Boris 'it could have gone either way'

[Otherrooms]

Well he's recorded a very passionate speech and looks very poorly indeed.
He shows a huge amount of gratitude towards the staff who have cared for him and he appeared quite shaken. Lips quivering towards the end I thought.
I really hope this is a turning point and our government will invest properly into an NHS that has been in its knees for a long time.
Maybe he will vote in favour of NHS staff pay increases next time.

If only it was posible to see graphs of spending, beds and staffing...

spending on NHS healthcare as a proportion of GDP is a useful one (rember that our ageing population costs much more than our younger past ones)

www.economicshelp.org/blog/21664/economics/nhs-spending-cuts/

...this one

www.economicshelp.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/health-care-spending-percent-gdp.png

piglet
The second graph is interesting!
Need to match up who was in gov to dates.

Off the top of my head -
1997-2010 Labour. Graph shows steady increase in spending.
2010 onwards CONS. Graph shows slow drop in spending.

I thought Labour were as bad as Cons re. NHS funding.
Obviously not.

Thanks for that piglet

1990-1997 Major years - How low?!
Labour built it up steadily from 1997- 2010 didn't they?
Would like to see further back to Thatcher!

It absolutely will not change a thing with regard to the nhs. Tory plans to dismantle it bit by bit will continue. Look at Cameron, his legacy to disabled rights is still being felt today. The truth is Boris will have received exemplary treatment, and the nhs is simply unable to function at this level for others. They are completely overstretched at all times, perhaps if he received the standard of care most normal people receive (through no fault of the wonderful staff who are underpaid and overworked) THEN he would realise how important it is to invest. Instead he has been turned into an absolute martyr and the whole country will have be to bear the consequences.

To be fair a lot more money was spent 1997 to 2010 but on additional tiers of bureacracy rather than on patient care, for example, PCTs. There was also the escalation of PFI funding that is the root cause of many of today's problems.

Then the Tories with Andrew Lansley as Health Sec brought in austerity and slashed public health provision by making it a local authority responsibility and slashing LA budgets from central government.
And Lansley and the coalition reorganised the PCTs into much smaller CCGs. That doesn’t reduce bureaucracy. Guess what, these days many of the CCGs are merging back together to be about the same size as PCTs, to get economies of scale.
There isn’t a government with a perfect record on health but New Labour were better caretakers of the NHS than many others.

New Labour would have been pretty good for the NHS if it wasn't for their obsession with bloody PFIs

Agreed- PFIs (originally a Tory idea but latched onto by Blair and Brown) have been financially terrible.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/12/nhs-hospital-trusts-to-pay-out-further-55bn-under-pfi-scheme

Date loaf, in 2006 having a baby in the UK was life threatening. Three of my local hospitals were unsafe. Women not admitted to wards, ghastly tales of being in labour alone, rushed out after with placenta left in only to collapse and nearly die from sepsis.
Every toddler group had someone telling some new horror. Every day headlines... No midwives... Women left to labour 6 7 8 with one midwife between them leading to fatalities and death...

Saying.. Don't get ill hospital can't help you, during the covid is not new to me at all.

We were terrified of ending up in one back then.
Since tory in charge they have improved.

We don't have need ti blindly chuck money at it... We need to look at the best health systems in the world and emulate them, fill in our gaps, tighten things up and make people care.

Change culture! Change clunky systems.... Then put money in..

I had my dd in 2002 when New Labour were in power and don't recognise your description at all. I had a really positive experience in hospital and didn't hear any horror stories at my baby group or toddler groups.

JanMeyer Spot on. I've thought for a long time that David Cameron is a prize hypocrite. If he thought so highly of the NHS,why did he do his utmost to destroy it? I profoundly hope that Boris will learn from this,but I doubt very much that he will.

1066 I don't know what part of the UK your in but im South East. I could find links if you like... Because it was the main headlines at the time.. And I was already terrified of birth.

I'm in the South East too. I suppose it just shows how things vary across the country, even in areas that are close to each other. I guess our stories show the danger of generalising from personal experience.

@Echobelly in our trust there are empty critical care beds and adequate staff so you would have one to one or one to two nursing care right now.