If the tories lose the next election, will the NHS be safe?

[YearOfTheRear]

Just that, really... I feel so worried for my young family at the moment. The state of healthcare in this country is getting quite frightening. Will we actually be able to sleep reasonably soundly if the conservatives don't get back in?

Of course it won’t

Why are you losing sleep over the NHS? Does your family have long term health conditions that require the NHS?

The NHS wastes money day after day and care more about diversity manager than patient care. I would invest in private healthcare if I could.

No.

Because it's bottomless pit that swallows everything thrown at it and then needs even more.

It may not last forever but it will last a lot longer with the Tories out of the way.

No. The person slagging it off the most at the moment is the shadow health secretary.

Edited:
(in reply to the person who asked if we had a long term confdition and needed the nhs...)

Yes.

There is no way on God's earth we could afford private.
Once my kid leaves education I may have to stop getting my prescription to get his.
Haven't been to the dentist in a long while.

Are you rich?

Edit: (I can never get the reply function to work)

I've worked for the NHS for over 20 years and healthcare now compared with when I started is so much more complex. We have an ageing population who collect new illnesses with each year of life requiring more and more new medicine and procedures. All new medicines that are discovered and launched cost ££££. Any government in power in the UK would have to dig deep to fund the increasing money pit of the NHS. This money will have to come from somewhere.
In addition the waste and mismanagement in the NHS is awful. I wish it could be run like a private company and have increased efficiency. However NHS and private cannot be mentioned in the same sentence together! We treat the NHS like a sacred being that cannot be criticised. It really needs radical reform if it is to survive.
Oh and I have private healthcare.

To answer OP’s question:

As a lifelong employer of choice for many administrators and managers and their ‘initiatives’ and fire fighting- yes

As a functioning service delivering health care and health outcomes on a par with other European countries, giving priority to employment frontline HCPs and medics- no

The NHS isn't going to be safe regardless (never forget it was New Labour who took the biggest strides into private provision within)

If we are serious about bolstering NHS, the first thing we need to do is re-establish infection control, so that cancer care can once more be safe, people with underlying medical conditions can go to hospital safely, beds are not occupied by those with hospital-acquired contagious diseases.

We also need to look at what is really driving the increases in certain conditions - such as the doubling of diabetes incidence (both types), increased stroke, earlier onset and increased incidence of certain neuro conditions

We need to do more to alleviate long covid

Those points above are about slowing the rate of increase in demand. Because without that in play, I don't think the backlog will ever be tackled.

NHS has many ever more senior managers.

But does it have any real leaders?

The nhs is an appalling money pit of a dinosaur that isn't fit for purpose by any measure. It needs to be completely dismantled and started from scratch after an in depth consultation with doctors, nurses and patients and following an in depth assessment of what other countries with excellent health care are doing. That will never happen no matter who gets in though, so your best bet is to have no more children and get the best private health cover you can afford.

If Labour get in they'll still have to cope with the billions we are losing every year due to the tories bumbling out of the single market. (Labour and Lib Dems would sensibly never have held a brexit referendum) That money could have been used for the NHS, schools and other public services. The tories have shown they can't be trusted with the economy.

www.itv.com/news/2022-12-20/brexit-costs-government-40-billion-a-year-in-lost-tax-revenue

https://www.itv.com/news/2022-06-09/brexit-cost-the-uk-billions-in-lost-trade-and-tax-revenues-research-finds

Indeed I worked for the NHS for 20 years it needs a complete overhaul .

I don't think any one has any idea of the enormity of the task that privatising the NHS in its entirety is.

If we transfer to an insurance based system seen elsewhere in the world then what about those of us who will effectively be uninsurable due to pre-existing conditions?

The UK spends less on healthcare per capita than most other developed countries. The Tories have run the NHS into the ground by cutting its funding and also by slashing the council budgets which have to fund social care.

The NHS is far from perfect, but it’s really sad to see so many people believe the propaganda about it being a bottomless money pit. Before deciding if privatisation would improve the NHS, please look at how many Tory MPs receive money from private healthcare companies.

I think Labour would be an improvement over the Tories. PFIs were awful, but at the time, Labour had few other options. I think that sadly, even with Labour in charge, the NHS is likely to get worse before it gets better.

Of course it won’t, it’s sacred so will never get the massive shake up it needs. I worked for the NHS for 6 years but got out young. It’s doesn’t know it’s arse from it’s elbow. It’s doesn’t mean I don’t admire many of the individuals that work for it. DH and I have quite a few close relatives between us that work or worked for them, 3 nurses, a surgeon, GP, dental nurse.

The actual systems are crap with duplication and waste.

Any staff in the public sector that are bad at their jobs are hard to get rid of, this was one of the reasons I left. Of course over worked staff make mistakes but some are just bad at their jobs. In my new office based career when a mistake was made I used to say at least we aren’t nurses and no one is going to die and I really meant it.

Some people do not take care of themselves around 10% of the NHS budget is spent on type 2 diabetes of which a big part of that is preventable. It’s frustrating.

Medicine has advanced hugely since the NHS began, many of the treatments operations and medicines didn’t exist and we have become too good at surviving but in poor health.

The way some members of the public treat staff is shocking, because you are a public servant, the whole I pay your wages therefore I can abuse you mentality.

What @ChardonnaysBeastlyCat said in a nutshell really.

Tap the 3 dots on top right hand of post and chose quote from drop-down 😊

It will get worse if the Tories get back in. If it is Labour or a non-Tory government, the rate of deterioration will be slower and things might start to improve in time.

Wes is speaking at conference now.

The difficulty with the nhs is that progress is slow moving, and doesn't often fit with political time frames.

Often the years of underfunding takes many years to become a problem, and the solutions take many years to implement. I imagine it like planting a tree, it will take many years for the poor care or fantastic care to really show and In that time government and policy changes.

My team has been underfunded for sometime and now the cracks are really beginning to show.

For example the nhs building we were in was sold off, the money for it has long gone so we rent. Except we've now been kicked out of the building so we are moving into another base which is massively underspaced for our team and are having to cancel client apps because of lack of places to see them, and the increase in home visits equals a decrease in efficiency and more blocked patient flow.

Many years ago mental health nurses were given a specific pension deal that it beginning to take effect so they are leaving in the droves. When they withdrew funding for people to become nurses, it took 3 years before it impacted the numbers graduating.

These are problems years in the making but would rear it's head whoever was in charge. It will be many years until the impact of chronic under funding becomes fully known

Governments want fast progress so they can say they have slashed a waiting list in a year, rather than they have invested in the future

For example my team until recently got given a fairly big recruiting budget, but it simply wasn't a money problem. There were not enough mental health nurses locally, to fix that it takes a whole system redesign, finding a way to encourage people into the profession, waiting years for them to qualify, then for them to become experienced enough to work in my team.

With every government change, new policies come in, old plans abandoned, priorities changed.

You can really clearly the impact on things like hospital building. We have been planning on building a hospital for several years but often their are changes in political will and funding. Plans that are made (and money spent on empty land) are abandoned, then restarted when we have funding.

If we had built that hospital at the start then it would be in operation now, but it's not a vote winner to say that waiting lists will be reduced in 5 years when a hospital has been built and become functional.

I do. Private healthcare isn’t viable for people with chronic illnesses. I have several appointments per year, blood tests, tests like CT scans and colonoscopies, medication reviews, I once spent a week in hospital, and I’m at risk of needing surgery. We need continuity of care and, very importantly, access to long term health records. Private doctors don’t have access to NHS computer systems.

I’m sick of reading this ableist bullshit. People with chronic illnesses and disabilities would be the worst affected by privatising things.

Christ I hope not. Put the poor bastard out of its misery

He’s just spent the non dom tax status abolishment money again. But also focussing on dentistry.

I have just taken out private healthcare insurance for my DS19 to cover him while he’s a student ( he may be going to Wales). I realised that I was prepared to pay insurance for the dog but had no provision for the family . It’s too late for DH and I ( stroke and cancer respectively) but at least DS can have the benefit.

PS it costs less than his phone contract before anyone starts. And considerably less than the pet insurance.