Australian health service has no postcode lottery & better pay for doctors and nurses – the NHS needs a shake-up

G’DAY from Australia, where the sun is shining on Sydney harbour and a balmy breeze fills a ­thousand sails.

The soft sandy beaches are thronged with bronzed blokes in budgie smugglers and girls in tiny bikinis.

Honestly, I’m not gloating.

As well as being on holiday, I’m here to test the fabled Aussie health system that so many UK politicians want to adopt in place of the disintegrating NHS.

The opportunity came sooner than expected when, as a recent cardiac casualty, I needed a blood test to monitor a change in medication.

So I located a local clinic Down Under with TWELVE GPs, all with appointments available on demand.

I turned up next morning to see my English-born medic.

An hour later I’d had the test, with results back within 24 hours.

The bill was 80 Australian dollars (£46) for the GP and $A75 (£43) for the test, mostly refundable under a reciprocal deal with the UK.

Australia is a land I know well from my days as a “Ten Pound Pom” or, more formally, an assisted passage migrant.

In the 1960s there was not much to choose between the two countries if you got crook.

Much has changed since then, not least the creation of Australia’s own national health service, Medicare.

This country is famously egalitarian — equality for all.

Medicare provides exactly the same level of cover for rich and poor, young and old, city slickers and outback diggers, by law.

There is no postcode lottery.

Not seen as elitist

No rationing by queuing.

Everyone gets “a fair suck at the sauce bottle”.

And no strikes.

Aussie ­doctors and nurses are paid up to twice as much as their NHS counterparts, which explains why physicians are flocking to the other side of the world.

Taxpayers contribute 1.5 per cent of their pay — 2.5 per cent for higher earners — which covers 100 per cent of hospital treatment and up to 75 per cent of GPs’ fees.

Dentistry is not included.

Additional private insurance — around £100 a month — gives wider choice.

This is seen not as elitist but as a civic duty to ease the burden on the state.

Leftie Brits erupt with fake outrage over Rishi Sunak’s ­personal health care arrangements, but Aussies would be disgusted if Labor PM Anthony Albanese did NOT go private.

This contributory approach is the “magic oil” that makes Medicare work.

By contrast, the NHS sacred cow is “free” from cradle to grave . . . its biggest design fault.

Australia spends slightly less of its national wealth on health, but still beats Britain on survival rates for all major causes of death.

UK-style socialism

Mercifully, UK-style socialism has not sunk roots here.

Welfarism is not a way of life. People respect “battlers” who work hard and look after their families.

Town centres and public parks look cared for.

Litter and graffiti are scarce.

Town halls spend in the interests of the ratepayers rather than client voters.

Traffic police are vigilant, projecting an image of law enforcement totally lacking on the streets of Britain.

Stabbings are rare.

Paradise is never perfect, but these glimpses explain why enough NHS staff are swarming in this direction to spook public sector bosses back home.

Western Australia alone is hunting 31,000 British doctors, police and teachers, miners, plumbers, mechanics and builders.

They might strike lucky.

Half the UK think they would be better off and ­happier living abroad, according to a new poll on the state of modern Britain.

Australia is the most popular bolthole.

The lure is 3,200 hours of sunshine a year, higher pay and cheaper living costs.

One-way traffic

Energy bills are about £2,600 lower — enough to buy 350 pints of beer, 110 roast dinners or 1,000 meat pies with gravy.

This brain drain is a real headache for the NHS, which desperately needs 12,000 more doctors and 50,000 extra nurses and midwives to fill the gaps.

Until a future government has the balls to take on the health unions and shake the NHS by the scruff of the neck, this will continue to be one-way traffic.

Will Keir Starmer give ­Labour health supremo Wes Streeting a chance to prove the NHS is, after all, “a service, not a shrine”?

For me, at least it has been refreshing to discover the Lucky Country I once chose as home still lives by its life-enhancing maxim: “No worries, mate.”