Welcome to the National Health Service (NHS) The NHS is publicly funded so it's completly free. Of course this is reflected in the standard of treatment. On arrival at hospital don't expect someone to open the doors for you, and don't expect to see a doctor immediately, not on your first day. Or even your first week. Overall don't expect much. We don't care how many limbs you're missing. If you can't be bothered to call in advance and tell us you might be getting killed, you obviously don't care about living. So really we're doing you a favour. We find this system saves a lot of time.