How has it worked out for them?
I guess it depends on what you mean.
They got what they wanted, they love it, it is the most popular institution in the UK, and it is politically untouchable. So, you could say it was a success.
Like all socialist schemes, though, it doesn't age all that well.
Reinvestment of profits can't happen, because there are none. So any improvements or up-to-dating has to be in the annual budget.
What they took over in 1948 was enormously wealthy - in physical plant, yes, but also in accumulated knowledge and human capital.
Running down Zimbabwe was fast, because they were starting from such a low point. UK medicine, on the other hand, had much, much more resources to dispose of.
Medicare's promise in the US in 1965 to pay without limit for anything useful or potentially useful triggered an explosion of invention. This did not happen in the UK, so there is a growing gap.
But, to be fair, the NHS is not $20 trillion in debt and they can choose from our smorgasbord of wonderful inventions what they favor most and what they can afford.
On the whole, in my opinion, it's good for them, because it suits them.
An anecdote might prove the point.
In March of 1976, I was working in Oncology at a major London teaching hospital. My landlady came to see me with a hard, hard lump in her neck, almost certainly cancer.
She'd gone to her GP who got her an appointment in my department - in October.
I told her to come in with me tomorrow and I would get her in to see the consultant.
I will never forget the expression on her face, like I had slapped her. "Oh, NO! That wouldn't be right! (to jump the line).
For people like that, it's a great success.
I don't know too many Americans like my landlady.
Thanks for that added explanation.
Your landlady’s situation is an amazing one, to this American who is used to getting in to see a physician the next day if needed.