To feel angry at celebrating the NHS

[TaylorSwifting]

The NHS is falling apart and today people are all full of glee at the NHS yippee 75 years today, it’s making me so angry!!!!!!!!!
My family member has been diagnosed with cancer, 2 months down the line and has had no treatment and terrible delays for tests…..still yet to see an oncologist. 2 months!!!!!!!!! Family member only has pain management because us family have begged and fought to get it. It is an utter disgrace and I had no idea how bad things were until this awful diagnosis in our own family.
We are not alone / it hasn’t been a mistake or being lost in the system by accident! Record high cancer patient delays - this is what so many people are facing. I am in utter disbelief!
I won’t be celebrating today.

Would you also blame the Welsh Labour Government? They've been in power over 20 years and our NHS is dire. I would welcome any party that would have the guts to reform the NHS properly and not just throw money at it. I had some hope for reform with Wes Streeting but Starmer has got him to toe the line.

I've worked in both English and Welsh NHS.

"It's not a like for like comparison though, is it. Those governments have invested less out of general taxation. The majority of funding comes from the private insurance premiums."

Yes you are right. As I say not opposed to reform but I haven't been able to discover what that means in terms of what we would pay for in private healthcare and what will continue to be needed to be raised in taxes. We'd also have to take into account our current baselines in numbers of medics, beds, poor state of infrastructure/the NHS estates.
I'd also be interested to know how social care is dealt with.

Social worker here, waiting for similar celebrations and worship for our sector, without which the NHS would be screwed-and in which staff are paid less and have worse t and c than their NHS counterparts and yet don't seem to get a mention.

@Notonthestairs no way would insurance premiums be enough to bring our baseline up to the same standard people get in places like the Netherlands and Germany. Infrastructure is disastrously bad. In my MH trust we have wards where there are persistent roof leakss, major plumbing failures, faulty heating and electrics - you name it, we've got it. Nothing has been done to put funding into Estates so that these things can be brought up to par. Getting to a baseline that would put the UK on a comparable footing to other European countries would require major funding - from taxpayers.

This problem has been left to rot by successive governments - but if you look back over time, it's the Tories who have been in power for the majority of those decades. Saying they have no responsibility is living in laa laa land.

Well a pp said that they reckon their DH's cancer care has cost over £1 million pounds. £1 million pounds for one person's treatment! No wonder the NHS can't afford new infrastructure.

Streeting gets it, I think. It’s a real pity the labour party is currently so poorly led. It is probably only a labour government that could reform healthcare properly but no chance of that with starmer in charge.

It is probably only a labour government that could reform healthcare properly but no chance of that with starmer in charge.

I do agree with that. I think the reforms needed would only be palatable if Labour brought them in but I don't think Labour have the nerve to do what is needed. Anything other than continued totally free at point of use healthcare would lose a general election for any party in this country because the 'I've already paid in' attitude in the UK.

This. Everyone I know has received very good care, all in different parts of the country.

“But we seem to be paying an extraordinary amount of money to people who literally just exist.”

Curious about this. What type of person just exists and shouldn’t get free healthcare?

Everyone I know really struggles to get a GP appointment, you have to wait a couple of weeks usually unless it's an emergency and NHS dentistry is non-existent. The actual care people get is good, it's just that accessing it in the first place is difficult.

You don’t have to beg your GP, you can just book an appointment with a gynaecologist privately. It’s probably cheaper than flying abroad.

That's my concern. Investment has been used for urgent repairs like shoring up falling down buildings (obviously necessary!) and maintenance backlogs rather than necessarily improving and modernising infrastructure, equipment and IT.

@Cakesandbabes in the Netherlands you won't get your costs covered if you go straight to a specialist yourself. You can do it, but you pay for it yourself. Want your insurance to cover it? You have to get referred by your GP.

I am so sorry to read this - what an awful experience.

I think it says a lot that a consultant post cannot be filled and the other consultant quit. These are supposedly jobs that are highly paid with highly lucrative pensions.

That's my concern. Investment has been used for urgent repairs like shoring up falling down buildings (obviously necessary!) and maintenance backlogs rather than necessarily improving and modernising infrastructure, equipment and IT.

In all fairness places like France, the Netherlands and Germany did benefit from having the absolute crap bombed out of them in WW2, and then spent their Marshall Plan money wisely - on modern infrastructure and development. Whereas the UK spent it on clinging to their delusions of Empire. The UK would look very different today if it had followed in the footsteps of other European countries in terms of how it spent its money after WW2.

And nothing's changed since. 'Make do and mend' has a limit. We reached it some time ago.

@Fluffypuppy1 All in all last time with flights and self pay was something like £140 (bless Ryanair). Plus I killed two birds with one stone and visited family😁 admittedly few years back now.

@pointythings in mine it was covered so we all had our own gynae like you would have a gp.

When Bevan started the NHS the average life expectancy was 69, it’s now 82 and longer life expectancy was not taken into account. Also, we did not have an obesity problem back then, in fact only 10% of adults we classed as obese, now it’s over 35% and it’s costing us £6b a year, and could go up to £14b if you count overweight people.

The NHS was not set up to cover breast enlargement, gastric bands, gender reassignment surgery or plastic surgery.

The NHS’s founding principles were that it should meet the needs of everyone, be free at the point of delivery, and be based on clinical need, not ability to pay. Then, in 2000, Sir Tony Blair’s Labour government revised and added to those founding tenets, promising that the NHS would “provide a comprehensive range of services” and “shape its services around the needs and preferences of individual patients, their families and their carers”.

It’s time to accept that the NHS can not continue in its current form. We cannot continue to pump money into a bureaucratic and badly run system anymore. I firmly believe it is time for the general public to take a bit more responsibility for their health and choice of lifestyle and stop expecting the NHS to fix everything.

Successive governments are to blame for this, not just the Tories, although I know it’s easy to blame them. But seriously, how much money do you want to continue to put in to the NHS, it is complete madness to continue down this route.

I got one the same day last week. Blood samples taken by a nurse the same day and results back two days later.

all my experience have been brilliant yes some elements could of been better

One massive factor is we don’t take responsibility for our own health and well being which creates a massive demand but no one’s interested in that It’s always someone else’s fault or responsibility

I am angry it was underfunded for so long.

”Historically, NHS funding has faced a ‘boom and bust cycle’, with periods of under-investment followed by rapid growth in spending. In the decade following the global financial crisis in 2008, the health service faced the most prolonged spending squeeze in its history: between 2009/10 and 2018/19 health spending increased by an average of just 1.5% per year in real terms, compared to a long-term average increase of 3.6 per cent per year. These pressures were not unique to the UK, whose public spending on health care as a share of GDP is above the EU average, though lower than several comparable nations, including Germany, France, Denmark and the Netherlands.

This funding squeeze led to trade-offs between different areas of health expenditure; spending on buildings, equipment, investing in training more staff and prevention was deprioritised in order to pay for the day-to-day running of services such as staff and medicines. This was a false economy that stored up problems for the future. “

My own experience of the NHS is abysmal treatment: nurses on a permanent go-slow, Doctors being incompetent and A&E staff bullying patients for having accidents. After a recent 9-hour wait for a relative in A&E, with one Doctor on duty, and watching the nurses gossiping, walking around really slowly and generally not being efficient, I don’t think they deserve to be celebrated as a whole. Sure, there might be some exceptions, but IMO, the treatment I’ve witnessed over the past 10 years for a number of relatives, has been sorely wanting.
Perhaps a return to Matron-led wards and reduction of Admin. Staff might help, but it might be too late for that.

In equal fairness the UK had a huge debt post war to the US which we only finished repaying in 2006. It blows my mind that I spent 35 years as a taxpayer repaying a debt incurred before I was born.

I remember seeing my mum get ignored (she wanted to go to the bathroom) by the nurses during a shift change.

The NHS isn't underfunded, its inefficient.
There are far too many matrons, senior matrons, divisional nurses, associate divisional nurses, lead nurse, director of nursing, assistant director of nursing, quality lead, associate quality lead, all these titles, all these meetings.
Wasteful of resources, open a packet, its the wrong thing, throw it away
Inefficient IT systems
Patients who waste time
Yes until we accept this we won't move on
Pt who ring up the GP in the morning and demand an appointment as they have woke up with a headache! Yes it happens.
People who come to A&E as they have stubbed their toe, but declined analgesia, can't be that painful then can it!
PEople who come as they have splashed their eye with washing up water!
Yes these are real examples
We as a nation, eat too much, drink too much, take drugs, don't manage our physical and mental health, until we accept this, nothing will change, no matter who is in bloody charge
Oh and sort out social care as well

You do realise each and every ward has a matron don't you?