Surprised people aren't more angry over the state of the NHS

[IHTC]

I see loads of comments and have heard people vent about how frustrated they are with rule benders/breakers. I rarely see anyone show anger at the state of the NHS.

It's completely unfit for purpose. The population expands year on year yet our healthcare system hasn't been developed in line with population growth. The public are constantly being asked to make sacrifices because of the government's incompetence and rather than question and hold the government to account, it's like we've been manipulated into turning against one another. Find it all so strange.

I agree as well OP. I get that Covid would swamp even the best health service but ours can’t even cope with a normal winter that occurs every year, so there was not even any wiggle room for Covid, we were in the shite right away.

I’ve thought this from the very start. I’m so fed up with ‘Protect the NHS’ whilst the country crumbles, businesses go under, people go bankrupt, kids lose their education etc etc, and thousands die who maybe wouldn’t have. How about pumping money into the NHS now ready for the next pandemic?

Conservatives are opposed to state funded public services, that’s why the money has been pumped into private businesses in loans, furlough, contracts, ‘NHS’ test and trace. People keep voting for them so I presume that’s what people want

@MadameBlobby

But the winter problem has existed for years . Even with a Labour government.

Plus as another poster said wales is a worse performer and is run by Labour .

I still think the trust system needs reviewing . I know someone who makes equipment for nhs trust in one area and he said it’s like printing money .

It’s not right that trust managers are paid way more than pm ( whoever it is at the time ) and then are not accountable.

@BungleandGeorge

But apparently although they are putting business before lives ( in your opinion) thousands of small business are about to go under ?

And 50 % of the population don’t want lockdown because it’s putting old people before the mental health of everyone else ?

It’s a lose lose situation.

Labour want more lock down and more money given to help businesses , so which is correct ?

Yes, I agree. Good thread! I'll add that when the NHS was set up, we didn't just have a smaller and younger population and far less technology / treatments, but also lower expectations and arguably a healthier population.

People who reached 70+ in the 1940s/50s were robust specimens! They'd survived multiple childhood illnesses that we're now vaccinated against (and to which many other children/ siblings had succumbed). Mothers had survived basically unassisted labour (I'd be a gonner there, if not before). Men had survived WWI. People might have smoked more, but they drank less and, crucially, they were much thinner and fitter.

And they didn't expect to live to 85/90. Now we have an elderly population where many are in fundamentally poor shape, unfit, diabetic or prediabetic, overweight. It's brilliant that statins and other simple interventions, as well as much better diagnosis and treatment of cancer, have kept a lot of people alive for much longer than they would have lived in the past. But there has to be an element of realism about what the NHS can achieve in the face of a new illness for very elderly patients with poor underlying health.

In a way, it's a credit to the NHS that it's kept so many people alive for so long that they're now very vulnerable. Compare the Covid death rate in developing countries where people have to be much healthier to make it from one year to the next.

Politically, it's also depressing that there's no party supporting the young. Labour get most of their votes from the young. But they never seem to be on their side. That was true with Brexit and it's true now.

Here the (false) economy vs. lives dichotomy worked very cleverly in the Tories' favour, blocking off the possibility of left opposition to lockdown from the start. A more intelligent and less sentimental Labour Party would be asking some harder questions about privilege and, well, labour. They don't seem to give a crap if people of working age work or not.

People need to be accountable for their own health. The NHS is not there to fix your vices. There is a HUGE self of entitlement when it comes to the NHS - I can get pissed and lairy on a Friday night and go to A&E - they'll fix it. Morbidily obese? Gastric band please. Smoked 60 fags a day? Not my problem, NHS will sort it.

More education funding given to HCP's. I'd be tempted to say free tuition, in account that you work for 5 years minimum for the NHS.

What Hop said. The NHS was designed to help the sickest of the sick. Not people with an ingrowing toenail and too much time on their hands.

I have spent every year in a nhs hospital for 7 years and yes every winter they do get stretched but yet again we are here and I can tell you it’s so different this year it’s the usual stretch plus a whole heap more and we are not on a covid ward but a clean general paediatric ward but the domino effect this week is so huge ( we were in during March and that was nothing compared to this )
We are 3 children’s wards down to 1 staff ratio at 1 nurse to 6 patients instead of what is 4 on a usual busy winter year.
11 central lines on ward so lots of “ heavy care patients “

[quote Unsure33]@BungleandGeorge

But apparently although they are putting business before lives ( in your opinion) thousands of small business are about to go under ?

And 50 % of the population don’t want lockdown because it’s putting old people before the mental health of everyone else ?

It’s a lose lose situation.

Labour want more lock down and more money given to help businesses , so which is correct ?[/quote]
At no point did I say anything about putting businesses before lives. Some of the things I mentioned are healthcare, but by private businesses. Eg test and trace even though we already have a state funded public health network who actually had to step in when serco weren’t up to the job. Some businesses are booming, needs are different during a pandemic, money is spent differently. Because some businesses aren’t doing well doesn’t mean that money hasn’t been ploughed into any private companies, some have record profits.
I’d be interested to know the poll size for your 50% figure? What percentage of the population of the country is it based on?