Will the NHS recover? What happens if not?

[ilovemykids1]

As somebody with extreme health anxiety, seeing the collapse of the NHS is horrible and I get so scared of what's going to happen.

Do you think it can ever recover? How many years would this take? And if not, what would happen instead!?

The people saying they are happy to pay more tax are usually the ones who won't - they really mean they're happy for others to pay more tax.

One of the reasons for Labour's win last year was their promise not to increase taxes on the ordinary working person. Clearly the voters don't want tax rises! As always, the Labour voters wanted tax rises, but for everyone else, not themselves!

Same old story. Tax the rich! Tax Starbucks! But the "rich" and multinational firms can just move abroad and then we get bugger all tax from them (and fewer jobs etc). Then those same people make stupid comments like "good riddance" or "don't let the door bang your arse on the way out".

We're in a very damaging downward spiral in so many ways and Labour's policies based on the "politics of envy" will just accelerate the decline. But that's OK. They're happy if everyone is on the same level, even if that level is very low. Dumbing down even more, here we come!

Because "workers" in Britain are being over taxed and suffering cost of living crises that they can't afford to have children. We need to find ways to encourage those in the UK who have a work ethic (which they'd pass on to their children) to have more children. What we don't need are more people who only want to live on benefits, who don't have the skills/knowledge to do the jobs we need doing, etc. We need the "right" kind of people, whether born here or immigrants, not just "more" people!

Being scared because of the state of the NHS is entirely rational. Everyone is likely to need it at some point. All you can really do is emigrate (!) or try to stay as healthy as possible through focussing on health diet and fitness and making sure to do extensive research from reputable sources yourself on any health condition.

Private Health insurance doesn’t help in many cases. It won’t help you in emergency situations.

As you get older you see how bad things are for older relatives at end of life and younger people with serious illnesses or conditions that run the risk of causing lifelong disability or even death due to long delays in treatment unheard of in the rest of Europe. eg scoliosis of the spine in children - in Scotland a senior consultant was sacked after saying truthfully that kids are being left inoperable and crippled for life due to NHS delays; there are people going blind due to delays in cataract surgery; there are people whose mobility is ended by lack of knee and hip replacement etc. Some of lowest survival rates for cancer etc in the civilised world. Official reports telling us of the dire state of maternity care. Additionally there are plenty of people dying needlessly in waiting for, or due to errors in, A&E.

Things are bad. I’ve noted anecdotally that procedures where pain relief is routinely offered in private healthcare for procedures like endoscopy/ colonoscopy etc are now not being offered in some cases in NHS or where offered appear less effective.

I’m seriously considering retiring abroad to a European country with a functioning health system where hopefully I can secure medical advice timeously from non worn down and compassionate medics and have a better chance of receiving pain relief and not dying in pain.

you really believe all the children will become tax payers? In communities where usually 65-70% of the working age women don’t work (tower hamlets for example)
come on. A lot of people here live in a predominantly white middle class area with their blinkers on and it really shows.

Well the 2WW claim is evidence of wishful thinking (delusion!).

In fact only 77% of patients are seen within 4 weeks

The 62-day referral to treatment standard hadn’t been met since 2015

Bear in mind that a 4 week delay in cancer surgery leads to a 6-8% increased risk of death - and that’s only one aspect of treatment.

Maternity care in this country is actively dangerous.

If waiting for a treatment such as a joint replacement or to see a psychiatrist, neurologist, endocrinologist or haematologist… then god help you quite frankly.

Wow. We are literally f*cked!

By the time dc born today enter the workforce things will likely be very different due to AI advances

ive got private health insurance now and it’s something I won’t let go, despite not being able to afford it atm, it was because of my works private insurance that I was able to get get my cancer diagnosed and treated when the nhs pretty much failed me so I need that back up for my mental health.
I think we need to look at European models vs the USA debate that always happens when it comes nhs reform.

The public is generally not realistic about the investment needed for a safe health service. If we don’t pay higher taxes, we pay premiums, or with lives damaged / lost. If I’m going to pay more, I don’t want a penny of it to be private profit. I want it ALL to be invested in services.

Do you really think tax receipts are spent efficiently? I don’t. It wouldn’t all be invested in services, there would be plenty of government waste along the way.

I mean you only have to look at the Covid spending… those super useful nightingale hospitals!

To the poster who says 'maternity care is actively dangerous' - try living in the DRC. Or scores of other countries around the world.
Giving birth in the UK is statistically incredibly safe for both mother and child, primarily because of the NHS.
Again not saying that there aren't problems but making blanket, scaremongering statements without evidence is not helping anyone.

Well no, tax receipts were massively squandered during Covid by the tory government. They were a corrupt fuck up.

But there is much better value for money to be had by raising the funds though taxation. Time and time again, it has been shown that private, for profit public services don’t work. Look at the privatised water companies!

I agree that giving birth in the UK is still relatively safe, but must we set the bar so low? Shouldn’t we be aspiring to for births as safe as Scandinavian countries for example?

And where has the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world? The USA, with a for profit insurance based system. Universal healthcare is an essential for a civilised society. I don’t want my neighbour to die in childbirth because she can’t afford £60K, or whatever eye watering sum it now costs.

@Gorgeousfeet @Neurodiversitydoctor

You're both right (/wrong).

Immigrants on the same wage as the UK average are signifiant net contributors to public finances.

When broken out by types of immigration/origin country (not this chart), some types/country are consistently negative, others consistently positive.

Family of care workers are one of the 'negative' categories (which is not to say they aren't beneficial in other ways, say if care workers would not come without them).

Final points: economic benefit is not the same as public finances. It's possible to be economically beneficial while being public-finances negative.

And of course there are non-financial arguments about immigration too. Not everything is numbers.

Chart

I’m not advocating for privatisation, but I think we need much less politics/politicians involved in healthcare. Leave it to the healthcare professionals who know what they’re doing, not politicians who will pander to public opinion even if that doesn’t result in the best healthcare provision. More tax = more government involvement in health care, in my opinion to the detriment of us all.

And while I’m interested to see what reforms the Labour government are going to announce I have no faith that they will be any better in terms of the NHS than the previous government. Everything they have touched so far has been a disaster.

And if it matters I voted Lib Dem, not a supporter of any particular party.

As someone who recently had emergency hospital care and has cared for someone with a prolonged illness. I can honestly say I do not feel safe in the hands of the NHS right now. For those who can afford it private is the sensible option.

I dont buy this "broken" bull. I had treatments in time, been seen by GP when needed, never had to pay. My relatives in the US cant believe it but they still slagging NHS off like so many right leaning posters on here. Its almost like you people want it to fail! I would say, if you hate it so much and would prefer private, get BUPA or something. Then you will know what going private is like! I lived in the US so I know. Fighting to get your treatment approved and in the end ending up forking out thousands on top of what you have paid/ your employer had paid. Going to the hospital bleeding and having to sit in the office waiting for your policy to be approved before seeing a doctor. Private only works if you are loaded. And not many of us are.
NHS has its issues but we all need to support and protect it. Because the alternative is grim.

You have been lucky. My father passed away last year with a terminal illness that could have been cured had the doctors actually taken him seriously the first 4 years of symptoms and not sending him home every time until it went too far and became terminal late stages. I had an awful maternity experience in which I lost 4.5 litres of blood, my organs started to shut down and I was put in an induced coma for two weeks - as you can imagine it resulted in awful postpartum depression and my son had sepsis from the awful long labour. My sister took my 6 month old baby niece to the GP as she was experiencing awful symptoms after a lung operation- GP said come back in 3/4 weeks it probably just a cold. It was only a collapsed lung, she spent the next 4 weeks in hospital. I witnessed many agency staff being sent home whilst I stayed in the maternity unit - in turn I was then waiting 40 mins plus after pressing the call bell when my c-section incision came open and started leaking blood.

Either you have been lucky or I have been unlucky. Unfortunately the NHS isn’t fit for purpose anymore and if you end up in a bad hospital or with a bad GP you won’t be leaving with your life. Someone has to do something about the current situation.

That’s not how it works though is it? Healthcare professionals should help shape the services, but there needs to be vision, planning and oversight. Without anything strategic in place, we are sliding into the worst of all possible outcomes.

Ah yes, like the GP telling my sister that my 6 month old niece who had just had lung surgery was just experiencing cold symptoms. Good job they went to A&E after as it was a collapsed lung 👍

Too many people sucking money out of it have never contributed to it. I think we need to abandon it to move to some sort of insurance model. Doesn’t need to be like the US surely but maybe more what other European countries have

Two week wait just refers to your first screening - it often takes months to initiate treatment in the uk, and you are less likely to get treatment at all. Don’t take my word for it, cancer research uk calls out the missed targets Here and Here

one of my biggest fears is getting a cancer diagnosis while living in the UK. I have done some work in oncology across the US and EU-5 and have seen how much of a gap there is in care and in particular access to innovative medicines.

100% privatisation isn’t the only alternative. But we have been brainwashed by politicians (from both main parties) into thinking it is. Everytime I hear a politician talk about “our” NHS it sickens me. We’re encouraged to think about the NHS emotionally not rationally. The NHS is not some eccentric old auntie whose quirks we just need to lovingly accept. We’re not lucky to have it we all pay a fortune for it through taxation, and should demand the best healthcare in the world.

Most countries have a form of socialised healthcare, but very few if any are “free at the point of use” because that’s begging for a disaster. Which could be what the U.K. is heading for if we don’t all wise up and recognise that the current funding model just doesn’t work anymore.