To think we are all just accepting the state of the NHS?

[MerryMarigold]

I've seen so many threads on AIBU just in the last couple of days where people are just accepting the state of the NHS and finding ways around the lack of funding and scant resources.

I've filled in questionnaires and petitions. I share things on Facebook supporting Doctors/ Nurses and NHS. I vote Labour (whether that really helps I don't know).

I just don't know what else to do. It is ridiculous now and we're all just accepting it. I am dreading my parents old age (they are already past 70).

What can I do? What can we do?

lovelearning
I'd not her her actual quote and CBA to demolish it : the LGA do that comprehensively every week

Owl
Whitehall has manufactured this crisis by refusing to raise taxes to pay for services that people need.
Nowt to do with the EU
Nowt to do with worldwide economic gloom
ALL to do with the ideology of Jeremy Hunt and George Osbourne

One of the biggest problems for the NHS imo is the lack of social care and constant social care budget cuts.

If we look at delayed transfers of care, the biggest issue is not the health service, but the provision of social care packages.
People are living longer and sicker, and the biggest difference we could make to that is having people to look after those people at home. Primary care can provide dr and nurse support, but what a lot of people actually need is someone to go and remind them to take their tablets, have a nutritious meal 3 x a day and make sure they are supported with being clean and clothed. Social care budgets have been slashed and even if you can pay of care, it's nearly impossible to find something quickly.

For the NHS to work successfully, we need health and social care to be joined, not funded separately and not have 20 different hopes to jump through to find someone who will support a person with Day to day living.

One thing I have seen reported in the Netherlands is offering students free accommodation in exchange for supporting older people with day to day life - sharing a meal, doing groceries etc. That would take a huge strain off the NHS (although I know it wouldn't work everywhere) but we need to think completely differently if we are going to fix the NHS / social care problems in this country.

Let's be clear the NHS is struggling financially and there is no investment in infrastructure but most people still get fabulous care. If you are seriously ill with cancer, a heart attack or stroke there is no better service. The NHS tops the world in something like 16/20 indicators of safety and quality.
However, we spend much less per capita then any other developed country and that means chronic underfunding.
What can we do? Be careful who you vote for. Accept higher taxation for an improved service. Consider whether you need to use it or whether time/common sense and over counter remedies would suffice. Be reasonable in your expectations. Understand how much of our NHS has already been privatised and outsourced - and what this means. It's lovely for the usually well middle aged person to get NHS treatment at an independent hospital but this takes money away from the essential services in NHS hospitals - cherry picking of profitable treatment. Interestingly lots of independent hospitals are considering ways of reducing the service for NHS patients- such as shared accommodation, less accessible appointment times and cheaper meals.

I fear the nhs as we know it will be gone in my lifetime.
I just can't see how it can remain sustainable,people living longer etc etc.
It was set up in a very different era to the present.
I honestly believe we will be paying for treatment before too long - where will the money come from otherwise?

What can we do?

Stop the population rising

a rising population is the reason services such as GPs are stretched thin

I used to write to my MP all the time. We were on kind terms, even though he was Tory and I'm a staunch leftie. I felt that he, kindly, fobbed me off. I felt useless and pointless. I work in an area where I hope I make a difference but I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with budget cuts and being bound by red tape. I volunteer too but it feels like a drop it the ocean.

I have to admit love I am wondering how many people who have replied here have more than two children

"I think the problem is the current government wants it to fail so they can privatise it without an outcry, so it's current state is exactly what they wanted and have been aiming for."

^^ this

Also so they can justify reducing NHS salaries and increasing workload.

It's ideologically driven.

But if the population is increasing, there are more people paying tax, therefore more £ should be invested in the healthcare system.

An increasing population is hardly a surprise occurrence; the government know that it's happening, and this is generally consistent with what's happening in other countries. It's the government's response to it that's causing the issue.

Seriously? In the past few days I've seen many people not accepting or in any way finding it acceptable, the fact the NHS is at its knees.

"I've filled in questionnaires and petitions. I share things on Facebook supporting Doctors/ Nurses and NHS. I vote Labour (whether that really helps I don't know)"

It really doesn't.

I don't think it's as straightforward as that, Improving. I'm pretty sure that it's been proven the biggest users of the NHS are also people least likely to pay extensively into the system.

It's a nonsense to pretend what's going on at present is a unique problem: for much of my lifetime, the NHS has been in crisis, and it hasn't mattered whether the government was Tory or Labour.

The NHS - for our island of 65 million - is one of the largest employers in the world. Stop and think about what the implications of that are, firstly. It's also a money pit. There is never enough money, and there hasn't been for 40 odd years. This issue is compounded by an increasing population, an ageing population, an increasing number of people with diseases that had previously been eradicated, paying the vig on Messrs Blair and Brown's PFI - all of that together, plus the size of the NHS means it needs more money to perform.

Peace has it spot on: unless or until more money is raised via income tax, nothing will change. There are absolutely places where efficiencies could be made- because in an organisation this size, there always are: but those would be a drop in a bucket compared to what's actually needed. And we're not talking about taxing the super-rich more: it requires tax increases on lower-rate tax payers too. Significant ones.

Hef DH works for the NHS and has been saying the above for years. Along with 'the NHS is a victim of its own benevolence' over and over again, until I want to kick him.

I agree that the problem isn't just underfunding of the NHS. The support structures for social care have been squeezed too hard. People are ending up in crisis because the support to keep them safe isn't there. They end up in hospital or stuck in hospital when they shouldn't be. Councils have been squeezed. Mental Health Services are falling apart and mental health cases become physical health cases. Every single part of 'care' is stretched. Money's thrown away on locums rather than retaining cheaper permanent staff. It's a catalogue of disaster.

cherry apologies Don't tell him! I agree with him on the rest as well... NHS employees aren't magicians, but they are expected to do more and more with less and less (in absolute terms) every year.

cherry, even if that is true (and I'm not sure if it is), why does it matter? Why shouldn't we look after the young / old / chronically ill / disabled?

I'd happily pay more tax towards the NHS, and I'm not a particularly high earner. I don't think I'm alone. I am, however, not particularly well represented by any of the main political parties.

I hope people will get off their bottoms and peacefully protest, to save our NHS.

I hate the blame the immigrants stance. They pay tax yet the government has chosen not to reinvest their taxes, back into schools, the NHS and other public services.

We can pay more tax

lovelearning
I take it you and cherry are aware that the UK birth rate has been below the replacement rate of 2.1 since the 1970s

Children are not the cause of the rising call on the NHS,
old people are
there are more pensioners than there are children in school in the UK

the "rising population" is because the immigrants are doing the work that the British are too old and fat to do (like looking after old and fat Brits)

She was not expected to sell off everything first.!
Nor would she have here. For example you can keep your house and pay the cost of your care (or rather what you're liable for based on means testing) out of your estate after death.
Or at least that was our experience a few years ago.

Exploded totally agree: it started when Mrs Thatcher was told by "experts" to close asylums, and various budgets have been playing pass the (ticking) parcel with acute MH care ever since.

There's also an issue of changing family structures- when I was a child, it wasn't that common for both parents to work (not least because it wasn't necessary in order to provide a decent standard of living for a family) and so mothers in particular took on a lot of care for the elderly but also the less elderly but unwell. Grandparents lived frequently with their children and grandchildren, and a lit of things that come under social care 's remit today would have been taken care of within the family, in the vast majority of cases. Instead of facing up to this, and accepting that there is a cost for this, successive governments over the generations have cheese-pared.

We haven't claimed that children are the cause of it, Talk, although our birth rate is the highest in Western europe, but the point is that it's a bit hypocritical (I think) to complain about the strain on public services yet be part of that strain yourself. If you (general you) choose to have three, four, five children then that is fine but if the impact of you and others doing this means poor quality public services I do think you have to accept that in part you have caused this.

^What can you do ?
Simple
Demand of your MP that Income tax rises by 5% to fund
the NHS education and social care
its really basic
we get what we pay for
over the past 20 year the UK has voted in lower and lower taxes and then wondered why services have gone to ratshit^

Got to say I agree with this. I know paying taxes isn't fun but I personally would support higher taxes.

ODFOD Cherry
although our birth rate is the highest in Western europe, but the point is that it's a bit hypocritical (I think) to complain about the strain on public services yet be part of that strain yourself. If you (general you) choose to have three, four, five children
I have two kids - below replacement
The UK has a birth rate of below replacement
has done for decades

The HUGE burden on the NHS is Old people, not children.
Your own personal tax statement from HMRC makes that abundantly clear if you choose not to believe me.

^^ What When said: or lower the rate of taxation for all but make it unavoidable (which would show a similar uptick in tax revenues)