Is the NHS really underfunded?

[BobbyeinArkansas]

Curious to garner opinions on this.
Watching This Is Going To Hurt currently which has made me think.

I know staff are overworked. But is it really as “underfunded” as the media would have us believe or is it a combination of being inefficient, mismanaged and with too many “managers”.
I have no idea, by the way but I am curious as to what other think.

It's not opinion.
Its fact.
The NHS is grossly underfunded.

Completely mismanaged and inefficient. Have t embraced and utilised technology. No accountability

I suspect there's massive inefficiencies and mismanagement going on. I suspect there's big expenditure on gold plated stuff. I suspect if those problems could be fixed, then it's not underfunded

But that's my outsiders view

Its a mix of all sorts of absolute disgraceful sheer incompetence as well as underfunding and mis directed money and a poor culture
The whole thing needs re hauling.

The PFI schemes were the worst idea ever, together with the building being to big, and the contracts to maintain them are an ongoing rip off.
A lot of the money goes on insurance against being sued and then the after being sued pay outs.

Then there's nobody is ever sacked but usually promoted well beyond their capabilities or moved to another trust. Nobody talks to each other NHS England is run by a bunch of back stabbing bullies. A lot of money is wasted and the good people who do work for,it in management are pulling their hair out.

Most if these life long NHS directors wouldn't make it in the real world, and when they fuck up are given jobs in NHS England or similar.
It's not run for the patients it's run for the managers and consultants

The NHS has been proven to be the most efficient Health system in the world by a variety of Independent organisation's research.
But
We spend less per person than similar nations.
If you have an emergency there really is no better place to go.. the NHS does emergency well (although I know 3 unconnected people in 3 area go to hospital in Feb and all had to wait 18hr and 2 of the 3 couldn't get ambulances even though they were really unwell.

Politicians have meddled constantly with the administration of it.
Its now suffering from years of under investment.
People dont like paying higher taxes. Lots if not most similar countries have higher taxes.
It runs on a high level of good will. They don't pay a decent wage for the blood sweat and tears and there is a huge shortage of staff in all areas. There are loads of reasons here but I'm not up to date enough to comment.

It's impossible to meddle with it too much as held in high national regard and is sacrosanct. And unionised

Btw dont work for NHS but have worked WITH it for years. So I may not be qualified to say this. I know quite a lot of people who do and they all hate their jobs I'm sure there must be some NHS staff who don't but I've not met them.

The Kings Fund used to have some good info on all this... haven't checked recently.

But..at the risk of getting banned from MN..no not all NHS workers are heros. And..I didn't clap because it's condescending. I also worked through covid and did a lot more than I know some NHS staff did. But that's not why.

Grotesquely underfunded. We spend far less per head of population than any comparable country. International studies have shown that the area the NHS really scores is value for money. I've worked in the NHS since 1997. Up to about 10 years ago it was really improving. There was some investment. We could see waiting lists going down, treatments improving, outcomes improving. And then the fucking Tories deliberately and maliciously ran down the NHS. Every single year we had to come up with ways we we spend less than the year before, even through costs of treating patients were rising. Squeezing and squeezing. And then the pandemic came. We had no spare capacity. At all. Thanks to the fucking Tories. And we got handed a pandemic. I wish we were on our knees. That would be an improvement on the current situation.

Yes it is underfunded. If you look at total health spend compared to other developed countries, we are underfunded.

PFI is a terrible waste -build a hospital now - and pay way more in the long run.

Charts from the King’s Fund. Our spending is average for comparable nations. Real terms funding has not been cut. Demand outstrips supply.

We spend 1-2% less of our GDP on healthcare than many comparable countries. That might not sound a big difference, but it's billions of pounds a year and it's cumulative, year-on-year.

In 2017, the most recent year for which there are complete figures, France spent £3,737 per person on healthcare and Germany spent £4,432. The UK spent £2,989 per person. If the UK had spent the same as Germany, we would have spent £90 billion more on healthcare. The US spends double what we do.

It's not just about the money, but the money is a huge, huge factor.

The NHS has been proven to be the most efficient Health system in the world by a variety of Independent organisation's research.
But
We spend less per person than similar nations.
A big yes to this

The real problem with the NHS is the 40,000 nurse unfilled posts and the 9,000 unfilled doctor posts.

That means existing staff are overworked and stressed and patient care is unsafe - leading to more staff leaving the service.

Not enough new recruits are trained to fill the massive staff shortages altho Boris says there are 60,000 nurses set to be trained in the next 5(?) years. But who knows with Boris whether that's true?

I live and work somewhere with a dual system - a public health system with the additional option of private health. People paying for private health (which is limited, gets to pick and choose what it offers and to whom) really seem to have no idea how much it actually costs to provide healthcare. It’s a vastly expensive business.

I’ve worked in both systems and find it laughable when people imagine it’s the public health system that’s inefficient or mismanaged.

Yes, it is. As PP have said the UK spends less per person than comparable countries, and a larger percentage is public sector, which makes the UK more vulnerable to public sector cuts.

It's not just that the NHS compares poorly to, say, France and Germany: It's underfunded because not enough money is put in to cover what people want out of it. Again as PP have said, the NHS is probably the most efficient system in the world, so it's not getting wasted. There simply isn't enough money, and posts are going unfilled because conditions and wages aren't good enough.

Yes.

Just to talk about nursing and general patient well being, you need slack in the system to provide good care.

Just to cover the basics - making sure that patients are fed adequately and facilities are clean, you can’t always be functioning at or beyond capacity.

It's not so much underfunded but mismanaged, bloated by over paid management and misused by many of us - treatment for obesity, vasectomies etc - why should they be a public cost? It should go back to the core values of treatment that it was set up to provide in 1945

Yes it is underfunded.

Deliberately.

Funny how waiting times were so much lower under Blair. Tories would like to break it.

Do you think the privatised water companies are a model of brilliance? Private healthcare will be worse than we have now. Just more expensive for you personally.

It should go back to the core values of treatment that it was set up to provide in 1945
yes let's go backwards, what a great idea. Who wants progress anyway, down with progress!

Let's not use modern treatments and give out lashings of cod liver oil.

Ridiculous.

The system is abused by some service users. Just one example, If a patient is given an appointment for a consultation or a scan and doesn't attend they should be invoiced. Instead they are sent another appointment. If I asked for example, a Plumber to come to my house and I wasn't there, I don't think he would rearrange to come back a second time.
Many people do not value the service. It isn't free and people shouldn't be allowed or acceptable to abuse it.

@twinsetandpearl

It's not so much underfunded but mismanaged, bloated by over paid management and misused by many of us - treatment for obesity, vasectomies etc - why should they be a public cost? It should go back to the core values of treatment that it was set up to provide in 1945

www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/health-and-social-care-bill/mythbusters/nhs-managers

According to theOffice for National Statistics, the proportion of managers in the UK workforce as a whole in June 2010 was 15.4 per cent. These statistics also show that there were 77,000 hospital and health service managers across the United Kingdom, or 4.8 per cent of the NHS workforce. In other words, the NHS has a managerial workforce that is one-third the size of that across the economy as a whole.

Asubmission to The King's Fund's Commissioncalculates that PCTs in England spend around 1 to 2 per cent of their budgets on management and 'only the most outstandingly frugal charities spend as little as 1 per cent of their turnover on management'.

The NHS is top heavy with staff, too many chiefs & not enough Indians. There are too many executive & management staff earning silly money salaries & not enough hands on staff. An organisation like the NHS should be built from the ground up, without firm foundations it will collapse, HCA, HCP, Nurses & Doctors are the foundations, they are the staff who care for the patients, the executive staff probably have no idea how the practical side of the hospitals work, chances are they were executives in another field before working for the NHS. More resources & money need to be pumped in to the practical side of the NHS, management & executive staff need reducing so the money saved can be used to increase staffing lower down the ladder, pay them a decent wage & improve working conditions, make the NHS a good place to work.

Constant restructuring of the management system has lead to gross in efficiency. Redundancy is unheard of in the NHS, just retitled.
Having worked for the NHS for 35 yrs , it’s a joke. The same inefficient managers and staff are rearranged on a regular basis.

People are stupid about the word 'manager'.

Do they think the surgeon should manage the admin too? Even though the surgeon costs four times as much as the person currently managing the admin? Or do they just think no one should manage the admin?

What about:
Appointments
Records
Payroll
HR
Accounts
Logistics
Transport
Buildings
Insurance
Legal
Procurement

Should the Doctors do that too?

Not at all. It's a huge shit show of inefficiency and ineptitude.

@carefullycourageous

People are stupid about the word 'manager'.

Do they think the surgeon should manage the admin too? Even though the surgeon costs four times as much as the person currently managing the admin? Or do they just think no one should manage the admin?

What about:
Appointments
Records
Payroll
HR
Accounts
Logistics
Transport
Buildings
Insurance
Legal
Procurement

Should the Doctors do that too?

Agree.