end up taking unnecessary medication, which may compromise their health further. Every medication has potential side effects and needs to be metabolised by the body. It places additional demands on the body. When medication is genuinely needed, its use can be justified. But what about when it’s unnecessary?

Every time you’re given antibiotics when they aren’t needed, you risk unnecessary side effects and contribute to antibiotic resistance for absolutely no reason.

In the Czech Republic, testing in a GP’s surgery is much more common. CRP testing is often readily available. You may also be offered throat, nose or even skin swabs, or be referred to a specialist. And this leads me to my next point: recovery.

3. Recovery Is Actually Allowed to Be Recovery

My daughter was recently ill and stayed home from her school here in the UK.

A few hours after reporting her illness — she had a headache, was tired, had a low-grade fever, a sore throat and a cold — I received an email from the school strongly recommending that, if she felt better, I should give her some paracetamol and send her into school at lunchtime. I found this absolutely astonishing.

Because there is a difference between:

“The fever has gone.” and “The child has recovered.”

In Czech culture, there is a much stronger concept of convalescence — the period of recovery after an illness.

You don’t necessarily go straight from being ill to functioning at 100%. And I think this is something we’ve lost sight of. We often treat recovery as a luxury. The fever is gone? Then go back to school. The symptoms are manageable? Then go back to work. The antibiotics have started working? Carry on as normal.

But the body doesn’t work like that. It often needs time. Being better is not the same as being fully recovered.

I remember that, as a child, I would always go to the doctor for a follow-up after an illness. Even if I hadn’t been given any medication, I would go just to check that the viral infection had cleared and that I was well enough to return to school or nursery.

Maybe this doesn’t work like this anymore, but parents certainly aren’t forced to send their children back to school as soon as they seem better, and schools support full recovery.

Now, there is something else about recovery in the Czech healthcare system that is even more shocking. Brace yourself.

4.  The Czech Healthcare System Can Literally Prescribe You a Month of Medical Spa Care to Recover

One of the most fascinating differences is something called lázeňská péče — spa care.

Under certain medical indications, Czech public health insurance can cover medically indicated spa rehabilitation. And this isn’t simply a weekend away at a nice hotel.

For eligible conditions, treatment can involve several weeks — commonly around three or four weeks — of structured rehabilitation and medical care. Accommodation, food and four or five rehabilitation procedures a day may be covered, such as massage, baths, exercise and physiotherapy. People may receive this care following certain illnesses, procedures or surgeries, or for particular chronic conditions.

And it isn’t rare; it’s pretty common. I personally know so many people who have been to lázně several times or go on a regular basis — perhaps every couple of years.

It is essentially a system saying: “You have been through something. Now you need to recover properly.”

For the NHS, this sounds like a sci-fi. But as you can see - it DOES exist as a part of a health system.

Imagine that philosophy being applied more widely.

Instead of: “Can you be back at work on Monday?”

The question becomes: “What does this person need in order to actually recover and prevent themselves from becoming ill again?”

5. Seeing a Specialist Doesn’t Have to Feel Like Winning the Lottery

Another major difference I’ve experienced is access to specialist care.

In Britain, getting a referral can sometimes feel like a mission impossible.

You first need to convince someone that the problem warrants investigation. Then you wait and wait and wait. And often, as I mentioned earlier, you wait a very long time.

Of course, the Czech system has waiting lists too. It isn’t some magical healthcare utopia where everybody sees a consultant tomorrow. But compared with the NHS, it can actually feel like that.

Some referrals can be dealt with as quickly as the same day or the next day — you often just turn up. Others need to be booked, and you might wait days, perhaps a week, two, maybe three. Some specialist appointments may involve longer waits. However, if your issue is urgent, you’re prioritised and seen relatively quickly.

I also love how accessible healthcare can be in the Czech Republic. I often book check-up appointments at a hospital as a private patient, paying for my own care.

This summer, I booked a preventive breast ultrasound. I called a few places, and although they were quite busy — especially because it was summer and many people were taking time off — I managed to book an appointment at my county hospital within three weeks of making the call. It cost me £20! Just like that.

In my experience, there is also a different threshold for investigation in the Czech system. Sometimes the approach is simply:

“Let’s check it.”  Or:   “Let’s make sure.” That sounds incredibly basic. But psychologically, it makes an enormous difference.

There is something reassuring about knowing that if something concerns you, there is a route to finding out what is happening. You don’t necessarily have to wait until the problem becomes severe enough to justify urgent attention.

This brings me to the next point.

6. A&E Is Supposed to Be for Emergencies

This is where the problem becomes particularly obvious.

Emergency departments in the Czech Republic are designed for emergencies. They shouldn’t be the place you go simply because you cannot access timely investigation anywhere else.

Under the NHS care, when routine access becomes difficult, people inevitably start turning to urgent and emergency services. Even GPs send patients to A&E to get checks done.

That puts enormous pressure on A&E — and then everybody suffers. Patients wait, staff are overwhelmed and emergency departments become overcrowded.

The whole system becomes reactive.

Which brings me to what I think is perhaps the biggest philosophical difference.

7. Prevention Versus Waiting for Something to Go Wrong

The Czech healthcare system has a much more visible culture of preventive care. There are regular preventive examinations, screening programmes and health-insurance-supported preventive benefits.

For example, when I lived there, I would always see a gynaecologist once a year for a check-up. Needless to say this does not exist under the NHS care.

Of course, preventive healthcare exists in Britain too. But in my experience, it is less accessible, and people are less actively reminded about it. For example, the age at which people become eligible for some screening programmes is higher than in the Czech system.

In the Czech Republic, there seems to be more of an expectation that looking after your health includes regular checks — not simply turning up when something has already gone wrong. And I think that distinction really matters.

Now, I’m a homeopath, and I would go even further. For me, real prevention is education: practical healthcare being part of the education system, teaching children how to recognise when something is wrong, how to look after and respect their bodies, teaching them about the enormous self-healing ability our bodies have, and about different natural approaches that can be used. It’s the lifestyle we live, the food we eat, the relationships we cherish, the thoughts we think, the stress we go through and knowing how very connected all of this is to our wellbeing.

This is still missing in both systems, unfortunately.

So, Why Are the Two Systems So Different? Is It Just About the Finances?

I’m not an expert on the financial structure of both systems. However, as a patient, the systems seem very similar at their core, even though the mechanisms are very different.

In the Czech Republic, people are required to pay health insurance from their income, and that money goes into the public healthcare system, which then pays for their healthcare. The Czech state also pays health insurance contributions for so-called “state-insured persons” — for example, children, pensioners and certain other groups. This money comes from public funds and goes into the health insurance system.

In the UK, I pay into the system through my taxes and National Insurance, and that money helps fund the NHS, which then provides my healthcare. The NHS also provides publicly funded healthcare for children, pensioners and other groups.

Different systems, but a similar model for the end user: money is deducted from my income, and that money helps finance my healthcare.

People wrongly say that the NHS is free. Oh no, it isn’t. We pay for it, of course. It’s just presented as free.

We could have a huge debate about the effectiveness of both systems. The Czech Republic uses a “middle man” — the public health insurance companies — and people can choose which one they want. That creates a competition, which helps keep the whole system more efficient. Of course, there are also flaws and issues, it probably can be misused, but I’m not an expert on those.

So, Which System Is Better?

The Czech system has its own problems, it isn’t perfect and Czech people certainly complain about their healthcare system as well. This is just my own lived experience, along with the experiences of my family and friends.

But having lived in both systems, for me, the answer is completely clear: the Czech system provides much more accessible, thorough and wider care for patients than the NHS.

I must admit that I struggle with the knowledge that I live in one of the most developed countries, the UK, but the healthcare I get is so much worse than in many other, often less wealthy countries, such as the Czech Republic.

And if you say, “Well, go back to your country. You don’t need to be here,” I ask you to pause.

Because yes, I could go back, live there and access the healthcare system. But what about you and the millions of people in the UK?

This isn’t about ego or criticising a system just to say, “We are better.”

It’s about the real struggles and the consequences for all the people who rely on the system.

I have to be fair: there is one aspect I found better in the UK than in the Czech system — pregnancy care and childbirth. Not because the NHS offers more preventative checks, more care or more reassuring investigations. My guess would be that these are still better and more thorough in the Czech system. But it is because of the approach towards pregnant women and women in labour.

The UK system is much more respectful of women. Of course, it all depends on the people, but generally speaking the system offers options and recommendations without forcing them on you, always respecting the woman’s decisions.

The NHS is much more supportive of home births, as it views childbirth as a natural process rather than an illness. It respects the woman’s birth plan and only intervenes when there is a medical emergency. You are not forced to have an enema or to give birth in a particular position. And you are never separated from your baby. This is changing in the Czech system, but still very slowly.

What Does This Have to Do with Homeopathy?

Quite a lot, actually.

Because I’m a homeopath, some people might assume that if I criticise the NHS, I must be saying: “Forget conventional medicine. Use homeopathy instead.”

But I’m saying quite the opposite.

If something is wrong with your body, find out what is wrong. Get the appropriate examination, have the appropriate tests, rule out serious conditions, have peace of mind and, if necessary, have the option to access conventional treatment quickly.

For me, good healthcare shouldn’t force you to choose between conventional medicine and complementary approaches. And it shouldn’t force you towards alternative medicine just because you couldn’t access conventional medicine in the first place either. And trust me, I have patients like that.

In some respects, that can be positive because people start researching, investigating and taking responsibility for their own health. This can lead them to homeopathy, which I believe can be incredibly helpful for people with chronic illnesses and can often offer perspectives that conventional medicine hasn’t provided. They might not otherwise have explored it.

However, that is a costly way to arrive here.

Imagine worrying that something else might be wrong, not knowing what you’re dealing with simply because you’ve already been on a waiting list for four months.

I don’t want people coming to me because they couldn’t get a referral or a blood test. My work is easier when I have their blood test results and can look at the whole picture holistically, including the findings from those investigations.

Many people choose homeopathic treatment because conventional care simply hasn’t provided an answer or offered a solution beyond lifelong medication.

A final thought

We can talk about targets, statistics and improvements in waiting times. We can hear that A&E waiting times have decreased to four hours or so and read about the amount of money the government has poured into it. But what does that mean to the person who is still sitting there for eight hours or more, worried, frightened and waiting for somebody to help them?

A system can look better on paper and still feel broken to the people who depend on it. Because behind every waiting list, every delayed referral and every person who gives up trying to get an appointment, there is a real human being. Someone who is worried, who is in pain, who wants answers, and who deserves to be taken seriously.

That is why I am talking about this. Not because I believe the Czech system is perfect, or because I think every experience in Britain is bad. But because I have experienced both, and the difference has been impossible for me to ignore.

Healthcare should not be a battle you have to fight when you are already unwell.

We deserve a system that listens, investigates, supports recovery and takes prevention seriously — before a problem becomes an emergency.

And I genuinely hope that one day, getting the healthcare we need in Britain will no longer feel like a privilege we have to fight for.