To think that 30,000 UK deaths should be bigger news

[Veterinari]

Recent research by Oxford University www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-02-20-30000-excess-deaths-2015-linked-cuts-health-and-social-care

'The impact of cuts resulting from the imposition of austerity on the NHS has been profound. Expenditure has failed to keep pace with demand and the situation has been exacerbated by dramatic reductions in the welfare budget of £16.7 billion and in social care spending. With an aging population, the NHS is ever more dependent on a well-functioning social care system. The possibility that the cuts to health and social care are implicated in almost 30,000 excess deaths is one that needs further exploration. Given the relentless nature of the cuts, and potential link to rising mortality, we ask why is the search for a cause not being pursued with more urgency?'

There is a prediction that the 2016 data shows a similar spike

Except that 30.000 is closer to numbers you hear about in case of a war rather than by acts of terror.

So we all have been horrified by the huge number of death in Srebrenica during the war in the Balkans... there was 8000 men killed there, just under 1/3 of what we are talking about here.

The trouble with getting this taken seriously though is that it is a whole series of individual deaths. So each grieving family is rightly angry at the NHS or the ambulance service, or the care home which failed their relative and not the government as it is too remote.

I've shared this as much as I can only social media.

Do you remember the shocking case of an elderly bedridden woman who died when the care firm went bust, and they forgot to tell anyone. The woman was left to dehydrate and die in her bed. That was maybe a couple of years ago, and got almost no publicity, because she was elderly. Papers are run by the young and healthy, so football transfers, for example, make headlines, but old people are ignored.

I know it is an unpopular view, but "social care" implies something done by society, for society, not something that should be or has to be done by the government. Folks used to take care of their old, not dump those care needs on the state.
No we didn't. Disabled people were put in homes so that they weren't seen, and treated in many cases abominably. Older people ended up dying in the streets or in the workhouse.

Terrible.

Statistically, the old and the sick die in the greatest numbers
Yes, especially if you've been sanctioned by the dwp, you're diabetic, you have no food and no electricity to keep your insulin at the right temperature.

Sanctioned by the DWP??? If you are old enough to receive the state pension, do you mean that the payment of it to you is restricted in some manner? On what grounds? Sorry, I do not understand.

My previous post demonstrated my skepticism about the evidence for this report. I absolutely stand by my statement that WE ALL DIE. Old and sick people fail to reach the current average age of mortality. That would not change if every penny were spent on the NHS.

I know it's Jeremy Corbyn's day to talk to women, but the level of economic illiteracy sometimes spouted on MN would be funny if it weren't so worrying.

BluePeppers, France, Germany and Italy fund health care through insurance-based systems; income taxes in Germany and France are higher, and both France and Italy generally follow a healthier style of eating than many people in the UK. Google the "Meditteranean diet" and compare it to that eaten here. In those countries, most of the people also spend much more (and a higher percentage) of their disposable income on food.

Economic illiteracy??? Didn't you get thst these were EXCESS deaths? It's not that hard to grasp

Tory ideology does not factor these sorts of things in.

Unusually high levels of deaths can be caused by all sorts of things; such as heat-waves; for example, a few years ago, France endured a 10 day period when average temperatures exceeded 45 degrees Centigrade and about 3000 more than would normally died in that period. Or by a flu epidemic. It may be abnormal, but it cannot be excessive. Death is an individual or a unique event.

I do get that the NHS is a sacred cow.

There are people dying due to economic policies OC. That's a fact.

That headline/article is hugely misleading. The research isn't saying "if the NHS were properly funded, none of these 30,000 people would have died". It's saying that NHS performance (implying a link to funding) appears to be a contributing factor (one of a number).

Some people will always defend the indefensible

OC, of course people die....but the point this report makes is that those who need support are dying in greater numbers than they should be because the support they SHOULD be getting isn't there.

Are you too thick to appreciate this? I do wonder having read your shoulder shrugging cold assertion that people people get ill and die.

Let's hope it's not you or one of your family in need eh?

The point if you read the report, oc, is that heatwaves, flu etc are not factors here.

I may be chilly, but I struggle with absolutist assertions of what SHOULD be available, especially when there is zero recognition that no country can fund everything, for everybody, that anyone suggests would be desirable. Even if every penny raised in taxation were devoted to the NHS, the outcome for some individuals would be unchanged.

We can afford tax breaks for the richest and afford to let large cooperations not pay tax but we cannot afford to treat or care for the most vulnerable in society

Why as a nation we are Pilling on the pressure on those that can least bare it while those whom can easily withstand it pay even less .......

YANBU It is so sad and sets this country back in terms or being a progress enlightened country. Nothing worse than targeting the vulnerable for further and further cuts. It is uncivilised.

The 'should be available' ...
Well yes yiu can say that actually there is no 'should be available' for let's say cancer care or access to a dietician for diabetes.
However this is ony acceptable IF this has been said and accepted ny the population. Not taken therough the backdoor.

Im sure no one has ever been told that more people would die due to the lack or no care becuase of the NHS cuts.
This needs to be made very clear to everyine before we are all going to vote in a few days time.

Because the reality, as shown by this study, is that voting to carry on reducing funding for the NHS (as well as forcing the NHS to sell assets to private companies) also means voting to see more people dying when they would have lived (two years before or in another country)

Have you actually read the report OCSock? You seem to be strugggling to understand it

I could be sarcastic and point out that all you have mentioned is the deficiencies in clinical resources. The NHS is far bigger than you think. The company I work for does quite a bit of work in the NHS, and if you saw for yourselves the scale of the bureaucratic edifice that "supports" it, you would grasp the scale of the problem. One, tiny example...

The NHS is the world's (yes, the World's) 4th largest employer. It buys surgical gloves, and given the previous factoid, it is probably the world's largest buyer of surgical gloves. With me so far?

So why do different NHS trusts pay different prices for a standard product, rather than bulk buying at the market's cheapest price?

Consumables like gloves ought to be efficiently bought, but they aren't, and nor are most the other services.

I know you all believe I want to sell the NHS to the lowest bidder, but actually, I'd like to see it work too. But it won't and can't because there are too many vested interests and empire builders who want their salaries covered.

I would like to add that most of them are not doctors or nurses.

Before I get on to my personal favourite hobby horse of PFI funded purchasing, which is a very significant contributor to the shortfall in NHS funding (thank you Tony Blair), let me say that within 100 miles of our base, we ensure that all NHS hospitals have hot water and central heating. There is no single purchasing protocol that allows any company to submit a bid to do the work required to a system (boiler and pipework) even if it has been okayed and approved as competent and all the people who may be on site are fully approved, security cleared etc. NO, each petty bureaucrat does it all, ab initio, for each contract. If that dead wood were cleared out, there would be five more nurses in each hospital. It may not solve the crisis, but it goes some way to explaining why there's a crisis.

So what youy are saying is that the NHS isnt run efficiently.
Tbh thats not news and we all know that.

That doesnt mean that people should be paying (with their life) for that inefficiency. Nor does it mean that the only way out is private (which we know from the USA doesnt work either, has LOTS of problems of his own and more importantly means that the most vulnerables again are given the short straw)

In effect the inefficiency of the system doesnt mean that the study is worng or that we have to live with it.