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!?

It’s nearly half a century since Thatcher became PM, blaming her/her government for the state of the NHS in 2025 is ridiculous.

We’ve had governments of both major parties since then and NHS funding has increased hugely. The problem isn’t lack of funding (although that’s all you hear from politicians - we’ll give it more money) it’s demographic changes - someone my age has a 1 in 3 chance of living till they are 100 years old - this was not the case when Thatcher was in office.

We need to have an honest discussion about healthcare needs and how to fund them. But we can’t and some of the responses to this thread show why. People are utterly brainwashed into thinking we have the current NHS model or everyone pays for private insurance. There are other ways to do it

What would be the best way to do it? Comparable country, comparable population - how are they balancing the demands?

Please note: we can't really use places like Denmark as a comparison as they only have 6 million people compared to our 70 million.

Thank you for your view, I’ll investigate further.

Interesting post. I’ve heard of the 80/20 rule but not relating to healthcare. What would the extra 20% be? Expensive but life-saving cancer drugs or things that are nice to have, such as cosmetic surgery? Would NICE be abolished?

I can see how introducing co-pay options would improve efficiency, (assuming this could be done without encouraging those on low incomes to ignore small health problems until they become much more complex and more expensive to treat). But I can’t see how introducing insurance companies would help.

I don’t want the doctors treating me to have to waste their time trying to persuade my insurers to fund a particular drug or a hospital transfer. I don’t want the worry that if I make a tiny mistake on an insurance form, I won’t be covered. I’m prepared to pay more for healthcare one way or another, but I want the money to go directly to the NHS.

@Cattenberg so don’t buy insurance - paying out of pocket is always an option. There’s no need to ‘introduce’ insurance in the UK either - it is a well established and growing part of the healthcare landscape.

as for where the money goes, the NHS as an organisation is a bottomless bit of bureaucracy and waste. Personally I would rather the money went to the doctors and nurses, bringing income more in line with other countries where their specialist skill set is better rewarded. I also think more should be spent on innovative technologies and medicines to ensure the UK doesn’t fall further behind other countries in accessing state of the art care. A stronger private market would do that as it would allow more mechanisms for growth rather than the relentless focus on efficiency.

I’ve no doubt the NHS could be improved. But when I look at the life expectancy in the UK versus the amount spent per capita on healthcare, the NHS doesn’t look like a bottomless pit. The bloated and bureaucratic US system on the other hand…

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/healthcare-spending-versus-life-expectancy-by-country/

Privatisation isn’t the only way of funding innovative technologies and medicines. In my county, there’s a purpose-built cancer treatment unit which is a “centre of excellence”. It has the latest radiotherapy equipment thanks to a local charity set up specifically to fund this. I was told by a Cancer Research volunteer that as a purpose-built unit with the latest equipment, it’s able to attract some of the best doctors to work there.

When you say ‘your country’ what do you mean? Uk Oncology treatment is well behind us/eu in terms of access to most innovative treatments. I say this having toured cancer centres in multiple countries.

the NHS is very good at population level interventions and has fine tuned the ‘is this treatment value for money’ analysis, but is widely shit for the end user when more complex or personalised intervention is required.

My county is in SW England.

I do believe the UK is falling behind regarding in cancer care - some of the waiting lists to start treatment are unacceptable for a start. But surely we need to invest more money into cancer care, we’re just arguing over where it should come from.

Yeah, I can tell you categorically that your centre of excellence with the ‘latest equipment’ would look positively basic in much of the us/eu.

I agree, and I think that the 111 system is part of the problem. Recently my DS had the norovirus really badly. I went on the 111 website to try to get advice froma nurse about rehydration (he couldn't drink for two days and couldn't stand for a week). The 111 website redirected me to 999 which seemed bonkers.

I then managed to resolve the problem myself and had to ring 999 again to cancel my previous request for help and they were so busy that I was put on hold for 5 minutes. This seems a bit bonkers.

@Cattenberg the only things insurance would do, would be to limit care to any illegal immigrants and any health care tourists. And it effect becomes another tax.

People who are just here legally but working under the radar would still be claiming benefits and get some sort of insurance credit.

So your right it won't do much other than add another admin fee.

How on earth do you come to this conclusion?

I think you and @Cattenberg are confused about the role of personal health insurance. It is not in itself a solution, it is a mechanism for making it more accessible for individuals to contribute to the cost of care at point of use, and bigger picture would allow the nhs to differentiate critical services from things that many people would want but aren’t necessarily critical.

There’s no belief about it. The difference in cancer survival rates for many cancers between the U.K. and the rest of the western world is sobering. We are far from first class.

Part of the reason for this is delay in diagnosis ….,

My DM was diagnosed with cancer just over ten years ago and according to the statistics, had a 40% chance of surviving for at least five years. She had to wait a month for a CT scan and surgery, at which point we found out the grade and stage. Even a month’s delay is very stressful to live with.

My parents actually had private health insurance at the time, with Benenden. But all Benenden offered DM was home visits from a cleaner (which she didn’t want)! My parents then enquired about paying for surgery privately (not sure which provider they asked), but were told this wouldn’t really be any quicker, as the private hospital would need to repeat at least some of the tests before surgery.

So they stuck with the NHS. And DM is still here. It must be much worse to be going through a cancer diagnosis and treatment now, though. The current situation is letting some cancer patients down badly.

Early diagnosis and treatment are often crucial, but to be cynical, early diagnosis will always make survival rates appear better too, regardless of treatment. A healthcare system which diagnoses patients early will have better statistical survival rates at 1, 2 and 5 years, even if the cancer is a type that responds poorly to treatment.

The Times today suggests that Reform’s suggestion of considering a French style insurance system ( but effectively 100 per cent coverage as state covers the poor) is Reform’s Achilles heel.

I disagree - I think many people now see that the NHS as it stands doesn’t work. I believe the WHO rates French healthcare highly and their survival rates for cancer etc are far superior to the U.K.