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?

I wonder what might have happened in 2009 that started this chain of events??

I know the problems in the NHS go a long way back but it was so easy to predict things would worsen with the cuts being implicated.

So many people who would have been managed have ended up in hospital acutely unwell because they've been left to sink. We need a well funded social services and good care at home so people don't end up needing hospital treatment. That goes for physical and mental health.

I am such a socialist, really. If we had good social housing, people might not struggle so much generally and have more time/energy to care for relatives. They'd have some surplus income to go towards, amongst other things, paying higher taxes. Higher taxes would equal a much more secure safety net for the vulnerable. It would mean people being looked after at an earlier stage of them needing intervention. Austerity was a terrible idea and we're reaping the consequences. I have a few friends who are social workers and they've been saying for a few years now how things are deteriorating. They've powerless to stop it all.

I wonder what might have happened in 2009 that started this chain of events??

This
www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2017/01/true-british-values-nhscrisis/comment-page-1/#comment-647552

Lougle several threads running on here and a number of news stories of incidents where ambulances are hours late for clear emergencies and people dying on gurneys in corridors while awaiting triage/treatment. We're back to where we were late 80's/early 90's.

And I agree it's deliberate in fact I think I'm correct in saying that direct questioning of mp's on this has led to no denials and there's been leaked memos confirming?

Social care not linked properly
Too many hoops to jump through to get access to the right depts
Poor organisation
Underfunding especially in the areas people most likely to be concerned about

This didn't just happen it's been DECIDED by somebody.

"These situations are created, to suit an agenda."

"An increasing population is hardly a surprise occurrence; " exactly that's misdirection

The Red Cross have said they consider the nhs to be in a 'humanitarian crisis' that's a disgrace and completely unnecessary.

There's money available for

wars
Royals
MP's costs (including pay rises)
giving tax breaks to the rich
allowing the ALREADY rich NOT to pay taxes (both legally and illegally)

"Put up taxes - of perhaps start collecting the tax that should be paid"

bailing out bankers and not making them PAY IT BACK

Re: those most likely to use it less likely to pay in. How about the reverse? If it were properly funded and organised some patients would then be healthy enough to work and pay taxes. Especially people like me (mental illness patient)

"and a lot of things that come under social care 's remit today would have been taken care of within the family" also true. Even if I were still married and healthy I'd be working because few can afford to be long term sahp out of choice with current living costs so high and wages so low 'mum' looking after 'gran' who's moved in because they're not safe alone as they're getting older and more frail just isn't feasible any more.

"If a western government with the capacity to buy military equipment but no interest in the physical health of its citizens can exist in the 21st century, then Orwell must be ticking a few boxes off wherever he is.
Did that sentence make any sense?" Did to me

I agree oversimplifying tories bad/labour good is a naivety but the CURRENT tories ARE a fucking nightmare!

HelenaGWells all good ideas but will not make enough of a difference plus as several of us have said its likely a case of the current tories WANTING the nhs gone, so even if everyone DID use the nhs completely correctly and only when necessary they'd STILL keep cutting and creating situations to make it seem non-viable. And you forgot getting advice from pharmacists for minor ailments.

And I must admit I disagree with the nhs being used for non medical reasons like

"ear lobe reconstruction after piercing, say which is apparently the commonest form of plastic surgery paid for by the NHS"

"Isn't culling pensioners a bit extreme?" Not a moral problem for current tories apparently, they may not be doing it in an overt way but...

"We don't really live in a democracy" agree with this too

Morethanus - fewer people voted Tory than voted for someone else or not at all. Given the election results are also currently under investigation for fraud by several police authorities I think it's actually very much an UNDERstatement.

Tanith then you're in a STRONGER position not weaker. TELL HIM you won't be voting for him unless he stops being an uncaring arse! If you and loads of other constituents where you are were to tell him this is out of order it COULD make a difference - though even better if he hadn't been voted for in the first place (appreciate you may not have voted for him).

It genuinely frightens me to the point it's making my health worse. I don't trust the current govt on anything to be honest. I do consider myself a socialist true but also even Thatcher had some things she just would not do. Running the nhs into the ground being one. May and her cronies really are the worst.

And I'd say to ANYONE thinking privatisation a good idea - well it worked really well for everything else that was didn't it? NOT

Gas, electric, water, railways, steel, telecoms...

It really is not as simple as saying 'pay more tax ', nor is it a simple case of underfunding.
I have a friend who is a very senior nurse who is on her knees, both budget wise and emotionally. I asked her how she could see where improvements could be made. After all why not bloody well ask the people at the forefront of the crisis, those literally holding up the sky as the rain pours in.
her answers were Suprisingly simple, for example why does a highly trained nurse have to wait on attendance at a consultants clinic? Why are our hugely skilled medical practitioners being asigned to spend much of their shift filling in and trying to financially justify a patients treatment path?
These clinicians took on a vocation to care for patients so why can't the "system ' allow them to fulfill their roles? As far as I'm aware nursing training doesn't have a module for financial planning and projections, nor does a trainee nurse enter their training with a view to spending a chunk of their shift filing and shifting paperwork to try and justify a bit of pain relief or trying to make a post op patient clean and conformable.
It's an utter disgrace some of the first hand stories I have heard around my kitchen table this week.
I'm thoroughly ashamed to say that much of the media coverage is not sensationalism as I had previously believed. We are now in a situation where I dread the thought of a member of my family needing to access A&E services right now.
I am utterly ashamed that we are where we are now despite having the most amazing and committed medical staff who are just trying to do their jobs against the tide of pointless targets and budgets.
Gosh I had no idea my rant was this big, but it truly is becoming a case of life and death

if you consider very elderly women, who occupy beds in huge numbers, you may well find that many never worked/paid taxes at all, except perhaps for just a few years before marriage and children

Puzzledandpissedoff

These women have directly contributed to society

They have earned the right to care in their old age

that it meet the needs of everyone
that it be free at the point of delivery
that it be based on clinical need, not ability to pay
At the same time, it has a wider social duty to promote equality through the services it provides and to pay particular attention to groups or sections of society where improvements in health and life expectancy are not keeping pace with the rest of the population.

The NHS can't just provide a service for the 'deserving' - ie talk of who has 'paid in', the massive generalisations about immigrants and 'self inflicted problems' or 'lifestyle choices' ('drunks', obesity etc). People who are vulnerable through mental health, circumstances, disability or age may not 'pay in' as much, if at all but that does not make them 'undeserving'.

I'd say to ANYONE thinking privatisation a good idea - well it worked really well for everything else that was didn't it? NOT

I don't actually agree there - in my experience other state run utility firms are not that great . I am perfectly happy with my gas and water thanks !

But we can't compare the NHS to this

Again - we need to pay
More tax . I cannot think of another way

fewer people voted Tory than voted for someone else or not at all.

That is going to be the case virtually all the time, unless you have a choice of just 2.

Drivinmecrazy you are spot on. This is also happening in education. People who's love love and talent for the actual job having tat sucked out of them by paperwork and targets (and a curriculum which I'm not sure any actual teachers had a say in).

If all the big companies paid their taxes that would help.
If the greedy individuals who have more money stashed offshore than they could ever spend paid their taxes that would also help.
Tax avoidance and evasion is a huge problem that is largely ignored by the current government.

My comments were not meant to be ageist, - or racist - just a comment on population.

I care for my mum and I see a situation that is non-sustainable. She is in pain. I have fought to get her help with the pain but there are limits to what can be done. She has dementia and severe arthritis among other things. She is unhappy. She threatened to take all her pills at once because her life is not her own any more. Because of that her drugs had to be locked away and given to her by a HCP - her choices have been removed. She has to have carers, she has to have invasive hospital procedures and stays in wards to rehydrate her. And when I sit with her, (giving up my own job), I see the ward is full of similar people.

And having more kids to support the old just increases the problem. (Pyramid). What is needed is a longer period of active contribution. We should start to contribute younger and continue to contribute in some way until that is no longer possible.

Increased tax is great - except it puts the burden on a few people - and the working poor will suffer most - again.

BTW - to be clear I am in no way advocating any sort of withdrawal of care or euthanasia of the elderly - it just a very personal observation tainted also perhaps by the fact that, quite apart from the NHS, I see years of my own life and my own funds disappearing into care for my mother - and it could go on for another fifteen years.

endofthelinefinally - absolutely right.

An interesting thread.
I'm a front line hospital consultant.
I have a few observations....

1. things are so bad that healthcare rationing has already started. In a number of CCGs smokers and those with a BMI of over 30 are currently unable to get elective surgery without a 6 month period of "health optimisation". I am a surgeon so the reality is that I would have to send these patients back to the GP for 6 months as the CCG won't pay us. You can imagine how that discussion would go down. This is not why I entered medicine..

2. it is certainly a Tory agenda to privatise the NHS. I genuine think that Jeremy (surname difficult to pronounce) is being made the fall guy for the NHS on the basis that he will be richly rewarded when it fails. His background is in private healthcare management....

3. there is currently a massive "brain drain" going on. Because of the awful conditions and with a pay freeze that has gone on forever, more docs and nursing staff are choosing to leave acute specialities for an easier life. Many consultants are saying "fuck it" and choosing to work part time because they can just about afford to and because work is currently so shit.
   In a hospital near me (in the South) 60% of the permanent theatre staff have left in the last 12 months and recruitment is impossible. That means that surgeons are working with theatre staff they have never met before or who have never worked in the hospital before. They don't know where kit is kept in an emergency.
   This is awful at best and unsafe at worst.

There's your reality.

The solution:
Depoliticise the NHS with a cross party working group that know what they are doing.
Some rationing... I'm afraid I believe IVF should not be funded (and I say that as someone with infertility....)
Increasing taxes....

At the moment you have a situation where you have increasing public expectation in a system with increasing regulation and decreasing finances and demoralised staff... it doesn't take a genius to work out that the system will break....

Thanks for listening...

At least we've stopped treating it as an organised state religion. Otherwise excellent 2012 opening ceremony was particularly North Korea like in its unquestioning worship (I was in the middle of some horribleness with the NHS at the time so my view is coloured).
We need to incentivise people to pay privately for some non-essential services.

Borisrules my husband is also a hospital consultant and says pretty much everything you've said. Especially about taking the NHS out of Government control and having an independent organisation running it. I'm amazed at how many people believe NHS England is independent! It's time we stopped allowing our heathcare system to be a political football.

By the way does it piss you off when Jezza keeps insisting Consultants don't work weekends? My husband worked his socks off all bloody weekend and will have worked 12 days in a row before he gets a day off.

I think people take the NHS for granted & mis-use it massively. As Borisrules said, IVF shouldn't be 'free'. Nor should treatment for many self-inflicted illnesses (& I say that as an alcoholic). Silly uses of doctor's appointments should also be cracked down on - a girl I work with went to see her doctor with food poisoning! FFS.

BTW - to be clear I am in no way advocating any sort of withdrawal of care or euthanasia of the elderly - it just a very personal observation tainted also perhaps by the fact that, quite apart from the NHS, I see years of my own life and my own funds disappearing into care for my mother

I know what you mean badknee I've seen a relative steadily decline. He had very little quality of life for the last two years. He was diagnosed with cancer and straight away the talk was of can we treat it?

I feel awful but why would you want to treat an 84 year old with severe dementia who has wanted to die for the past 2 years.
His last 3 days were so painful, the whole family wished we could euthanise him to spare him that.

I think people take the NHS for granted & mis-use it massively

Agreed but it still needs more money throwing at it.

Some interesting points here about restrictions/rationing

Isn't it the case, though, that each and every time this is touched upon, the cries of "ists" and "isms" start? I imagine we'd all like to have unlimited care for every little thing, at all times and for absolutely everyone, but if we accept that this just isn't affordable then surely the reality is that hard choices have to be made

Got to go out for the day; will catch up later ...

Nor should treatment for many self-inflicted illnesses (& I say that as an alcoholic).

Oooh, that would be a nice process to decision-make on that. Imagine. Do you eat more than x grams of sugar per week? Do you exercise at least 5x per week? Do you consume less than 4 units of alcohol per week? Do you eat your 5 day? Yes to all. Then you can go to A & E!

Also, many issues lead on to other issues. So, an alcoholic may have mental health issues as well as physical issues. If the alcoholism is dealt with, this will likely help the others. If they can't get help for alcoholism, the other issues will get worse. If they fall down when drunk, should they be entitled to treatment for that? How could you possibly implement this.

then surely the reality is that hard choices have to be made

I think (as outlined in my post above) that the process of making that 'hard choice' is probably going to cost a lot more money than the initial treatment. Who is going to make this decision and based on what? There will be a whole lot of money thrown at 'the process' instead of just making people well.

I consume around 20 units of alcohol a day. My choice. And I manage to function day to day too. But I certainly don't think money should be directed to me when my body fucks up rather than to someone that hasn't caused their body any harm through their choice of lifestyle.