Bloomberg.com: U.K. & Ireland
U.K. businesses lose four times as many hours of productivity to doctor visits than to strikes, said the Confederation of British Industry, the country’s main employer group.
The taxpayer-funded NHS provides health care to all Britons, with no direct payments for doctor consultations or services when they go through their registered general practitioner. The requirement is a legacy from the days when physicians were expected to pay house calls.
However, delays and inconvenience mean U.K. workers spend 3.5 million working days a year traveling to and from NHS family doctor visits, at an annual cost of 1 billion pounds to employers, the CBI says.