Is the healthcare and social system ‘broken’? Can it be fixed?

[queryinganything]

In terms of the health and social care system, I hear this often - the system is broken - and I wonder if in your experience, it’s true?

For context, I oversee the care for my elderly dad and since his care needs have increased, I’ve found it increasingly difficult to get the right help. I often seem to be stuck in a loop, being passed from one dept to another, only to end up right back where I started. I’ve also been given some incredibly inaccurate information at times which has sadly led me down an unnecessary bunny hole.

A (somewhat cynical) friend who’s an ex social worker tells me that due to all the pressures on the system, culturally this is the aim now - try to pass the query/person on to the next dept as quickly as possible - a sort of weird ‘pass the parcel’. Whatever you do, you don’t want to end up being the one to hold the parcel!

So this isn’t intended to be a goady thread or an attack on some of the incredible people I’ve encountered who keep these systems going but more of a general question about your experience. If you’re a carer or have to regularly deal with the social/care system, do you feel the system is ‘broken’? How would you like to see it fixed? (Obviously if money and resources were not an obstacle).

I would like to see a system like the French or German one where it is normal to see your doctor/ consultant when you need to and not be terrified of having a serious health condition and be at the mercy of our ‘pass the parcel’ system.

It’s definitely broken, the demands on it are impossible.
what services are you looking for?

Oh…the list is very, very long and I’ve gone round in loops.

We need help to prevent unnecessary hospital admissions due to GP being unable/unwilling to provide community-based care. We need help with getting him into supported housing but the endless paperwork and support letters required is a mini project in itself. We need help with a safeguarding issue related to wider family (long, painful story) and so on.

I’m not looking for specific help for my situation, just ruminating on whether any of this is generally ‘fixable’.

In an ideal world, I’d love for my dad to have a dedicated person who manages his caseload of both physical and social issues - someone who accurately understands the system and who can signpost me first time to the right team/service.

Instead, it’s a group of generic teams responsible, with people of varying abilities and knowledge and so every conversation relies on me accurately repeatedly the same story (I have a written down script now) but almost inevitably it’ll be a case of ‘oh, you need to talk to XYZ’.

Every now and then I encounter some absolute angels - people who will doggedly help me beat the system and get the answers I need. Sadly I find that if I try to contact them 6 months later, they’ve moved on. Maybe they too got disillusioned.