AIBU to ask how long the NHS has left?

[StrongCoffeeAvalanche]

Genuinely now have the mindset that's it's not 'will' the NHS go under but 'when'. I'm not in the NHS though so I guess I'm asking 2 questions here....

1. YABU the NHS will survive somehow or YANBU the NHS is going to go 100%

1. If IANBU when? How much longer do you think we have?

There's a deafening silence from labour, SNP too. They all know it's unsustainable

YY @BigMandysBookClub They were happy with the tax take from the boomers when they were young and healthy. They knew they would eventually get older.

How will Labour deal with it in your opinion?

Then again looking at devolved health under Labour and SNP I’m not seeing much better.

NHS Wales under labour has failed. I'll be honest.

We've got hospitals in critical condition, highest maternal death rates on the UK, poor prognosis and outcomes for cancer patients.

When COVID struck the general public was alarmed to find that a population of 3.3million had acces to only about 300 ICU beds with ventilators across the entire country! People were panicking, and questions were being asked why investment to ICU care had not been made, even without a pandemic 300 is a pitiful number.

Maybe it's just the luck of the draw but in our nhs trust and the next county one which are both treating DH for various ailments, the service has been nothing but fantastic. He's had long waits both times he's been admitted to A&E recently and a couple of appointments were put back a week over Xmas but apart from that the follow ups and treatment have been amazing.
The tabloids have been posting pictures of people in corridors and on the floor for years trying to whip up hate and division.
Wasn't it the last Labour govt. who whipped up hysteria when they said they had 3 days to save the NHS?
I read this morning that a labour led think tank stated that the Tories have increased the NHS spend by 40%. Don't know what they have spent it on. Obviously not where it would make a difference.
Don't forget it was labour that gave Gp's the opt out of out of hours care which is one of the reasons for long waits in a&e although the other major issue is bed blocking and the Tories have done nothing to sort that out.
I am eternally grateful to the vast majority of both clinical and admin, housekeeping and volunteer NHS staff (not all of them, some of them are shit) especially those I have encountered in the last few years.
Thank you and I hope you get a decent pay rise.

I doubt there is anyone who would want to take over the NHS, it has been tried I believe (using one hospital) but didn’t work out. Private companies have only wanted to carve off relatively controllable elements such as elective surgery or cateracts etc.

I agree with PP’s, the biggest problems seem to be with social care then primary care, with secondary care (hospitals) acting as the last resort. Funding has been reduced for social care to the point where it is obviously not fit for purpose, and the NHS is essentially providing this instead. This will vary across different parts of the country.

This situation has been coming along for years, exacerbated by the pandemic. It may be time to review the fundamental premise of the NHS being free at the point of delivery but tbh, alternative funding systems have been studied for years and there’s never been any real appetite for change.

Our GP surgery the week before Christmas stated that they had a serious issue with staff sickness . The following two weeks they had four days for Christmas and three days for the new year. That will have tipped some patients into needing to visit A&E . It's like Jenga pull out too many supports and the whole thing topples

How can people with a lot of disposable income be charged absolutely nothing for medical care. It doesn’t add up.
It must feel like taking a right away to remove it now though? I don’t know how you are all going to navigate this.

in Ireland going to the GP is a service like the hairdresser or mechanic, you just pay the doctor.
this pays for his admin staff and nurses etc.
If you are poor or elderly or vulnerable, you get it free but everyone else pays for the service.

i went to visit my sister in the uk who got an infection, went to the gp for free and got the medicine free. I was totally dumbfounded at this, she can afford to pay.
I would have paid €60 to see the doctor and €10 for the medicine at home and yet this is all free in the UK. Except it’s not.

Someone is paying and it’s the staff.

It's under now surly

How can people with a lot of disposable income be charged absolutely nothing for medical care. It doesn’t add up.

They pay a lot into the system and would normally happily pay more for universal healthcare for everyone.

If we chuck more money at the NHS it going to have to come from borrowing

@Grumpybutfunny. It could come from clawing back the millions given to mates for non existent PPA and huge tax breaks for a start.

I'd settle for the £122 million our health board has mislaid in the last financial year

‘They pay a lot into the system and would normally happily pay more for universal healthcare for everyone.’

do you mind me asking how much?
Is it from your income tax?

In Ireland we pay huge taxes too but we don’t know where it goes.

It's because too many people are using it, and not enough people are contributing. I can see the NHS becoming a very basic service, closing down non life threatening departments. E.g. cosmetic surgery, allergies and skin complaints. If people want access to better health care, then they'll buy insurance and see a private consultant.

I find it infuriating when people cling blindly to the NHS in the belief that the only two ways of funding healthcare are a) the NHS or b) the US system. People are dying unnecessarily at the hands of our health service and you can’t even be arsed to read about different models of healthcare funding.

When people talk about it surviving what do they actually mean? What will happen otherwise?

The NHS costs over £2 billion a week to run (and that’s in its current diabolical state). A few extra million is absolutely nothing.

I listened to a radio phone in today and a senior A&E nurse contributed saying that the NHS is also a victim of its own success. So many new treatments attracting many more patients, I'd simply not even considered that.

That's very possible. The list of cosmetic procedures are growing. A friend paid for her very bad varicose veins recently. I have scoliosis, pay for my own treatment as and when needed. Waiting list for physio at least six months

Labour is pretty clear what it will do.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/wes-streeting-vows-cut-nhs-28758138

That's nothing new here in Wales, our health board has been farming out orthopaedic surgery for years. Ditto cataract surgery. Orthopedic to Wrexham, cataracts to Cheshire. The shadow health secretary says 40k operations a year. I suspect that's a drop in the ocean.

I believe a new private hospital is being built in Manchester.

The fly in the ointment is that complications from surgery at our private hospital means that you are transferred to the NHS pretty damned quick

Do you think it could be possible that cottage hospitals will be brought back? I think they started closing in the 80's, but with older people staying in hospitals for longer as care packages at home are like gold dust now, maybe they could be re-introduced for slow recovery wards? Considering millions were spent on the Nightingale hospitals to accommodate Covid 19 and they were not used.

It would be the sensible thing to do. We never had the annual winter pressures fiasco before they were closed. It really annoys me that just about every measure that alleviated the impact of an ageing population on the NHS was removed just as the biggest generation started to reach old age. It’s the most ridiculously short sighted thing imaginable.

Your first problem is moving granny near you.

OK, how? How do you finance this? I'm in the North East, we have enormous brain drain of younger folks to more expensive parts of the country. Granny might well have a council house or she might have a house but that house might fetch £80000 - no, I am not missing a zero. How do you afford her moving somewhere more expensive.

Then there's the assumption younger folks are healthier. My nan had two daughters. She's 96. My mum died several years ago from cancer. My aunt is nearly seventy and a pensioner herself, struggling with arthritis. So, there's me - but I'm a widow with two kids and severe medical issues who has required overnight hospitalisation myself half a dozen times in 2022. Can I check on Nan? No, for a large percentage of that I wasn't even legal to drive.

its not going to suddenly collapse

money will be thrown at it and it will improve for a bit then once again we shall have this discussion in a few years time

we need to move over to systems like France and Germany many will be paying much more but the NHS simply can not provide the service we deserve and should expect in a country as wealthy as the UK

but it’s not a vote winner for parties to dismantle the NHS so they won’t