Moving to the UK permanently and gaining citizenship.

[deathschoice]

Hi, there. I heard about your community in immigration and thought I'd post here as well. I read your FAQ and first I'd like to say I am not a student yet (I do plan on going to school sometime in the next few years), don't have any UK relatives, I am not looking to marry a UK citizen and I work from home as a web/graphic designer and have a small internet

Comments

[belle_marmotte]

You mention that you are in love with the UK, but this sounds to me like a very rose tinted view. What exactly is it you're in love with? Our wonderful weather? The resentful customer service, our class ridden political/social structure, our delightful NHS? (I was hospitalized last year and I guarantee if you were to experience the realities of what I went through in an average NHS city hospital, you'd be screaming for a ticket home!)

I'm not sure how up to speed you are with the economic situation in my country right now, but it's pretty dire. Have you checked out house prices and food prices? What about the of petrol/gas, how do you feel about spending almost $100 just to fill up your car? Do you realize it's almost impossible to get a mortgage as a first time buyer? These are all the realities of life in the UK today.

I married a US citizen but I was unable to remain in the UK with him because I am disabled and couldn't support him, despite owning my own house without a mortgage, so even if you DID marry a UK bod it's by no means a given that citizenship would be available to you. Fortunately my husband has a very good job in the USA, so we ended up here instead. I'd like to add that my one bedroomed home in the UK (approx 300 sq ft) was the equivalent of 3/4 of what our 2500 sq ft home on an acre of land cost us here in the US. If I wanted to buy that in my home town I'd have to spend at least $1m.

It's much easier to live well here in the USA on a modest income than it is in the UK, where being poor is VERY costly indeed.

Your only other route in would be to gain citizenship to another EEA country and come in like the rest of our Bulgarian/polish/Czech/any other EEA citizen friends! But even if you did find some way in you're in for a shock, immigration is by no means an easy thing, financially or emotionally.
Do yourself a favour and take off your rose hued specs, next time you come to visit, go out of your comfort zone and visit some of the less salubrious areas. See the country for what it really is, not your construction of it based on hollies.

[loganberrybunny]

On the other hand, you seem to be taking a very jaundiced view. For example, my own (extensive) recent experience of the NHS has been almost entirely positive. That's not to say I disagree with you about everything -- the broken property market especially -- but I don't think this is "broken Britain" any more than it's some Earthly paradise.

[arosoff]

It's incredibly regional. I gave birth in north London and had a horrid experience from the day I got pregnant. This was a while ago now, but I'm told from friends still there that it hasn't improved a whit--too many pregnant women and not enough resources. Friends in other parts of the country didn't experience anything like it.

Alas, I fear the Tories want to make it all like what I got.

[belle_marmotte]

Just speaking from my own experience in the NHS as a disabled person for the past 24 years and those I know who had similar experiences. Now I'm in the US 43 yrs old and pregnant with a high risk pregnancy, the care I'm getting is INCOMPARABLE with anything I had in the UK. I get monitored every couple of weeks by the fetal medicine team of doctors only (no midwives) I will get my own room and my own designated nurse when I give birth. Contrast that with my best friends experience of giving birth last year with ONE obstetrician on duty for 60 women in labour. It took him 2 days to get around to her to discharge her.

Are you seriously telling me that you prefer to be on a ward with at least 8 people and one obs machine between the lot of you? Or begging for fluids because the message that you've been switched to 'free clear fluids' from nil by mouth is never passed on to subsequent shifts? That almost resulted in me needing a blood transfusion. And don't even get me started on the 'care' my mother received in a locked psych ward on a section with NO access to medical intervention, when in fact she was having strokes that have now resulted in her having intractable dementia. I had to tend to her head injury myself and other inpatients had to feed her.

I don't believe Britian is broken and never once said that in my post did I say that it was. I do however believe our NHS has gone into a dreadful decline in the last decade.

Nowhere is an earthly paradise, I hate the food here in the USA and the awful crime rate in my city. But at least I can afford to live in a nice house and put gas in the car more than once a month.

[loganberrybunny]

I'm sorry you've had such a bad time, and I wouldn't presume to comment on obstetric care, as I have no experience of that even indirectly. All I can say is that I have both epilepsy and diabetes (with some complications) and have had excellent care from the NHS for many years, including a small amount of in-patient time. Overall, I'd rather be using the service now than when I was doing so in the mid-1990s. (The future is potentially another matter, but that's getting political.)

[happycycling]

you mentioned that your husband has "a very good job", and it sounds like he also has a good health insurance plan. i don't have any firsthand experience with pregnancy care in the US, but i'm willing to bet that it's not as positive an experience for the millions of Americans without health care coverage. i'm glad you've had such a good experience with the US system, but please bear in mind that this high-quality health care is inaccessible to a large number of people.

[tisiphone]

As someone who gave birth in the US in a rural area with no health insurance, I can guarantee you it was no rosy picture of perfect care. I came within literally a few minutes of dying, and if my mother hadn't been there to forcibly insist I get airlifted to the next island, I would have. And that's as a strapping and healthy 20-year old who worked in a cannery up to a few weeks before giving birth! belle_marmotte's experience is certainly touching, but I wouldn't claim it as representative of the American healthcare system at all, especially for the unemployed.

[belle_marmotte]

Right I do have excellent health coverage due to husband being an essential fed employee, (whatever that means) And certainly for those without any health insurance something is better than nothing at all. If you're strapping and healthy then the UK health system will certainly provide for you at a level you'll find acceptable.

But I still can't get past the fact that we have the worst outcomes for cancer in Europe and that our screening is so cost driven, no mammograms til 50 folks, no cervical cancer screening til age 27. Try getting a second opinion for anything at all without having to go private anyway.

In the UK I lived in the Lake District, very beautiful but our PCT is beyond over stretched. Rural areas always seem to come off worse for good medical provision, regardless of the country. I'm lucky to have emigrated to a larger metropolitan area with a very good reputation for medical research.

Back in the UK I had family members and dear friends who worked in the NHS. It was so frustrating seeing how hard they work when every day resembles banging your head against a brick wall of intransigence. So many good people have left because they could not cope any more and the ones left behind have to detach even more just to survive day to day.

When I showed up at my GP before I emigrated, to get a summary of my notes I enquired about a spinal X-ray I'd had done 6 months earlier. I'd heard nothing so presumed all was ok. Turned out they found a serious problem with my spine that could result in my eventual paralysis. No one bothered to let me know. On top of everything else that happened last year it was the final straw.

[tisiphone]

I don't blame you for being upset with that! I think medical care in both the US and UK is pretty messed up in a lot of places. I and my family members have had similar things to that notification debacle happen, and I just don't understand it.

[annaonthemoon]

I stayed in the hospital last year for about a week and the only problem I had with my stay was that I was waiting for surgery, and kept being put on "nil by mouth" and I had to ask the nurse for a drip because I was getting lightheaded and dehydrated, but other than that, my stay was fine.

And I'm also fortunate that my husband bought our house in 1996 when the property market was low and our mortgage is cheaper than most rental properties.

Personally, I don't think it's any easier to live in the US with a modest income, but to each his own.

[velum_cado]

It's relative, isn't it? As is pretty common, I hadn't been able to afford medical care for the six years before I moved to the UK, so I certainly appreciate it more than what I was able to get in the US.

[celebestel]

I love the NHS. I grew up in a fully-insured upper-middle-class American family who nonetheless couldn't afford to actually access healthcare (other almost a thousand dollars of monthly prescription meds for a couple people in the family). It's a whole new experience for me to be able to go to the doctor just because I'm concerned that there may be a problem. The NHS is one of the best things about Britain, though generations of naive British politicians who have never known a moment's fear that they wouldn't be able to access healthcare certainly haven't done it any favours.

[emarkienna]

Though you can go private in the UK too - isn't it fairer to compare like with like?