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.

TaylorSwifting I agree wholeheartedly .I find long waiting lists (57 weeks,cant even make an appointment until August!) No physio care at , 2 appointments is all .Have had to pay privately.I realise they are under pressure ,but this doesnt work as a service .Far too big a population ,and cuts everywhere do no longer make us "The envy of the world" from the" Cradle to the Grave "any more Im afraid

The NHS, supposedly the envy of the world and yet, no other country has copied it...

The NHS is clearly underfunded in comparison to other EU countries with a particular shortage in staff (especially nurses) and number of beds.

www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/charts-and-infographics/how-does-uk-health-spending-compare-across-europe-over-the-past-decade

The problem as I see is that yes the NHS needs more money but where can the money come from?

After £500 billion was spent on Covid measures Government debt is now £2.5 trillion and we spend more on interest on that debt than we do on education. You can't increase taxes as 50% pay no income tax, 1% pay 30% of income tax and 49% pay 70% of income tax.

Ironically it seems that the lockdowns which were publicised as necessary to save the NHS will now through the increased debt, end up breaking it.

No you are celebrating the staff who work over with no extra pay, the staff who have no breaks for fear something happening to your relative(decades of that). Individuals who put themselves out that if they didn’t we wouldn’t have an NHS. I have to say people like you had a part to play in me leaving the NHS after 36yrs, colleagues felt the same now look at it. The NHS isn’t made up by the government it is made up of people who try their hardest in a difficult system.

The NHS is not fit for purpose and hasn't been for years. Yes, there are pockets of good care, but the fact that the British public put up with this system and seem to think it's wonderful astonishes me. France, Austria, Australia, Germany - all have far superior healthcare, no-one dies because they can't afford to pay, their funding models are better, their treatment is better and I wish wholeheartedly we could scrap the NHS and start over.

No-one wants the American model. The idea that the only two options are US-style healthcare, or the NHS, is ridiculous. I'd vote for a party who would grasp the nettle, commission a massive study into the various healthcare systems around the world, and then come up with a model that actually works.

^ This. I think everyone should financially contribute to it whether by having to pay for prescriptions or pay a smallish fee for GP appointments, then they might value it more. I think people do not value what they get for free. We are an unfit unhealthy nation that expects the NHS to pick up the pieces for individuals not taking responsibility for their own health. People say it needs more funding, that it's the government's fault etc, but everyone thinks someone elses's taxes should rise to pay for it, not theirs. And who wants to pay more tax in a COL crisis?

I agree

I was given a 2 week pathway and was seen 6 months later. Thankfully not cancer. But now permanently disabled due to lack of intervention/operation/physio/consultant appts/hospital appts, cancelled or over a year wait due to covid and the NHS being on it's knees.

Millions of people have died because of this.

But you do know you don't have to celebrate, acknowledge or conform to any celebration you don't want to or agree with?

I have no faith in the NHS at all. Most of my family are long term workers, I have seen them driven to despair because of bullying, incredibly inept management (one person I know was passed over for promotion as an outside applicant who had no experience of the particular area involved was given the job. Their previous experience was managing a video shop.) It didn't work out. A friend of mine spent a week on a general ward dying, which was dreadful, and how the other poor women on it must have felt I can't begin to imagine. I won't be celebrating

So underfunded,it pays its chief executives huge salaries.

I don't know how to feel about the NHS.

Yes, they are treating my DF, and they're looking after him well.

But they missed the initial diagnosis he needed until it was too late, so he's dying. If they'd worked it out sooner, he could have been in remission now. I don't know how to get over that.

Who are these “powerful groups”?
sounds like conspiracy theory to me

I'm really sorry, OP. I hope your relative has been diagnosed early enough to go into remission. It was too late for mine.

What I will say is that cancer treatment seems to involve a million and one tests, and none of them seem to be done urgently. It surprised me a lot - I would have expected a bit more speed.

I think it's perfectly possible for people to celebrate the last 75 years and also reflect on the current state of it. None of the stuff I've seen has been about how amazing stuff is currently, but stories and memories from past years which I think is nice personally.

Exactly.

The NHS is a fantastic concept. I totally buy into the fact that we need a nationalised health service funded by taxation that is free at the point of use.

At the moment it's not working very well and it's causing a lot of people pain, distress, poorer outcomes and even death. It has to change. It has to improve.

Politicians love spinning it as a thing of sentiment. Like a child that you have to love unconditionally. It's not. We need to be critical and we need to criticise because otherwise it will not be fit for purpose. It's not a little child that we celebrate merely for existing. It is something that had to fulfil its purpose.

It seems like it'a a complete lottery. There are stories from both ends of the spectrum.

Personally I've heard more on the negative / delayed side and had a terrible experience both during and after childbirth. I'm petrified of me or my family getting seriously ill and being unable to access adequate care.

Several examples spring to mind, firstly, an elderly lady who lives at the end of our road, who, honest to goodness never leaves the house I have never seen the woman in daylight. She must be 85. Next week she’s going into hospital for some sort of heart operation. If the woman survives, it’ll be nothing short of a miracle. But I’m sorry if I was 85 I would be refusing to go through that level of treatment. What is actually the bloody point ?
2nd example, ex friend, back problems - the woman actually genuinely does have back problems. She is obese, with diabetes no doubt she would say because because she cant exercise. Even though 80% of weight management is what goes in your mouth. Whatever they do for her is literally just going to manage the pain she’s never gonna walk again properly. She’s never gonna be employed. But it hasn’t stopped her having three children with somebody who earns 20,000 a year.

Obviously, I don’t want the woman to be in pain, but this is why the NHS is fucked.

The salaries aren't huge for the role though, they're lower than the same level would get in the private sector. You need people with experience for these roles and to attract them you need to at least make an attempt to pay a reasonable salary. The opposite is why healthcare staff pay is crap, because the NHS is by far the largest employer and for some roles the only one that offers certain things that they have known up to now that people by and large will deal with low pay as there aren't a whole host of alternatives.

The reason for delays is lack of staff, the government is doing nothing to address this, its not the fault of the concept of the NHS though, its the government.

FiL died last year, 8 month's after a stage 4 cancer diagnosis, and never once saw an oncologist. The local hospital couldn't fill the vacancy and the cover doctor from another hospital also quit.
Its hard to celebrate it in its current shambles.

The salaries are generous by any CEO standard.
Not suggesting the people shouldn’t get paid. Of course they should, but they should actually get paid market rate.

We can celebrate the NHS as a concept and celebrate the great people who work in it, whilst railing against its failings. If we want to save it, we need to get the current government out. The power is in our hands but we have consistently failed to grasp it.

I completely agree with DappledOliveGroves.

If you look at them as an average then sure as that includes the CEOs for SMEs etc too, if you look at similar size organisations with similar level of responsibility and skills etc then no they aren't.

So do I.

Through medical negligence the NHS killed my friend’s mum, my gran, and nearly killed me and DS. They don’t take responsibility and just gang up against you. Nothing ever changes.

Someone suggested that the NHS should have an accident investigation system like the air travel industry, but it’s never going to happen because of all the NHS worship.

The NHS is a BAD system. Every budget they throw billions more money at it and it’s still a bad system. So many European countries have better systems and better outcomes than us.

This. Great post.

I lived in Germany many years ago. The difference was astonishing. You have a health problem and you get treatment. People there could not believe or comprehend that it is usual and accepted to wait months, often years, for essential treatment in the UK. (That really is crazy when you stop and think about it). It is an insurance-based system but it's nothing like America - no-one is left without treatment.

I have a close friend with cancer who is experiencing similar to the OP. It is so frightening. You can die in the UK from lack of medical care. How is that a system fit for purpose?

"France, Austria, Australia, Germany - all have far superior healthcare,"

"In 2022 the UK spent $5493 per capita, the OECD $5009 - this includes some lower income members. France $6517, Denmark $6279, Germany $8010 NZ 6061 Spain $4461 Australia $6596 Finland $5676 Belgium $6600"

twitter.com/nedwards_1/status/1676217117803266050?s=46&t=Uw4lJNwxFZFnX0Xs3doHYg

Nigel Edwards is CEO of the Nuffield Trust.

•	Average day-to-day health spending in the UK between 2010 and 2019 was £3,005 per person – 18% below the EU14 average of £3,655.
•	If UK spending per person had matched the EU14 average, then the UK would have spent an average of £227bn a year on health between 2010 and 2019 – £40bn higher than actual average annual spending during this period (£187bn).
•	Matching spending per head to France or Germany would have led to an additional £40bn and £73bn (21% to 39% increase respectively) of total health spending each year in the UK.
•	Over the past decade, the UK had a lower level of capital investment in health care compared with the EU14 countries for which data are available. Between 2010 and 2019, average health capital investment in the UK was £5.8bn a year. If the UK had matched other EU14 countries’ average investment in health capital (as a share of GDP), the UK would have invested £33bn more between 2010 and 2019 (around 55% higher than actual investment during that period).

www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/charts-and-infographics/how-does-uk-health-spending-compare-across-europe-over-the-past-decade

I'm not opposed to change but the Government have to be straightforward with the electorate.