I get the impression that as you say the critical/emergency side if the NHS is invaluable and perhaps unrivalled. I'm talking more about the disorganisation (I missed my meds twice whilst in care as they had been discontinued on the system), 11 hours waiting for a bed because I was not an emergency, patient with mrsa being put on the ward until they realised he was positive (a fact which they knew a week before when he was only in for a day but didn't bother to advise him), floors with blood spots, bits of blood stained bandages lying around on the floors, half of the nursing staff wiping my cannula before administering drugs and the others not, not a single nurse using the alcohol gels before or after dealing with patients, nurse sneezing into her hand then cracking on with her day, left the cannula in my good arm in until it nearly got infected (I had to ask them to take it out). Shower rooms stained with what could only be blood or faeces.
There is absolutely no doubt that every last person in that hospital was busting their arse but it just felt to me as an observer that it really wouldn't take much to tip it over into total chaos.
I guess its more the 'peripherals' of care where it seemed like a mess.
Food was better than I expected though