To think our NHS isn't working?

[Nhs2022]

In many ways I can't fault the NHS, they saved my son and my mum's lives. They gave my aunt 4 years longer than first predicted with AML.

However, I also think there needs to be a conversation about the less life threatening and more mundane services of the NHS. The ones that won't kill you but significantly impact quality of life. These have absolutely fallen apart and the system isn't sustainable.

Why is it so wrong to say key aspects of the NHS are no longer fit for purpose and adults and children are being left miserable but alive?

Is there any sensible solution?

I think I'd happily go for a part and part system.

Anything that isn’t working is due to 12 years of neglect by Tories. It can work. It would with proper funding and leadership. We spend less than most as a % of GDP.

DH has recently, and is still being treated for cancer in the Churchill in Oxford. I cannot praise them highly enough. Both the pre care, and the post op care was, and is continuing to be excellent.

I agree that the care for Cancer and life threatening is excellent, it's the lower level stuff it seems to have fallen apart.

I'm having issues with my son getting treatment for hearing issues and speech therapy.

I don't think privatising is the answer. I have worked for private companies providing care and they are very exploitative. We would still get a shit service but pay more for it. It might be in a nice pretty hospital or clinic, but the staffing issues, training and culture would be shit.

It just needs to be fucking funded properly and pay and conditions need to attract staff. It's not rocket science.

The thread should have been closed at this point, there isnt really much more to say

Would anyone care to explain what is ‘proper’ funding? This organization is spending 27% more this year compared with 2010. How much is enough? Or should we accept that it’s a bottomless pit?

Funding is the answer. Allowing wards to share and hospitals to by there own stuff. If a ward ran out of something overnight they could get it from another ward, not any more. Run out of paper clips? £4 from stores, not the 10p from tesco you have to pay the price. You are only allowed to order ink once a month and so what if no doctors can print anything out. Want a doctor to work their 300th shift this week? Pay them what they are asking for, don’t have a paddy and refuse and then pay twice that any way to a locum agency. Don’t expect nurses to come into work with no sleep because there’s always been a gap. Understand there are some truly shit doctors and nurses and complaining is ok. Make people do stuff from other wards and rotate, wards and hospitals are surprisingly insular and resistant to any change and the ward is run dependant on the mood of the ward sister.

but mainly it’s care. Can’t discharge people out the back end into care homes so can’t admit through A&E

I've got joints that can partially dislocate almost at will. I use a walking stick in my 20s and have to choose what I wear carefully as I can't do up things like jeans buttons myself anymore. Waited 7 weeks for them to even put my name on the waiting list and then just got a text saying "may be a substantial wait". So I've gone private.
A friend's husband has cancer and whilst the GP dragged their feet for months with diagnostic tests, once it was clear it was cancer they acted fast and he was given the all clear in 6 months. For life threatening you're right they're great but for anything else.. it can be a struggle

So much praise for an inaccurate statement M. Perhaps you should look at data. UK spends almost 11% of its GDP on healthcare. 11 in the league tables, above Italy, Spain and Australia. Some people seem to just type the last soundbite they can remember hearing.

You are sadly not being unreasonable. I have a condition which causes deterioration over time. Was diagnosed last year. A relative was found to have a lump in routine screening. They were diagnosed, had surgery and finished chemo before I started medicine for my condition. Also similar for pregnant friends being fast tracked for post natal physio etc.

I also am finding that there is this "we're fucked so why bother?" attitude in the service. Totally understandable but not very reassuring when you are a vulnerable patient. I've had quite a few instances of this recently and it makes me uncomfortable to be honest.

I agree - we need a system more like Germany where everyone has to have private insurance but the government provides insurance for those who can't afford.

Of course it isn’t working. It’s been starved of the oxygen of funding for 12 years. Probably longer, if we’re honest.

The Tories haven't neglected the NHS. Nothing so benign. They have been deliberately trying to destroy it.

I agree - we need a system more like Germany where everyone has to have private insurance but the government provides insurance for those who can't afford.

I wonder how much they would reduce our taxes by if they do that or what they will do about the years I have been paying into it, only to have to fund my own care in my later years when I need it? What do you think?

The NHS could be great if funded and ran correctly.

The last 2 years have shown we have the most dedicated staff in our NHS, despite the appalling pay for nurses and the struggles they have, they still turn up and give it their all.
Same as schools and teachers really, but that's a different thread.

Actually, our cancer survival rates are not that great compared internationally. worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cancer-survival-rates-by-country

We're not that great on infant mortality either. worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/infant-mortality-rate-by-country

While I think that the principle of free medical treatment at the point of delivery is fantastic, I think a lot of people have an over-inflated view of how great the NHS is.

Perhaps things would be better if people took more care of their own health? Apparently 37% of cancers are caused by lifestyle factors, smoking, drinking obesity etc. The NHS spends 10% of it budget on treating diabetes, a lot of which is type 2 caused by being overweight.
If everyone looked after themselves there would be plenty of money to treat unavoidable illnesses.

I agree it’s not working and no political party seems to be honest about what is needed to fix it

Hospitals are in general doing brilliantly apart from still not allowing a second person to go in it makes getting treatment for an easily confused elderly person incredibly difficult. Its doctors that aren't working quite literally for instance said elderly person is now 4 years overdue for a medication review something which has now had huge consequences. We had a sick 3 year old admitted to hospital in the end but the day before we were told there were no appointments and not to get in touch for 6 weeks. Then just recently my partner got in touch with heart palpitations and was told they'd ring back when they could shes been to hospital twice since including a mini-stroke and still no call back. After the stroke she has to have an urgent doctors appointment thats 4 weeks away and don't get me started on prescriptions it generally takes 6 weeks to get a prescription fulfilled these days.

Sacred cow, anytime you mention changing it remotely you get bombarded with hyperbole about turning it into an American system as if no other national health service exists, thought we're supposed to be European why are their health services never compared?

More funding? Yeah, if my bucket has holes in it I just keep putting water in, same analogy.

I think I'd be happy with a more European system. I think until you've been stuck in never ending waiting lists, repeat appointments because info was lost, hours on the phone trying to get a referral decline reconsidered its hard to realise just how dire the middle services are.

My source of frustration is for a DC where it definitely isn't lifestyle choices.

Bingo! It was always marvelous before, unless you're old enough to remember when it wasn't. The NHS has had so many things dumped on it that of course it's at breaking point. it was designed to deal with illness not all the addiction things etc. it now is expected to pander to. For example, not being able to keep your house clean and tidy, to hoard a load of junk for years is now classed as an 'illness' and the NHS is left to deal with it.

It hasn’t functioned properly in my adult lifetime…that’s 30 years. It got worse under labour in the 90s from a joined up care perspective, and it never recovered. It was lumbered with debt via PFI and constant political meddling of all sides, combined with a staff centric not patient centric mentality, has got us here. It killed my husband through sheet incompetence, blinkered silo thinking and a complete inability to listen to the patient. It’s no exaggeration to say that treatment in Indian and African hospitals was more patient centric. It should be completely dismantled and rebuilt. It won’t be though.

We are over 2 years into a global pandemic that has hospitalised hundreds of thousands of people. That plus inflation. Of course spending has increased from 11 years ago.

But our cancer survival rates are behind Europe, so why are you ringfencing that as beyond reproach? You have a shorter life expectancy under NHS care.

Funding for the NHS, as a percentage, is above the EU average although, in common with many other nations it faced a real terms squeeze after the 2008 financial crisis. According to the ONS, spending per head of population in the UK is around the average for industrialised nations.

The problem is not simply funding, as the NHS in its current form is a money pit and however much it is given, it will never be enough. The problems are structural, societal and financial and simply repeating the tired old “Tory cuts” mantra is a misleading oversimplification.

Everything needs more money. Where is it all supposed to come from? The tax burden on UK households is currently at the highest level it has been since the 1940s.

Our expectation of what the state should do and provide has increased dramatically over the past 100 years but our ability to fund it has not. When the welfare state was founded, it was intended as a safety blanket to be used for short periods; the NHS was never designed or expected to deliver the plethora of services that are needed now; social care was never the problem that it is now because people died younger of diseases that are now treated by the NHS. As a society, we were more tolerant of horrific levels of poverty.

Obviously the significant improvements in quality and length of life that have come about as a result of the NHS and the welfare state etc are incredible and so many peoples lives are immeasurably better as a result. However, the simple fact is that now we expect much much more of our public services than we are able or willing to pay for. It’s an impossible situation.