To think the uk is on its knees

[Ilovemycatalot]

Just this. Every day negativity. No one is happy with life or working conditions. The country is at an all time low. Living standards getting worse by the day people getting poorer. I know we are not in poverty like some countries but honestly can’t see us ever returning to decent living standards unless you’re the few top percent earners. Tell me I’m being dramatic perhaps I am but can’t see much of a way back from this .

I have lived abroad in several countries. At the moment on my facebook wall there is a conversation going on between people in different countries about this. The people outside the UK all say UK people have no idea how much better living standards are in other countries now.

The problem is too widespread post pandemic

Aus had same issues, chatting to family

We keep being told by posters on this thread that the boats bring doctors and nurses. Yet Germany, despite their huge intake of immigrants is struggling the same way the UK is, not being able to fill vacancies in care, health care and hospitality.

What boats bring doctors and nurses @ChardonnaysBeastlyCat?

I would argue that “migrant” retains its original meaning in more places than you might think, and it is the word “immigrant” which has developed a loaded, negative connotation associated with economically poorer and/war-torn countries.

And to the PP who said “if working harder doesn’t give you the money to have children you shouldn’t have them”, I’d say that if working hard (and by that let’s assume we mean a full-time or near-full-time working week) doesn’t give you enough money to have children, then wages in this country are terminally fucked, and the people getting rich off the back of their poorly-paid workforce - and I include in that a ruling government which doesn’t invest sufficiently in public services but whose members always somehow seem capable of feathering their own nests and affording children comfortably - should be fucking ashamed of themselves.

*and/or war-torn countries

But Germany isn't struggling like the UK is, neither are most countries, they have double the number of Dr's nurses that the UK does, per capita, as i pointed out, its there on on many stats sites if you care to look.

Do you understand the crisis in the NHS at all?

Can you point to another developed country with 7m on waiting lists? or days waiting for an Ambulance? or as a friend DD (AE Dr about to leave the UK for to work in NZ, relatively newly qualified too) told us on the W/E a patient dying of the cold waiting on a trolley in a corridor in a hospital in the SE.

Migrant = someone moving between countries
Economic migrant = moving for jobs
Refugee = moving for safety

So yes, a migrant can be anyone moving for reasons like marriage, family, education etc.

If my yr7 Geography classes can manage these definitions, I'm sure we can.

One of the main reasons behind the crisis in the NHS is the systematic refusal to engage with technology to eliminate administrative blockages, says Prof Pat Price, consultant oncologist at the Royal Marsden and UCL lecturer. If you have access to the Telegraph, look it up from Saturday's paper. She's retiring and clearly feels liberated to speak her mind and experience for the first time. And she is scathing about why the NHS is struggling. And lack of personnel isn't one.

She blames a criminally bloated administrative infrastructure.

I know 3 people who work in the health service.

One says that just can’t get therapists etc ( she works in ASD)
One says that there aren’t enough admin staff and this is causing huge problems ( she works in admin)
One works on technical machinery. They can’t get any qualified staff.

Do l believe them or the Torygraph?

Can you point to another developed country with 7m on waiting lists?

Ireland only has a population of 5 million:

26 Jan 2023
^Sinn Féin's health spokesman David Cullinane ... told Newstalk radio:*

"We know that separate from diagnostic waiting lists we have just over 900,000 people on some form of hospital or acute hospital waiting list.

"Separate from that we have over 230,000 people who are on community waiting lists, and have just over a quarter of a million people waiting for a scan of some description.

www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/more-than-250000-waiting-for-hospital-scans-new-figures-show-1424113.html

Hospital waiting lists over 900,000 in September 2022

site.sinnfein.ie/hospital-waiting-lists-over-900000-in-september-2022-despite-ministers-plan-david-cullinane-td/

I believe the professor/oncologist with 45-50 years of experience, frankly. Read the article... I can't link it, because it's behind a paywall. But basically, Prof Price's view is that the NHS is not using technology that is very straightforward and everyday (like recording and transcribing interviews in real time) as part of clinical records. I had dermatology issues after breast cancer surgery, and ended up sending pictures of my tits to half the NHS... and some used the visual information and some didn't, but it is now interesting to reflect on which departments worked best. The ones that did keep much better health records, IMO, which will provide a better yardstick for measuring long term results.

Where I am the problem is definitely a lack of staff, beds and care needs for those leaving hospital. Prof. Price may be speaking about the problems where she is @EffortlessDesmond , but the problem for most of the rest of us is staffing.

@Arse, I know a lot more than three people working in the NHS, probably 40 ish. My best chum is a retired GP, there were 37 surgeons/consultants with children at DH's primary school. Plus nurses, physios, radiologists.

Three acquaintances working in the NHS does not, to my mind, in the politest way I can say this, suggest any real understanding of the NHS and the challenges it is trying to meet.

Hospital care backlog could take 15 years to clear, consultants warn
Data by the Irish Hospital Consultants Association shows Ireland has the lowest number of hospital beds in the EU.

www.irishtimes.com/health/2022/08/29/hospital-care-backlog-could-take-15-years-to-clear-consultants-warn/

But she chose to share her story in ThE Telegraph. I cannot take that paper seriously and don’t believe anything in it.

It sucks up to the Tories and does everything it can to paint them in a rosy light. It’s just propoganda.

Prof Price's whole point is that the NHS is not making proper use of routine, cheap and available solutions to eliminate the knot of bureaucracy. Her point is as simple and straightforward as that.

says Prof Pat Price, consultant

There was a tv programme a few years ago about the NHS which concluded that things would run a lot more efficiently if consultants worked more regular hours, instead of running clinics that lasted two or three hours then going off to do private work elsewhere.

A lot of the backlog then was caused by part time consultants.

That's your choice @ArseInTheCoOpWindow . I don't take anything seriously that's printed in the Mail or the Guardian. I read the Times daily, and often other news sources, and listen to the Beeb, but usually the World Service. But I subscribe and pay for them.

The NHS's problems are much greater than bureaucracy. If you think that's all there is to it, I've some very special beans available for the right price.

Not saying the problems are not greater than bureaucracy, @TooBigForMyBoots . Just that the problems could be much minimised if readily available cheap systems were properly used. If I suggested you could work better, more efficiently and earn a little more using a cheap software package, would you not even consider looking at it?

The NHS in 2010 was assessed internationally as the best healthcare system in the world.

Of course I would @EffortlessDesmond, so why do you think the Tories didn't in the 13 years they've been in charge?

Does Prof Price name the inexpensive, life saving software? Or who the developers are?

Sorry, I can't access the article.

Our politicians are also horribly short-termist (is that a word)? They can't see further than the next election and are more concerned with furthering their own career/getting rich quick than caring about what's happening to the country.
Truss and Kwarteng thought they'd try their little experiment with no care for the consequences because it doesn't affect them. None of them has a mortgage.
The Social Care crisis keeps getting kicked further down the road because no one wants to make decisions that will be unpopular.