AIBU to get a bit fucked off at having to protect the NHS?

[Santaclauswhosthat]

This is a healthcare system I've paid into all my life. I don't think everyone who works in it is a hero and the vast majority of them aren't underpaid. It's ranked 16th in the world and has the worst cancer outcomes for any developed country. It's not very good. Nonetheless it's the only healthcare system open to me right now. But I can't access it. My operation had been cancelled and I can't get a consultant appointment. The GPs aren't seeing patients face to face. I've already had one tumour removed that was on the turn. I'm worried that I may have another. I have no way of finding out if this is the case. A family member has already died of covid 19 after being denied treatment for three days during which repeated calls to the ambulance service were made whereupon his mother was told she should only ring again if his lips turned blue. He is dead. Right now. The NHS didn't protect him. It isn't protecting me either. What is the point of the NHS, exactly? Most clinics are closed or running at half mast. GPs aren't seeing anyone. NHS staff get shopping hours and free food and fuck knows what else and we are all dying protecting them.

If you voted for the Tories you only have your self to blame

I’m so sorry for your loss and for the terrible time you are having right now. I think your anger is misdirected, but I think you’re grieving and worried. I hope you get your treatment rescheduled soon and I hope you have people to look after you while you grieve

I can remember years of Labour and Conservative government when people were not happy with the NHS. When Labour increased spending, sectors got huge pay rises, as did management and they increased their number like topsy. Please remember that spending doesn’t equal better care. If equals higher salaries. The two are not the same. Lots of Labour voters can not afford higher taxes either. You simply cannot blame every problem on the Conservatives. The NHS itself isn’t blameless.

Sectors !!! Doctors...

Indeed Bubbles but on here it's Labour good conservative bad it's tiresome , let s not forget that Labour started the cuts in the NHS several years before Conservative got in .

Interesting article. I'm going to read the thread now though.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/voices/nhs-overrated-system-private-healthcare-america-inefficient-developing-world-a7683541.html%3famp

let s not forget that Labour started the cuts in the NHS several years before Conservative got in

Completely untrue. NHS funding rose 8.1% a year between 1997 and 2010, when it was cut to 2%. There’s a useful little bar chart if you follow the link below.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthcaresystem/articles/expenditureonhealthcareintheuk/2015-03-26

So I wasent redeployed twice in 12 months ten was I not between 2005and 2006 due to NHS cuts it !just have been a dream 🤔

I’ve quoted the figures from the ONS and provided evidence. 🤷‍♀️

I hear you OP. The NHS have let my family down too. Sending love xx

Completely untrue. NHS funding rose 8.1% a year between 1997 and 2010, when it was cut to 2%.

Labour did indeed treble NHS spending over their 13 years. Trouble was they committed the NHS to costs higher than that in terms of GP pay rises, PFI deals, increased staffing, etc., so the NHS was actually worse off overall.

Given that 70% of NHS costs are for staffing, how is increasing that leaving it worse off? More staff means increased, improved services.

As I said, an increase in funding and spending doesn’t mean better health care. It means more admin and managers and higher salaries. Not necessarily better outcomes for patients. The NHS hasn’t produced better outcomes for all patients and we were not as good as other countries even with greater cash injection. Waiting times remained dire for many procedures (although I think that’s a very blunt measure of success). Our cancer survival rates haven’t been great for decades and we have many failures in hospital care even when there was more money. Money doesn’t equal better care. Didn’t help mid Staffordshire patients did it?

My DB sued the NHS a few years back and everyone was horrified, even though he was left with life changing injuries due to proven negligence. I think that a lot of people within it are amazing at what they do and work bloody hard, and many services are amazing; but people get far too caught up in seeing the NHS as some kind of ethereal being that you cannot criticise, which isn't helpful to anyone.

You can also have more staff and no operating theatre space. More staff to diagnose but no capacity for extra surgery. It really isn’t as simple as extra staff means a better service.

This is interesting reading. However, it’s statistics so obviously anecdote and false memory will be preferable.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1871752/

More staff means increased, improved services.

Not necessarily at all. Lots of "non jobs" that weren't actually productive nor direct "hands on" treatment!

And yet services improved, waiting times came down, success was statistically measured against targets for the first time ever. There’s a lot of rewriting history going on here. Shame the evidence of improvement is so compelling.

Not necessarily at all

Precisely. The NHS is the fifth largest employer on the planet. It's wedged between global mega Corp Walmart and China's National Petroleum company. Think about that. For a relatively small country of 66 million. No doubt everyone of its legion of bureaucrats is doing a vital job.....

The GPs aren't seeing patients face to face.

My understanding is this IS going to be the "new norm". GPs will telephone triage and only see people face to face if they consider it necessary for diagnostic purposes. It will certainly help solve the pressure in community practice.

PFI is the gift that keeps giving. Its proliferation was circa 1997-2010. Corbyn actually apologised for it. Targets were part of the lethal failures which killed hundreds in Mid Staffs. The historical revisionism on this thread is laughable.

^NHS hospital trusts are being crippled by the private finance initiative and will have to make another £55bn in payments by the time the last contract ends in 2050, a report reveals.
An initial £13bn of private sector-funded investment in new hospitals will end up costing the NHS in England a staggering £80bn by the time all contracts come to an end, the IPPR thinktank has found.Some trusts are having to spend as much as one-sixth of their entire budget on repaying debts due as a result of the PFI scheme. PFI was introduced by John Major’s Conservative government but its use proliferated in the Blair era^

Remind me @BovaryX, which country are you posting from with your extensive experience of a service you don’t use or pay for?

I could be posting about Germany, France, Switzerland, or Canada or Australia or anywhere in the developed world. Because nowhere else on the planet emulates the NHS Anything to say about Labour's PFI legacy? Or the lethal effect of targets in Mid Staffs?

www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/12/nhs-hospital-trusts-to-pay-out-further-55bn-under-pfi-scheme

I asked which country you’re posting from.

@BovaryX "The NHS is the fifth largest employer on the planet. It's wedged between global mega Corp Walmart and China's National Petroleum company"

Umm. So? Unlike Walmart, China's National Petroleum company etc. public healthcare, especially a free service that supposed to match national demand (i.e., available for any and all of the 66 million) isn't one whose service delivery can be automated (unlike the companies you have mentioned above) and therefore requires more FTE.