If the Tories are responsible for the failing NHS, why is the picture no better in Wales under Labour?

[Namechanged2023]

I have never voted Tory, never will. I don’t support anything they stand for.

But I don’t buy this narrative.

The NHS has been rubbish for years. I work in a different public service, that is also rubbish. Too many people talking instead of doing, no performance management, too much leeway with full paid sick leave.

I’ve had mixed experience of the NHS like most. Some excellent staff who want to help and save time, some of the same role who do things completely differently, in a much more time consuming and resource intensive way (think simple tasks like administering antibiotics to a small baby). Some really empathetic, compassionate staff; some the complete opposite. Proactive GPs, and some who refuse to budge.

Their processes are just ridiculous though. I have waited hours to be discharged. Everything has to be done on paper. Letters sent out for everything. Phone lines only open for 2 hours on 3 days a week, so impossible to get through.

@ComtesseDeSpair

Good health is probably the most important thing anyone can have.

I doubt very much whether any Tory is evil BUT they have been in power for almost 13 years and i think its fair to judge them on outcomes.

Social care has been a mess for decades and it was worse in 2022 than in 2010.

7m waiting for treatment in 2022.

50k nurse vacancies in NHS in 2022, 150k overall health vacancies..

By any measure, the NHS is in a far worse situation than any other comparable economy in Europe.

Wait times for AE in Paris are in minutes, the average for an ambulance in Paris is 14mins (December 2022)

I do not think you can say France is a right wing country & has been equally, if not more affected by Ukraine and Covid.

This. Go and take your laughing emoji to the junior doctors thread who sounds at the end of her rope.

It’s disingenuous to make this black and white regarding the tories. See past the bloody spin.

Who has been in power for the last 13 years?

Can't claim vaccine roll outs etc on one hand but say NHS nowt to do with us.

They gave us Austerity for 10 plus years and that wrecked council budgets and the one thing they could do right now that would improve matters, is to increase social care staff wages and attract back staff who have left and they will NOT do that.
FFS they wont even improve mileage rates!!!

Thats down to the Tories, no one else.

By any measure, the NHS is in a far worse situation than any other comparable economy in Europe.

The Commonwealth Fund ranked the UK 4th in its 2021 study of 11 countries (UK, Canada, US, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, New Zealand, Sweden) and placed it in first place for five years prior to that. The Legatum Index placed it 10th last year - below the Scandinavian countries, Germany, New Zealand and Ireland, but above Canada, France, Australia, Belgium, Spain and South Korea. The WHO however currently places South Korea top of the list and the UK and France don’t even feature. Go figure.

So it’s probably fair to say that a) it’s not an easy question to answer and b) performance ratings and statistical studies apparently aren’t reflective of anecdotes and people’s experiences on the ground.

What it’s also fair to say is that we’re not going to solve the problem with party politics.

What is an advanced directive? It sounds like something I might need to get in order too! I don’t want to live like that in my 80s/90s would rather die. I’m only in my 50s right now though.

Thank you for your well reasoned contribution to the argument

what countries would you say are coping well?

If your measure is simply consumer satisfaction then I believe the OECD data points to Sweden, Norway, New Zealand and Denmark. As per my post above though, if the measure is broadened and includes a wide range of other statistics, your mileage varies.

NHS scores very highly for access to healthcare. if you think about it, its pretty marvelous. You do not need to have paid a penny in NI or tax to access it. My American BIL calls the Israeli healthcare system single payer (it is similar to the German model- universal healthcare insurance which is deducted as a percentage of salaries but with private health insurance being a major player too). But in reality it is a hybrid insurance model and while it may mean that everyone by default gets access to healthcare, it is not single payer and 100% funded by the state the way it is in the UK.

@Twiglets1 you can set out your wishes for treatment etc so for example if I was to get dementia I wouldn’t want treated with antibiotics for every illness going I’d rather just be kept comfortable same goes for if I get cancer at 80 I wouldn’t want investigations or treatment just kept pain free. I will also ensure my family are on board as a lot of the time I’ve come across patients who do not want treatment but are over ruled by family wanting to keep them alive

This.

It stil all comes down to the Tories.

I'm looking at a relative who's spending all his savings so he won't have to pay for care. He's refusing care which he needs because he doesn't want to pay for it. He's in and out of hospital like a shuttle, and they discharge him somewhat casually because they know he'll be back soon (I was there, I saw them rattle through the changes to his meds there was no way he'd remember.).

He's had ambulances and week+ long visits several times since I last saw him there in October.

There's no way the system can function like that. My mum will likely go the same way. She's currently got her heating set at 10 degrees despite being extremely wealthy. Stubborn and feisty.

MiL is back and forth to the GP, taking FiL because he's slowing down and she wants him fixed. She's investigated- and diagnosed with- more conditions than I can list. Some of them should have meant she was no longer with us by now. Honestly it's beyond remotely sustainable.

When I see someone being sensible in their declining years, I'm sadly shocked.

It's interesting to learn about how Canada's NHS-style model is as bad as the UK's because when the hours advance on my Twitter feed and Canadians log on I get a lot of Tweets about how awful and genocidal Canadian care homes are with the elderly, just like over here frankly. It seems they run folk into the ground to cut costs. That seems to be the case here in my experience, deaths of the elderly and vulnerable simply save money on pensions and prescriptions as well as making for a nice inheritance tax.

But for thinking it would be better under Labour, well, it's a bit of a myth to think that MPs are that powerful - State-led forces and beyond are the real power. It's hard to get stories about how awful Surrey County Council are in the local press, I think they can nobble local advertising for private healthcare so the paper suffers financially. They're all in cahoots.
The Tories' USP is low taxation, they're kind of the Ryanair Government, it's run on the cheap, no frills. And a good many like that, it's only if you come a cropper you may think, right, I'm never flying Ryanair again! They've treated me appallingly! But for whole swathes of passengers, it doesn't affect them, they get cheap bookings and arrive on time, so their custom continues.
Ditto with the Tories, after seeing what Mum went through in seven Surrey care homes and the way Surrey County Council and my local MP Chris Grayling behaved, I'll never vote Conservative again. But that's just me, one voter, and Grayling has a safe seat, so they can afford to throw us under a bus and dispense with my vote. It's ruthlessly efficient.

Thing is, after 10 years a heck of a lot of people are now in that category of having found out how bad things can be, it's catching up with them. But that's okay, the Tory ministers had their hands in the cookie jar long enough.

The overall funding pot still comes from Westminster if funding is not adequate then of course there will be issues.
Also Brexit resulted in many EU nursers and care workers leaving and/ or being unwilling to come to the UK. We have a huge shortage of staff and there is nothing Wales or Scotland can do about that.

Just trying to distract us from the state of the NHS and the other public sector strikes and the cost of living.
Also there's a shortage of math teachers.
Just fiddling while Rome burns. The Tories are out of ideas and should F off into oblivion. They have screwed up big time over the last 12 years. The

This concerns house prices but look at the column comparing wages in 2010 vs 2020. The UK has had barely any wage growth. This is the real elephant in the room- as NHS is funded by taxes, low wages automatically mean less money for the NHS since tax is progressive... Even if there is waste in the NHS, we cannot pretend that universal healthcare is a cheap endeavour. It isn't, which is why countries with High quality universal healthcare are almost universally wealthy countries.

This is the Tories' greatest failing- how can you claim to be good for the economy if we had near zero economic growth for the past 10 years and stagnant wages? What is the point of voting Tory if they aren't even good at the economy? I think many people may not mind low taxes/substandard public services as much if they had more social mobility (so could pay to go private etc), but if you have neither, you are in a pickle.

Cos Labour would be worse? That is a terrible argument and I think most people know it.

What it’s also fair to say is that we’re not going to solve the problem with party politics

See, i really don't get this.. Politics is exactly why services are good or bad, nothing else really matters.

Politics decides when and where to build a hospital, to remove or reinstate bursaries, to fund social care or not.

Why else is there a dept of health, a minister an NHS budget?

The current Tory party believes in the market, small state, private enterprise good, public sector bad.

These beliefs are not compatible with a free at the point of use, Health Service.

That is way overslimplifying when it comes to healthcare systems. Demographics and medical advances are just as influential as party politics.

the NHS was set up to replace the old community cooperatives with the idea that everyone puts in a little bit so they can have free care at the point of urgent need eg broken arm, pneumonia, cancer. Long term care was still carried out by families or not done at all. Mental health was not covered.

Fast forward 80 years and we have a population that's 20 million larger than it was back then, each individual living 20 - 30 years longer, medical advances meaning that severely disabled people can live much longer with very advanced and expensive care, and the needs very different pivoting towards more long term treatment than spot treatment at point of need. Medical advances leading to very innovative but extremely expensive treatments. Patients becoming more like consumers in their attitudes, wanting choice and empowerment. Way more actionable diagnoses and prescribable drugs than we had back then.

The system was set up for a very different reality and it has been becoming less and less fir for purpose since the mid 80s. We need a new system.

@potniatheron

I ve either not made the point well or you have missed it.

All what you mention is predicted and can be planned for... by politicians - they set the parameters, advisors will say we will have xx number of older people, xx number of social care staff, politicians can then plan for all of this OR in the case of the UK, not plan for it.

Every country has had to prepare for these challenges and benefits, remember that the NHS had far more beds and staff years ago, medical advances meant shorter or no stays in hospital, far more people can be treated at home too.

Politicians though chose to keep cutting beds and buildings beyond what was safe.

These are political choices - the removal of Bursaries was a choice made by politicians, they were advised at the time not to do this.

This is why we should all have some interest in politics, has so much influence on our daily lives.

Aren’t they just? It’s hardly plausible to blame Labour when they’ve had nearly 13 years to improve it.

i have had people tell me that it doesn't matter if the NHS fails, they would go private or go overseas. Rich people don't die from lack of healthcare apparently.

Umm.

I think there are just some individualistic people who are so confident in their own abilities that they can't bear to think that we all function as a society and sometimes we are only as strong as our weakest link. They want to believe they are masters of their own destiny.

Well, my late mother had advanced Parkinson's, was in several care homes in Surrey, we were self-funding not 'rich' and we got turned over, it seemed they were trying to kill her off via dehydration and if you complain the care home fobs you off and then if you persist accuse you of abuse and intimidation, they get cocky because at that point they'll have got the Council's Social Services involved aka the local mafia.

So don't imagine if you pay for it, you're in the clear. We were paying around a grand a week, week in week out, for the care system to kill her. We were giving up our lives to go in daily to give her drink and barely tolerated by staff - we were lucky they were letting us do it!

You could argue that legally Surrey County Council were allowed to do it because we'd neglected to get LPA in Health and Welfare for her, so once she was deemed to have lost mental capacity - though she wasn't nuts or off her head or anything, just quietened down - they were the decision makers for her care, not us, though we were the ones paying out!

Welcome to Conservative Britain.

I think the NHS is now so fucked it needs to stop being a political football and there needs to be an urgent cross party independent task force set up.

Scoring point off the back of this mess is not helping.

I heard a couple of weeks back that health planning is usually only done for 5 years. That needs to stop and it needs proper strategic planning for the long game.

Thank you, that sounds very sensible.

My 86 year old Dad was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer last year and he has opted for no invasive treatment (just pain relief when he needs it) and I don't blame him at all. But yes, it's important to get family on board so they know what you want.