Ultimately, it all comes down to money.
Make the NHS an employer that medical staff want to stay & build a career in.
Build primary care into multi service providers (like our surgery here) where we have pharmacists, physiotherapists, district nurses, nurse practitioners (all with their own specialism) & HCAs for support services like diabetic foot checks, which can be signposted to by receptionists so everyone is not jostling to see a GP who may not be the best first line for depending on your needs.
Poverty is inextricably linked to poor health. Cheap foods are not healthy foods. Stress and depression linked to smoking, alcohol and drug use.
Invest in the old style convalescent homes & better social care, where people (predominantly elderly in my own experience) can rehabilitate and regain function before discharge, helping to regain use of their surgical or medical bed in hospital. Or have a major investment in social health care which (again, anecdotally with my own parental experience) for faster discharge from hospital.
We need public awareness campaigns to educate people when A&E is appropriate to use. Yes, we have this today to some extent, but let’s start teaching the public about first aid, what can be treated at home, what needs immediate treatment.
Unfortunately I’ve been watching ITV daytime guff lately as I’m a carer for my Mum; instead of another phone in about pet psychics (what the duck This Morning?) what about a daily first aid segment? They do a great job with their medical team educating about basic illnesses and signpost viewers to use pharmacists/treat from home rather than go to a GP, so let’s take the next step & teach the public how to treat cuts, sprains etc. at home, and when to seek more advanced care.
Being back the old Green Goddess and Mr Motivator style keep fit/healthy living segments on daytime TV rather than another bloody orange faced host helping greedy family sell their granny’s silver for the highest profit.
And let’s all be brutally honest for a moment.
Governments have known there is a large bulge population group approaching 75+ since 1946. Have we modified our NHS with this advancing age group in mind, building elderly care provision?
Have we bollocks.
Instead we have reduced hospital beds (our Trust has lost 500+ plus after closing 2 inpatient hospitals to be replaced with 2 spanking new outpatient hospitals). Austerity measures (read, save money to give Tory donors kickbacks) have systematically defunded social care.
This puts families (mostly women) in a position where they’re squeezed looking after children on one hand, and aging parents on the other, putting families under more stress and less time, that brings less time to make good food so rely on fast, UPF crap, or having to sacrifice working hours & pay because they have this extra care to provide. And that’s without elderly hospital or doctor appointments you have to juggle with work or childcare commitments.
And since we can’t expand the number of hours in a day, some may cope with alcohol or nicotine (paradoxically further increasing stressors as we know). Which leads to poor health, more stress, more reliance on poor food choices.
But this will all cost money. And this govt. has just given us back tuppence in the pound for NI as an election sweetener.
I’d rather have a 2p increase towards social care, NHS & health and well-being education.
What ever you do, don’t vote Tory at the next election.
Even if you are GC, remember this;
the only cnuts the Tories care about is themselves.