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?

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I wonder what we could learn from the Cuban healthcare system? It’s predominantly free at the point of use and whilst it suffers from the effects of underfunding, it’s remarkably cost-efficient.
https://cubaplatform.org/healthcare

Also, here’s a recent comparison of different countries’ healthcare spending versus life expectancy (I couldn’t find a recent example which includes Cuba).
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/healthcare-spending-versus-life-expectancy-by-country/

Free at point of use healthcare is the most efficient means of healthcare rather than means testing and semi privatising. It is cheaper overall to just make it ‘free’

The real issue is the UK spends too little on healthcare.
In 2017 we spent under £3000 per person on healthcare. France spent just under £4000, Germany £4.5k per person
The NHS is chronically underfunded and how much we spend as a percentage of GDP is dropping.

People just don’t want to accept the reality, a decent healthcare system takes more money. If we funded the NHS at German levels for 10 years it would be considerably better. It’s boring and simple but more money is infact the answer.

The NHS has managed to provide a just about good enough healthcare system on peanuts for years because it is infact super efficient, not all that long ago and WHO ranked it the most efficient healthcare system in the world.

People just want to ignore the actual evidence that money is the answer because it suits them.

Since most of the population clearly doesn’t like evidence I suggest we abolish the NHS and replace it with homeopathic hospitals and make everyone happy.

If Labour won an election, are they really likely to do anything to reverse the decline?

😂😂

1. I'm in my 60's so been hearing the tired old trope "Tories will privatise the NHS" for over 40 fucking years. Thatcher didn't and if she didn't have the balls to do it who on earth among the Tories do you think will????

1. As pp have said the NHS is not fit for purpose any more. Time to adopt a co-pay system like on the continent or Ireland.

@sandberry , the bit you omit to mention in the per capita spending figures from better funded health systems is that individual adults co-pay via their mutuelle, from earnings or pension income, and there's a choice of private hospitals and labs that compete for business. The NHS is "like it or lump it" and the range of alternatives is small, and expensive.

It would be efficient if the whole population were told to eat ham sandwiches for every meal. Only bread and ham would be produced, but most want at least a choice of breads or hams.

The NHS pisses a lot of money up the wall and has some ridiculous policies, and idiots that work for it. It needs a restructure, and a close look at spending. Shit loads more money being thrown at it (like Labour may offer to do) won’t solve much I don’t think.

Someone on MN said a little while ago that people are now more likely to want to spend extra money on private healthcare, rather than extra tax to pay for NHS, and that stuck with me.

Unfortunately I don't think so. Choices will have to made about the NHS can and will or won't do.

I agree with a pp who said words to the effect that people don't look after themselves. And of course everyone has a reason why it shouldn't apply to them.

For all the people who want private healthcare, be careful what you wish for. Pet insurance for an animal with pre existing conditions is through the roof where it even exists, and exactly the same for human beings. It'll be out of financial reach for so many people.

Could any US posters comment?

Are you having a laugh?

It's not fit for purpose and never will be now.

It was created for a completely different scenario that we will never go back to.

@AgnesX

For all the people who want private healthcare, be careful what you wish for. Pet insurance for an animal with pre existing conditions is through the roof where it even exists, and exactly the same for human beings. It'll be out of financial reach for so many people.

If you look at semi-insurance schemes in Europe, there are legal limits re premiums and legal rules re limiting premium increases (if any allowed at all) for pre-existing conditions. It's nothing like the pet insurance market. There are controls and protections in place that stop insurers cherry picking who they want to insure and restrictions to stop them refusing cover or hiking up premiums for "high risk" (in terms of cost) patients. It actually works very well in some countries, the patient costs can be pretty cheap/affordable and the speed/quality of service is typically a lot better than the NHS.

The awful US system really isn't the only alternative!

Nope, but probably safer under Labour than if the Tories get back in.

I’m not sure any public services are safe tbh. It feels like everything is in terminal decline.

Exactly. And no political party is going to increase funding to French or German levels, there’s no money (because the Tories have mismanaged the economy and handed billions to their property developer mates and PPE-making pub landlords).

Having worked for the NHS and for a private company who took on a contract, I can tell you that the private company weren't better organised, they had a significant corporate overhead of marketing people bidding on contracts and they discovered that they couldn't improve efficiency and reduce waste because clinical teams were already functioning at a very streamlined level.

Privatising the NHS isn't the answer unless you're in the pocket of someone running a private healthcare / insurance business. Like many politicians seem to be.

Gosh. If this is what people believe about alternative healthcare systems, then no wonder they don’t want to lose the NHS.

This kind of underwritten insurance is not how it works at all!

@ShipSpace can you elaborate please (I'm assuming you're in the US)..

That's a bit more reassuring but only if any changes are implemented properly here. Given the government is trying to flog the management of medical records to US companies I'd worry we'd end up with an American model.

I'm not sure anything will be safe if Starmer and his crew get in without a coalition.

Women especially won't be.

I feel that some posters here deliberately ignore the many successful examples of advanced healthcare systems (Europe, Australia etc) and constantly bring up the spectre of a U.S.- style systen.
Is this due to ignorance or to score their own political (left-wing) point?

Healthcare should be depoliticised and we as citizens should educate ourselves about other successful options rather than listen to the scaremongers on the left.
They seem to think that the lower survival chances of UK cancer patients (a current reality when compared to most European /Australian patients) is an acceptable price to pay for their failed socialist NHS monopoly.

We are all going to have to take more responsibility for what we eat and how we exercise, assuming we have that control and the ability to afford it. There is likely to be a hardening of attitudes towards smoking, drinking alcohol and other harmful behaviours.

I agree. Sugar, in particular, is going to become the new tobacco. In the same way that escalating taxes were used to successfully tackle smoking, more taxes on foods & drinks high in fat, salt & sugar are inevitable. And they will have broad cross-party political support because unless we do something to control obesity, diabetes & heart disease, the NHS or any other form of healthcare system will collapse.

Sugar and UPF already IS the new tobacco.
We’re at the heavy marketing and high consumption stage.
It’s no coincidence that one of the biggest snack food companies is an offshoot of Philip Morris, the giant US tobacco company, with access to the same playbook.

Taxes and advertising bans will come one day, but ‘big food’ is an extremely powerful beast, just as ‘big tobacco’ was with many lobbyists, ‘research’ funded by them to refute inconvenient truths.
You can bet they have some friendly politicians (who might benefit from their friends in the ‘big food’ companies) to help them out.

A cross-party consensus on meaningful action on the scale needed is, I imagine, a long way off.

I suspect the sugar/ UPF (industrial food-like substances) companies estimate we’re only in the tobacco equivalent of the mid-1960s at the moment. They will fight back hard in any way they can at every step, just as big tobacco did.

https://ash.org.uk/uploads/Key-Dates.pdf

I guess c.2035 for the ban on advertising this addictive, non-nutritious non-food.

And millions will be released from the grip of this stuff. Just as with tobacco, obesity is NOT the fault of those living with obesity, it is the horrendous ‘real food’ desert we live in, together with the relentless marketing of this addictive non-food that is everywhere.
Remember that the profits of the ‘big food’ companies are all that matters.

The tories have run the NHS into the ground as really they want to slowly privatise it.
Both myself and my husband work for the NHS in mental health and it has been slowly privatised... NHS hospitals and services being closed then the NHS patients being sent to private hospitals and services which the NHS then pays for.. far more than it would've cost to send the patients to the hospitals that were closed.. but obviously these private companies wouldn't profit from that. And the care is NOT better in the private hospitals. Profit driven healthcare is disgusting and it won't benefit anyone except very wealthy people.
I think if the tories get voted out and any more left wing party get voted in it will help things but honestly its in such a shambles that things won't noticeably improve.. they just hopefully won't disintegrate further.
The tories were really stripping the NHS back so people were relying on front line emergency services at massive levels which these services cannot cope with... all the community based stuff, the social care linked in stuff, the outreach, the preventative work.. thats all been stripped away or considered some kind of luxury people should now pay for but this is what is really crippling the NHS.. with the aging population... we need proper social care and proper non emergency services. Obviously I'm coming from a mental health perspective but the lack of services other than crisis services is staggering.. it is charity based or private now days. My husband is a lot older than me and has been working far longer for the NHS and he has seen the services dwindle down. Now people aren't being picked up by the NHS until they are very unwell. The waiting lists for the scant few NHS run non emergency mental health services (ie talking therapies, art therapy, day centres etc) are phenomenally long. And peoples conditions worsen whilst they are waiting putting so much pressure on front line services. And alot of this is because the tories shut down loads of these services and outsourced to private companies which actually cost the NHS even more to use.

An interesting piece of info from the other day, a couple

The company that produce Wegovy and other brand names is doing brilliantly in Denmark and adding to economic strength

Food retailers in the states are already seeing reduction and talking about the impact of the drugs on sales

When sugar was first introduced it was an expensive luxury that very few people could afford.
Now people are paying big pharma companies for an expensive drug in order to curb their consumption of sugar. Those same pharma companies that also own food companies are making money from a problem they create. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nestle-idINTRE74N1QM20110524
The human race is fundamentally stupid.
I think it’s about time that we super tax sugar, it would be a great way to fund the NHS in the short term.

The company that produces the weight loss drugs does not invest directly in the food industry but probably indirectly through biotechnology.