In the early 1990s I worked what was to be the very last year of the "old" NHS and the very first year of Thatcher's new "Trust" system. I can assure all that the amount of money that was wasted under the new system was phenomenal. The NHS has become a sacred cow when in reality is is and always was inefficient and costly. It is appalling compared to the French system. But at least then that money wasn't going into the pockets of SERCO.
As an analogy the old Royal Ordnance Enfield and Radway Green system was also inefficient and costly. But like the old pre-Thatcher NHS that was because it had an inbuilt slack. In effect the old NHS like the old Royal Ordnance factories rolled along in second or third gear with an ability if needed to then effortlessly move up to fourth gear. So yes in normal times it was inefficient and costly.
Some four years back my GP here in the UK believed that I may have bowel cancer so requested as urgent a colonoscopy after a near half year of seeing if this or that medicine would make a difference. Three months and nothing was arranged except a telephone appointment with the specialist so that on paper it could be reported back that the patient...me...had been seen by a specialist. Another four months and finally I had the "urgent" scan done.
In France where I was working at the time my wife then living there was registered with the French health service. One one visit to her French GP I mentioned about the colonoscopy delay in the UK. He asked if I wanted to have one done through the French system. I asked how long it would take. His reply was "If you've not eaten anything today and have an empty stomach and bowel I can book you in for tomorrow. If not I'll book you in for the day after."
The NHS kills people with cancer because it works upwards to diagnose. On the basis of assuming that whatever you have is the least worst and if the remedy for that doesn't work treating you for the next worst thing it could be and then the next worst after that until finally they decide that it might be cancer and decide to test you for that. Why? Because it is the practice of medicine done on the cheap.
The French system (as with most top rank health services) works the other way. It diagnoses downwards. It immediately tests for what is the worst case possible scenario and then when that is possible cause is eliminated tests for the next worst case cause and so on down. That has the effect that cancer or any other life threatening illness is detected early not left to continue to become more severe.
Anyone that thinks that the NHS is the "best healthcare system in the world" of that it is "free" is living in cuckoo land. It isn't and the amount of money in both direct and indirect taxes that individuals pay towards make it anything but "free" in real terms. Yes you don't get a bill when you use it but over the course of your three score years and ten life expectancy you've paid through the nose, and paid handsomely, to actually not get a bill when you use it..