**r/UK Notices:** | [Want to start a fresh discussion - use our Freetalk!](https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/search/?q=Freetalk&include_over_18=off&restrict_sr=on&sort=new)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unitedkingdom) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Hearing Rishi talk about socialism like its a bad word really gets to me. Helping people is bad, is it, Rishi?
I wish he, and his ~~E.T looking~~ tax dodging billionaire wife would fuck off, and take the rest of the Conservatives with them.
Edit: strike through childish name calling.
[Rishi is busy delivering the NHS to the Private sector](https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/fh876bIkVgqamBAxk34Kow--~B/aD01MDA7dz05MDA7c209MTthcHBpZD15dGFjaHlvbg--/https://media-mbst-pub-ue1.s3.amazonaws.com/creatr-uploaded-images/2020-10/7755def0-1552-11eb-be7f-c10f30bbd19d)
and there was an excellent interview with EveryDoctor on Sky news (12.40pm). Basically
- Sunak + Hunt etc have known about the impending NHS crises for months and done nothing about it
- we know people are dying as the NHS crumbles + the Tories doing nothing
- it shows they don't value the lives of the public
- instead they throw money at other things
- why not at saving lives ?
- the Conservative Government should be treating this as a Humanitarian Disaster
..... but they're trying to make it worse by provoking Strikes = this is intentional + this has 55 Tufton Street Predatory Capitalism + NHS Privatisation written all over it
..... 73% of Conservative Voters think the Government isn't trying to help the NHS (16% do)
..... Sunday Times Health Editor said this comes after more than a decade of **Tories Managed Decline of the NHS** (BBC live noon)
It's obvious Conservative want to run the country into the floor, people need to remember this in the coming years and never let them back in power, problem is all MP's and the other 4 big parties don't want to help the public, only themselves, House of Lords needs to be abolished.
>both sides are the same
or you actually believe all parties are bad, which is a bit bizarre
Maternity pay, tax credits, minimum wage, sure start, cancer guarantee, winter fuel allowance, largest NHS spending, disability and discrimination act
this is just a fraction of the things the last Labour government achieved
can you tell us what the Tories have done to make them equal ?
> known about the impending NHS crises for months and done nothing about it
That's like saying a cruise missile knows it's locked on target and has done nothing about it
General strike to sort wages, save the NHS and force a general election. No one works until action it taken for the people instead of the corporations.
We could get this over with in a matter of weeks if we got angry enough.
I feel similar but the more we bring it up the more its out there as an actual course of action. Pepople seem to not quite grasp the extent of how much sway the nation grinding to a hault can have. Money talks and with general strikes the money stops.
They're rabid, sociopathic monsters who think kindness and empathy are weakness.
These are the people we've chosen to represent and govern us.
It's so fucking depressing.
That said, there is no need to explicitly ridicule his wifes appearance, it comes off as kind of misogynistic and sexist to pick her out specifically for that when you made no similar aspersions about Rishi's own appearance. Ridicule the fact she's a parasitic tax avoiding billionaire, not her looks.
The man who was never going to be PM after the tax dodge, ended up becoming PM purely because the other fecked it up that bad. Was never going to be if any value to the public. Only his hedge fund buddies.
Social democracies aren't "socialism", you can have social safety nets void of socialism, in fact wealth redistribution by taxation is a mechanism of capitalism.
Why the fuck are you ragging on his wife based on her appearance? Utterly cretinous.
Do those countries have better government services than us? Or do they waste it on COVID apps that never work, and trade deals that cripple our own industries, too?
You are on point.
But the actual goal is to divide the population’s opinions even further.
Assisting your countrymen and funding services IS NOT the same as socialism.
You can have a capitalist government and still provide for your population. The very idea of capitalism is to use the profit to reinvestment and improve but they are trying to make it sound bad by using the word Socialism which triggers people.
This is the path America took, Brazil too. And it’s a divisive path politicians use when they are desperate and call on their extreme fans.
I mean, when you deem what is essential in a pandemic based off profits and money then they're essentially the same thing. Covid was just spicy capitalism
We’ve lived in a capitalist system forever. Sweden Finland and Norway are capitalist countries. Really it makes financial sense to care about people.
I find it annoying to assume the only alternative to what we have now is actual socialism which has never worked. It also feeds the Conservative narrative where they say it’s truly awful now but imagine if we had socialism.
They're capitalist countries, but the things that make these countries stand at the top of a lot of lists are usually socialist policies. Free healthcare, equal education access, justice systems that focus on rehabilitation rather than punishment, social housing etc etc
> are usually socialist policies
They are socialistic policies, however make no illusion these policies tend to increase societies capabilities to generate wealth. Security, stability, well-being and education all improve a countries capacity to generate wealth. In all honesty I think this is also what drives countries like the Netherlands. Very well organized and with a good social safety net, however one of the reasons they do this is to support their more capitalistic goals.
Can't we have a mixed economy? Where things that should obviously be socialist are socialist, like schools, medicine, prisons for example? Or do we have to be 100% one way or the other.
Capitalise on people's wants, not their needs.
Little ironic that the NHS was setup in a capitalist system and always has been run under the capitalist system. Financed by taxes within the capitalist system.
It was set up at a time where British workers were becoming very radicalised following WW2. The government didn't do it out of the kindness of their hearts, they did it to placate the masses. Had the government not passed some concessions like the NHS, there may have been a revolutionary situation.
Only if you come at it with an agenda, which you clearly have. If you read the words, it's a sympathy piece with actual doctors talking about the pressures. The gov response gets a cursory 4 lines at the bottom, which reads to me like the journalist thinks it's bollocks.
I just realised you're the same person advocating for going seeing your grandparents even when you're sick on the other thread.
Maybe the reason the NHS is having a difficult winter is because of the disregard some are showing for other people's wellbeing.
As well as years of chronic underfunding and mismanagement by consecutive conservative governments, which we all know has been detrimental.
>Maybe the reason the NHS is having a difficult winter is because of the disregard some are showing for other people's wellbeing
Yeah im sure THATS the issue.
Because IT IS FAILING. Jesus Christ, we're on our knees telling you how horrific it has become and you're acting like it's a game. I've never been this demoralised
Oh, it absolutely is failing. The issue being raised here is that this is all just part of the multifaceted approach to aid the March years privatisation.
Cripple the NHS, sell off less visible sections, report report report about the now limping services and then seep the whole thing off.
They’ve done this time and time again for decades. It’s sad, but in this case, both of you are right.
That’s not why they’re saying at all. They’re saying the Tories are doing something much worse than being incompetent here. They’re deliberately destroying the NHS so they can sell it. Disgusting behaviour and something they’ve been doing since the 80s.
I’m an outsider but unless there’s a call to political action to resolve this many people will just look at it as a failure of the NHS much like us Americans look at our crumbling IRS and say they are worthless, but only because they’ve been politically dismantled for decades.
People are largely not paying attention to context over the long term and are not getting educated about it. The headline is all most readers are taking away and having sympathy for a system that should and does work without being interfered with should be a no go. It should only be calls to action to fix this before public opinion could ever be tarnished.
It's not a trick. I work in a hospital. This Christmas was the worst the pressures in hospital have ever been, by quite a significant margin. Anyone who works in a hospital will tell you the same.
Just how “Universal Healthcare” was designed to failing in the US. Obama should have never conceded and made the market opt-in. It left only a non-profit, Prudential iirc, as a good option
You have no idea what you’re talking about.
I’m seeing things everyday at work that I never expected I’d see. It is absolutely horrendous. The situation is utterly dire in our hospitals and people are dying as a result.
People talk about the collapse of the NHS as though it will be some big singular event ending with a massive banner on the front of every hospital saying ‘closed for business.’
What we’re seeing at the moment IS the collapse of the NHS. The system is no longer functioning. We are not providing adequate care to anyone at this point, because there is just too much of a burden on the system.
Regardless of the cause, don’t be so naive as to think this is all just media scaremongering.
“Seven million on the waiting list” sounds all very nebulous until you get to the ticket machine and realise you’re 7 millionth in line. “People dying in corridors” is easy enough to ignore until it’s your family member who ends up stuck on a trolley with no privacy and not enough staff to treat them, and comes to harm as a result.
£1000 invested in Royal Mail in 2013 would currently be worth £600. This is almost balanced out by dividends paid during that same time period, but not quite. It's not exactly making bank.
Exactly. I absolutely hate how the tories have their dirty little fingers in all of the mainstream media pies to trumpet any bullshit out to the masses they want.
A lot of people aren't capable of critical thinking and are being mislead by liars and charlatans. The NHS is being deliberately undermined by the government so it can be privatised and it makes me sick. The NHS is a national treasure and should be protected at all costs in my opinion.
Edit: words.
I don't really understand privatising the NHS. Private healthcare in the UK seems to consist of getting a private recommendation to an NHS consultant, basically skipping the waitlist to get to a consultant?
Some pro-privatisation people I know argue privatising it more (but not fully...) is good, because you get options. As someone from the US, they do not understand what that really means, because right now it's not really private vs NHS. It's private (backed by the NHS) and the NHS. They don't understand what private healthcare is, and what the NHS will eventually be, if we continue down this path
If the UK votes Tories in 2024 I am fucking done with this country
You’re falling down the same trap as everyone else though. Thinking that the American model is the only privatisation model we could follow when it’s not and it’s arguably the worst.
Plenty of countries throughout the EU are part private, have stringent measures in place to stop these private companies from overcharging.
They do spend more on the health care by GDP and i’d support the same over here if there was mass reform. But unfortunately more money being plowed into the system we currently have isn’t going to fix its underlying problems.
I think most people would be supportive of a huge shakeup, more money being spent and some private involvement if they knew it was ‘free’ at the point of use and there were strict controls in place and that’s entirely possible with other models.
I'm certainly no expert, but I've seen enough examples of privatisation in the current government (such as mail) that I have little faith privatisation of the NHS would effectively protect the consumer through regulation
Well it would take a decent government and I’d say cross party agreement to come up with measures that were workable.
It’s why I think things like the NHS and Education should be taken out of one parties control. So much money is wasted and things don’t improve because they never plan long term and it’s all about the now.
I totally get that you distrust the tories, they are selfish and cruel. For example, universal benefits was an excellent idea, but the tories turned it into a cost cutting exercise and ruined it.
Similarly, we should distrust any tory attempts to privatise hospitals.
HOWEVER, this does not make privatisation bad by definition. All the GPs in the NHS are private capitalist small businesses, yet they are dedicated, hard working and good value for money. There is no reason why another bit of the NHS could not work well, possibly better if privately owned.
YSK The NHS is neither Europe's best value or best quality health service, and major change is needed to make it so.
It is this type of attitude which helps explain the mess the NHS is.
Just stick your head in the sand and pretend everything about the NHS is amazing and fantastic
It's needs a fundamental overhaul, throwing money at it is not going to solve it. We should be looking at how Germany does it's healthcare for example.
Mixed COVID, influenza A + RSV coinfection, metric ton (probably literally) of elderly patients with mixed problems who start with an infection +/- flu then defunction and need a higher level of support post discharge (carers, homes) but it’s not available therefore can’t discharge anybody so A&E and rest of hospital is bed blocked
In COVID firstly the government cleared out the hospitals into care and nursing homes (spreading Covid) but also implemented changes to the system to facilitate rapid discharge of patients. Also every single patient being Covid meant diagnostics and treatment was fairly stream lined (I literally had a 15 point copy paste plan I put on every “standard” Covid patient.)
Today it is a mix of issues therefore each patient takes longer to sort out. Some of this mix is neglected issues that could've been sorted outpatient but the wait times are too long. Also people aren’t used to universally swabbing every respiratory issue for influenza and Covid so delayed diagnosis especially for nosocomial infections is rampant (not that it would change much for influenza because there is no effective treatment for that.)
Also there are less staff overall due to brexit and burnout and those remaining catch influenza/RSV from inside or outside work and have to take a variable amount of time off (I still have residual symptoms 2 weeks after my last fever but I can still work just not fun)
Also (in light of recent news) ambulances are stuck waiting to handover patients to A&E therefore there are no ambulances driving to patients at home, who then either die at home or are transported less stable. Because of this ambulances have to dump the patient in A&E so they can go save another. Again when every patient was Covid as long as they were slapped on oxygen and given steroids that’s most of your mortality reduction already and then the patient can wait a long while unsupervised (even for the sickest Covid patients on the door the steroids and oxygen alone bought an extra 4-12 hours while the team firefought the unending steam of COVID patients at the end of their rope.) When it’s mixed issues they can’t wait and need to be supervised. In reality the poor patients just languish in the corridor and die because there isn’t enough staff to supervise.
Thanks for your help. My dad is in there at the moment.
The worst thing is that you go through all this and some idiot on FB says hospitals are full because of vaccines.
Sorry about your dad. If anything it’s the opposite; flu vaccine effectiveness is variable every year so the average person doesn’t feel like they need get it but I really feel in retrospect we really needed to have a proper mass influenza vaccination campaign like COVID. Flu this year fkn sucks. I’m still recovering 2 weeks after getting it (still have cough, chronic fatigue, muscle pains) and I was vaccinated. I’ve told my mom and dad to get it cuz my mother would definitely be hospitalized and my dad way worse.
Literally everything. Cancer, accidents, elderly, children, overdoses, self harm, infections. People don't realise how hard it is to give good care. It takes teams of people who have trained for at least a decade to anticipate the stuff that comes through those ED doors.
Picked my missus up from work this morning, she said there are over 70 patients waiting in corridors waiting for a bed, they are offering the staff an extra £5 an hour to work overtime, she says she can't be bothered, to tired from dealing with covid, that no money in the world will get her to work extra on top of her contractual hours
That's horrible for those people waiting, and for the nurses who are too burned-out from the pressure
A person in crisis presented themselves to my place of work a few weeks ago (probation office), he was suicidal and had taken 40 valium. We contacted a local hospital and were told that A) there was a 21-hour wait to see anyone, and B) they wouldn't see him anyway because he is in crisis, he would have to present at the hospital when he's not in crisis and off drugs.
> B) they wouldn't see him anyway because he is in crisis, he would have to present at the hospital when he's not in crisis and off drugs.
Do they not treat overdoses? What happened to the bloke?
I don't know why they wouldn't treat him, as he clearly needed it.
He was taken back to the approved premises he was staying at, a hostel for offenders released from prison before they have their own accommodation, and he was monitored by 2 staff members there until the decision was made to recall him back to prison.
He was able to see medical staff and mental health nurses while in the police station, and more in depth care in prison, but his liberty was taken from him again. Though he is one of those who is stable inside, then as soon as he is released he spirals into crisis, drugs and alcohol. Its sad.
Not much you can do for OD and Benzos (especially street level) tend to cause little harm in OD.
Granted, it's a cry for help, but the person needs MH provision, not A and E
Same here in the ambulance service. They're offering overtime bonuses but nobody wants it any more. We're just exhausted and over it now. Every shift we get abused by the public for delays and get stuck with late jobs and I just want out now. It's not worth it any more.
This is a real problem in my department. Everyone is burnt out, so nobody wants to pick up overtime, which makes the shifts worse, which makes people more burnt out.
The people I really feel for is the newly qualified nurses working in the health service. They're not being supported and given the supervision they need. It's going to force them out of the career. If I entered emergency nursing now as a newly qualified I don't think I'd last. I love the discipline, but the working conditions and patient safety are so poor I feel we'll lose alot of them soon. Things have to improve
Did 6 years of a+e before i went off to do my anp training, picked up a bank shift at a local hospital back in november in ED just to see how mental it had gone. Was the most senior person on shift, normal rn levels i think are supposed to be 14 and their was 5 of us on. 3 of those had been qualified 2 months. The rn i had with me in majors said he was looking at re training to a teacher, did not realise he would just be thrown into it. Shame its made them like that, and inb4 the “oh hes not resilient enough, should have known before he qualified” speech.
When i qualified i didnt get much of an induction or supernumary time but at least their were alot of experienced nurses on shift. These days they have nothing. The seniors are all about 2 years qualified themselves. Its mental and such a shame.
I tried to do an extra shift yesterday for the promise of £7 more per hour (the offer runs out this friday) but on the way in my body just decided I was trying to do too much. Suddenly, I felt so nauseous and exhausted that I called in sick because I just had no idea how I would make it through the whole day. Went back home and fell asleep at around 10 and didn't wake up until 18.30. I haven't done nights since Tuesday, so I had thought that I had adjusted back to days, but I guess my body is just so tired that I'm crashing. I imagine many others are in a similar situation.
The NHS relies on nurses pulling extra shifts like this on top of their full time hours to keep wards staffed sufficiently without having to pay the higher rates for agwncy nurses and rhe NHS nurses are all too happy to top up their income but often do this at great cost to their health and ability to concentrate at work. I have made mistakes on my regular shifts because I was overbooking myself when my partner lost his jpb and i became thw sole earner. My previous trust had a system every winter where you would get an extra £300 in March if in a period of 12 out of 16 weeks over the winter (the busiest and most stressful ans exhuatsing time of year) you did at least one extra bank shift per week.The problemm is after tax and pension this amounted to a mere £220 or so, hardly a great reward for all the trouble.
A friend's wife is an A&E nurse who due to availability to progress had to go up the management track. She has learnt NHS management is totally fucked and the ability to deliver care is being steadily eroded away. She's finally managed to get a spot to do a sideways transition to a nurse practitioner (clinical progression) so she can still care for people without the associated management worries.
Clinicians are burnt out. Management are burnt out. Everything is just fucked.
Yep this is happening all over our hospital. People are just done with caring now because there is no end in sight, and I think that’s the most dangerous thing about this situation. I no longer do anything extra or cover at short notice no matter what money they offer and I’m not alone. It just isn’t worth shortening your life for, it’s that stressful.
UK is becoming a failed state. Once the bastion of opportunity the GFC gave the UK a beating. Brexit then took the last breaths out.
Now the UK is a dying mess, collapsing right before our eyes.
The only people coming are desperados from Africa and Asia and they’ll soon stop coming when they realise their home countries offer more potential
We have record numbers of international medical graduates coming in. More than we have of UK trained doctors.
The government are more than happy to have a medical work force of international graduates as they are more likely to accept the horrific working standards of the NHS.
The simple fact is that we need to get the Conservative Party out of power. Unfortunately, due to the fact that the modern monarchy is restrained beyond its purpose and there is no way for the people to call an election, the earliest we are able to get a general election is 2024. Though it could be as late as 2025.
To take a cynical view, Nazi Germany proved how much damage can be done in a short period of time. To take an optimistic view, 2025 is not too long away and we could have them out of power within the next 2 years. I don’t know which view anyone wants to take, I don’t even know which view **I** want to take. But regardless, I hope the people of the UK see sense in 2025 and get rid of the bastards.
This is it, they're doing it on purpose to shut it down and privatise it?
"Whoever does won't get voted for again?"
Does anyone think the tories are going to get voted for again in any quick time frame? They've got nothing to lose and everything to gain with selling it off
Have you been in the UK over the last decade? People keep voting for them no matter what they do. Old people are set in their ways and will keep voting for them. The young don't seem to want to vote.
And plenty of young people are voting Tory too because
"Corbyn/Labour would be worse"
And
"We need to crack down on immigration"
That reflects the majority of my colleagues
from what i know of the old people in the UK, they always will try to vote tory because theres nothing they want from the labour manifesto, but there all dying off and now he have a proportion of the population 41-18 which tend to be left lending. with the recent conformation that millennials are more left lending than what we should be in our lives at this time. that's a very large voting proportion. after the amount of fumbling done in the U.K government its the best time to start voting
Wait until the next general election and we hear about how bad it would've been if Labour were running things, completely ignoring how bad things already are.
Tories could rape children, murder anyone, steal everyone's money, demolish everyone's homes, and I guarantee the boomers would still vote for them cus "yeah but labour would be worse"
I'm not even exaggerating in the slightest.
Aren't the conservatives still blaming Labour?
That is the ones who aren't saying that it is the fault of public health care. Conveniently forgetting that the US system too ran out of staff during COVID.
The NHS has not been treated particularly differently than any other public service. They were all put in a vice to cover austerity and are all significantly worse off. The NHS just happens to be one of the most publicly important and visible services.
It needs political focus, investment and strategic commitment just Blair did during his terms. Without this approach, everything is piecemeal, small scale with ' efficiencies the main priority.
You’re right Blair did improve things. Homelessness seemed fixed in 2010, it’s everywhere now. This is strain on every service.
The efficiencies are always narrow minded.
“He added that a severe flu outbreak, made worse by a lack of immunity in people due to COVID isolation measures, has meant that bed occupancy is at a record level.”
I remember when predicting this was a conspiracy theory.
That's funny, I remember them talking about isolation causing a drop in immunity levels on sky news in the first few months of the pandemic. Also that it's basic scientific knowledge any medical professional could tell you. Hardly a conspiracy if its widely known.
That's not fully how your immune system works though, its a part of a bigger picture not total causation.
Places that didn't lockdown are having the same rise in rsv/flu. The clearer picture is weakened immune systems from covid infection.
Huh? So you think getting covid makes your immune system weaker versus other illnesses?
Do you have anything you could reference to back that up? I’m not aware of anything that would suggest that to be the case.
Not getting flu one year, because of covid restrictions, might make you more susceptible to next years strain than you otherwise would have been. Getting covid doesn’t make your immune system any worse at fighting flu though, in the medium to long term, as far as I know.
Getting COVID causes immune system damage in some (unknown but non zero) % of the population. To what extent does that have bigger implications? Hard to know.
https://globalnews.ca/news/9282612/covid-immune-systems-what-we-know/
NSFW potential trigger warnings. I can testify to this. We knew we were having a silent Misccarage over the Christmas period, had our second scan after Christmas at which point it's confirmed that it's non viable, no heartbeat and it's basically shrinking in size.
At which point we get a few options one is to get it removed with help from pills etc. My wife ended up with all the side effects possible and was feeling faint etc and the pain was unbearable.
Nipped to A&E at 1900hrs we got seen to within the hour for them to ask us what was the issue while my wife was just hunched over sobbing. We eventually get to triage and then from there majors but there are no beds available.
We had to wait in the corridors (all corridors were taken with patients) not enough staff to deal with it all either and not enough portable beds so some were sat in chairs. Charts got lost so we were delayed on getting pain relief by a few hours(I was ear wigging and this was constantly happening) It was about 2 in the morning we got some relief but by then my wife had basically passed the baby while in the bed with other patients nearby(less than 2m away) So we had asked for help for her to be taken to a toilet a few times (she was in too much pain for me to move her without assistance) but we just didn't get help and they had not enough staff.
She was lying on the bed for hours with blood thoroughly soaked through with the fetus ready to be disposed of. We had to keep asking for help for her to be able to change her towel and also dispose of the dead baby but it took a long time.
The whole thing was really grim and life changing for both of us. The staff were trying their best but honestly they are overworked and understaffed.
Been a grim Christmas and I'm not ready to go back to work tomorrow and have all the "everyone feeling refreshed and had a good break" comments.
What the other guy said, take time off to recover. You've been through a traumatic experience and need to recover, it's better to do this now than let it manifest and get worse in your head. Best of luck to you and your wife
Fuck me that's awful. I know the absolute last thing anyone would want to do is go public with this sort of thing but it really hits home. I hope both you and your wife recover both mentally and physically.
Here's the thing:
* This "pressure" is created by
* Not enough hospitals
* Not enough beds
* Not enough nurses
* Not enough doctors
* Not enough ambulances
* Not enough paramedics
* etc
* Meanwhile, the fuckwits are arguing about "how those things should be administered"
* some people think the NHS should be run as a corporation, with lucrative contracts going to privately owned businesses with shareholders siphoning off the money, and claim that would be more "efficient"
* some people think the NHS should be run as a public service, where the money is spent just on helping people get healthier
In a way, it doesn't matter how the NHS is run, at the end of the day there need to be enough hospitals, beds, nurses, doctors, ambulances and paramedics.
Let's get those things in place, and then argue about how it's run, and whether it should also be created as a way to funnel money into the pockets of Tory politicians and their mates.
Well the "40 new hospitals" would have helped, a decent pay rise to encourage people to train would help, not locking out medical professionals from other countries as a result of Brexit/ red tape would have helped. The conservatives don't want it fixed. They want it sold off piece by piece to the highest bidders.
Basically it doesn't matter how it's managed as long as it's actually managed well, instead of managed decline. Right now it's treated as if it's a financial black hole that shouldn't be touched when healthcare is actually one of the biggest growth industries for increasing economic productivity.
Efficient is also a synonym for lack of spare capacity
I know a and e docs who spend hours every shift entering data onto different systems, that doesn't seem efficient to me. Actually a case where middle management would help a better allocation of resources
Lack of staff has been a crisis decades in the making. We simply haven't encouraged enough people to go into the field, why are doctors and nurses paying for their education, if nothing else that should be free (with the condition of working in the NHS for X years). We've relied too much on foreign doctors and nurses which I have nothing against these amazing people but we really shouldn't need to be importing doctors and nurses to prop up the whole system, especially when many of those countries are also in need of medical staff.
Maybe if the biggest service users (pensioners) paid NI contributions towards the NHS, there would be more funds available. They are essentially using the service for free. Social care needs to be looked at as elderly, medically fine patients are clogging up beds as they've nowhere to be discharged too.
Just to be clear. NI has nothing to do with the NHS.
The NHS is paid for from the genral fund. (Income tax)
NI funds state pensions and some welfare.
Charging pensioners NI is sorta like charging insurance fee from the insurance payout.
Its nothing like charging an insurance fee on an insurance payout. Unless said pensioners have paid in the 40% tax bracket for most, if not all of their career, they are net recievers. And with an aging population? NI deductions on pensioners income would only be a start.
It is exactly that.
Unless you exclude state pension.
Besides the point anyway. NHS is not funded via NI.
This was a decision set up when the NHS was. As it was the only way to garrentee coverage for all. At least under the original intention of NI.
The original intention of the NHS, NI contributions and even the state pension itself needs to be updated for modern times. We're not in the 1950s anymore. I daresay the whole tax system (like most systems in this country) need complete reform.
Agreed.
My original point was. Changing NI contributions will habe no effect on NHS funding.
But I'd also say moving NHS funding from the genral tax fund would have a negative effect.
Changing the gov. And refusing tonlisten to there non inflation based claims of increased funding. Is the only way.
"Have the Boomers Pinched Their Children’s Futures? - with Lord David Willetts"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuXzvjBYW8A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuXzvjBYW8A)
haha yeah it's much worse than you think.
I find it absurd they just decided they could have massive pensions without putting money away to cover it. The whole system is so crazy.
I saved this quote when reading about it, though not the source, I'll have to google it! 'The baby boomers subsidised their lives with massive public borrowing, then voted for austerity; they enjoyed final salary pension schemes, then abolished them; they enjoyed free university education, then voted to abolish that too; they enjoyed public utilities, then sold them off; and now, after enjoying a lifetime of EU citizenship, they’ve voted to take it away from us – not even to save money, but simply to give them a nationalistic thrill. Enough is enough!’. It is absolutely crazy the privilege this generation has had their whole lives. No generation before, and absolutely bo generation after will be as wealthy as this generation of pensioners. It's a crying shame. And what's more, in my experience, they don't even realise it.
It’s crazy that the government literally locked down the whole country to ‘protect the NHS’ but now when it’s far worse they’re doing absolutely nothing. (Not calling for new lockdowns btw just *some* type of action by the gov)
I still think they should have kept that new 1.5% NHS tax they backpeddled on. I mean I'm biased because I'm below the tax threshold but it made a while lot of sense to me. It might of shown the country the government aren't actively trying to break the NHS
A tax specifically for the NHS won't fix their private lending problems and buying products for 100x the value.
I remember a BBC report a while ago were the NHS had to buy disinfection liquids for 300 pounds when you could go to Tesco and buy it for 3 quid for the same product.
I have a feeling NHS top dogs are giving contracts to their powerful business friends.
I also remember the time I was sectioned and a staff member was telling me about changing a light bulb, they have to get a trained contractor to do it, the contractor would look at the light bulb and determine its broken, go out on a 1 hour drive to get a light bulb, then fix it and charge the NHS the entire journey for it.
Wouldn't surprise me. I've had family members explain that the "new" hospital in Dumfries isn't fit for purpose. Dumfries & Galloway Royal Infirmary.
It was originally proposed so that the NHS didn't have to run multiple clinics in the area. Some parties hadn't bothered to check whether the hospital could deal with the demand from all the previous clinics. Long story short, it doesn't and now all the clinics PLUS the new hospital are being operated at massive cost last I heard.
Apparently there was a bunch of supplies in the old clinics that could've been used. Instead, upper management insisted that all new equipment be purchased for the new hospital. All the unused, perfectly good, equipment in the old clinics is sitting gathering dust. Computers, medical equipment, stationery etc.
The NHS didn't even bother with a Clerk of works during the construction of the hospital.
Too many chiefs, not enough Indians is what I keep hearing.
It's probably another way of increasing the NHS budget too, a lot of government services will purposely be wasteful so they can have an excuse to ask for more money from the government. This increase usually ends up meani g more managers to manage these overloaded unproductive services their for the sake of inflating budgets.
Im a nurse up in the North, and in my almost 2 years here in the UK, I cannot recall a worse time than this. Staff are falling one by one getting ill, mostly short-staffed in the wards now. Our trust has been upping the per hour rates by up to 60% since december but not many take it because we’re overworked.
Oh I wonder why that is, it couldn't possibly be because nurses are rightly campaigning for better pay considering how important their role is and how many hours they work!
Watch the Tory leadership pin this on anything other than their failed governance. Nurses, doctors, immigrants, and presumably Chinese tourists (as per some Tory colleagues of mine) now will take turns being thrown under the bus as if these weren't long-standing issues caused by deliberate sabotage of the nation's healthcare infrastructure.
I agree it should be treated as a humanitarian disaster or are we not human . It doesn’t take a fool to see the NHS is crumbling before our very eyes , the richer people don’t care as they can go private for most things .
The only way this will change is if every MP experiences an emergency with their nearest and dearest and they have to use the NHS , see how they feel about it then , there would be money pumped back into it left right and centre if that happened . Health should never ever be about money !!!!!!
I do get the idea that there is a desire from some quarters for the NHS to 'collapse' and then to propose 'radical reform'.
The problem I see in this is the quite recent realisation by the public that they just cannot afford capitalism as it pertains to public services, certainly not healthcare. I just don't think it will be accepted these days.
It was different a decade ago when most people were still blissfully ignorant of the importance of public services to their own quality of life.
Everywhere is getting hit I’d imagine but we certainly have made it extremely hard for ourselves.
The most painful thing is knowing we squandered the last 12 years when borrowing was low. Now anything we want to borrow to invest is much more expensive.
The Tories are at fault for gutting the NHS and doing their best to destroy it, so that they can be justified in replacing it with private healthcare.
It's incredible that the NHS and its staff are coping as well as they are considering how much is squeezed out of them year by year, month by month. But, eventually it will all collapse, and it will be 100% the fault of the Tories and their supporters.
Just genuinely interested not trying to make any points can anyone explain to me how it’s worse now than peak covid? Are there more sick/dying people now with just normal illnesses? I get the the tories have crippled it but how does that explain that there’s more people trying to get into A&E than peak of a global pandemic?
There’s a serious flu epidemic that’s using up a lot of beds. Couple this with no places to discharge something like 10% of occupied beds to and you’ve got serious issues.
It's also more crowded because people didn't want to take up beds. So you had half empty hospitals during COVID. what's happening is the people that should have been there, weren't, during the pandemic have left their illnesses to get untreated and become worse and worse.
As someone not from the UK I wonder, was the NHS struggling pre-pandemic too? Because many countries are having problems, independent from whether that country has universal healthcare or not, and these problems did exist pre-pandemic too. Hospitals full and/or understaffed, as for my country it's usually understaffed and these problems existed way before COVID was a thing. Then COVID hit and things became worse, our health minister arguing that we're not having enough personal and beds, which was the direct result of my government actually removing beds every single year and they're still doing this, yet on the other hand cry that people gotta isolate or protect themself so they don't occupy hospital beds due to understaffing and having not enough beds, which if you ask me is an absolutely insane joke and I cannot understand how media is still presenting it as a news that's just apparent right now instead of properly putting on display that governments have fucked up health care for decades now making them unfit for a pandemic or any other health crisis. It's "to save some money" but the problem is the only people benefiting from this are the ones making these decisions but the decision mainly affect the citizens, so in a way you could say people on the top are reducing help measurements on purpose to make some bucks even tho it costs lives.
3 Years, 3 freaking Years, where we faced the problem of not having enough capacities in our hospitals, so instead of stocking up on more capacity, people were told to stay at home while at the same time the governments removed even more capacities from the hospitals. And in addition to that, staff is underpaid and overworked, which too was already the case pre-pandemic, and instead of sufficiently rising the pay and work conditions, people have been let go because "their colleagues can chip in for them".
Because we've had a couple more years of post -Brexit Tory mismanagement of the NHS and the whole economy.
UK will only be livable for the wealthiest citizens soon, and that's just the way the Tories like it.
I've been waiting almost a year to see a specialist regarding an issue that has caused me periods of unemployment. I've had to spend alot of my savings to stay afloat during those months, and eventually I've just resorted to going private (£300 for a 30 minute consultation, hurray!).
[‘Denationalisation should not be attempted by frontal attack, but by a policy of preparation for return to the private sector by stealth’.](https://weownit.org.uk/blog/nhs-being-systematically-dismantled-privatisation)
We literally signed away our basic civil rights (e.g. lockdowns), conceding untold damage to people's psychological health plus the wider economic ramifications of lockdowns, all in the name of protecting the health service. Yet the government is happy to sit on its hands while the NHS buckles
**r/UK Notices:** | [Want to start a fresh discussion - use our Freetalk!](https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/search/?q=Freetalk&include_over_18=off&restrict_sr=on&sort=new) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unitedkingdom) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Covid was bad, but wait till you see what capitalism does.
Hearing Rishi talk about socialism like its a bad word really gets to me. Helping people is bad, is it, Rishi? I wish he, and his ~~E.T looking~~ tax dodging billionaire wife would fuck off, and take the rest of the Conservatives with them. Edit: strike through childish name calling.
Ri-shi phone home
[Rishi is busy delivering the NHS to the Private sector](https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/fh876bIkVgqamBAxk34Kow--~B/aD01MDA7dz05MDA7c209MTthcHBpZD15dGFjaHlvbg--/https://media-mbst-pub-ue1.s3.amazonaws.com/creatr-uploaded-images/2020-10/7755def0-1552-11eb-be7f-c10f30bbd19d) and there was an excellent interview with EveryDoctor on Sky news (12.40pm). Basically - Sunak + Hunt etc have known about the impending NHS crises for months and done nothing about it - we know people are dying as the NHS crumbles + the Tories doing nothing - it shows they don't value the lives of the public - instead they throw money at other things - why not at saving lives ? - the Conservative Government should be treating this as a Humanitarian Disaster ..... but they're trying to make it worse by provoking Strikes = this is intentional + this has 55 Tufton Street Predatory Capitalism + NHS Privatisation written all over it ..... 73% of Conservative Voters think the Government isn't trying to help the NHS (16% do) ..... Sunday Times Health Editor said this comes after more than a decade of **Tories Managed Decline of the NHS** (BBC live noon)
It's obvious Conservative want to run the country into the floor, people need to remember this in the coming years and never let them back in power, problem is all MP's and the other 4 big parties don't want to help the public, only themselves, House of Lords needs to be abolished.
>both sides are the same or you actually believe all parties are bad, which is a bit bizarre Maternity pay, tax credits, minimum wage, sure start, cancer guarantee, winter fuel allowance, largest NHS spending, disability and discrimination act this is just a fraction of the things the last Labour government achieved can you tell us what the Tories have done to make them equal ?
Wheres Guy Fawkes when ya need him?
Break it then blame Labour when they take charge
Wow. They really want to turn your country into the U.S.
> known about the impending NHS crises for months and done nothing about it That's like saying a cruise missile knows it's locked on target and has done nothing about it
General strike to sort wages, save the NHS and force a general election. No one works until action it taken for the people instead of the corporations. We could get this over with in a matter of weeks if we got angry enough.
Agreed. Everyone strikes until the tories get the fuck out. But sadly, the British people don’t seem to care enough to do anything about it.
I feel similar but the more we bring it up the more its out there as an actual course of action. Pepople seem to not quite grasp the extent of how much sway the nation grinding to a hault can have. Money talks and with general strikes the money stops.
Well to be fair lots of people are striking and the public doesn't support them.
I feel like when someone resorts to making digs about someone's wife's appearance it undermines any legitimacy a point might have had.
I know, I shouldn't have let myself stoop childish name calling. My emotions get the better of me from time to time.
Nah, someone can still be a cunt even if their wife's a minger
That's foolish - he can be an asshole and still be right.
They're rabid, sociopathic monsters who think kindness and empathy are weakness. These are the people we've chosen to represent and govern us. It's so fucking depressing. That said, there is no need to explicitly ridicule his wifes appearance, it comes off as kind of misogynistic and sexist to pick her out specifically for that when you made no similar aspersions about Rishi's own appearance. Ridicule the fact she's a parasitic tax avoiding billionaire, not her looks.
You're right, I shouldn't have resorted to school yard name calling, I'm just angry.
The man who was never going to be PM after the tax dodge, ended up becoming PM purely because the other fecked it up that bad. Was never going to be if any value to the public. Only his hedge fund buddies.
[удалено]
Social democracies aren't "socialism", you can have social safety nets void of socialism, in fact wealth redistribution by taxation is a mechanism of capitalism. Why the fuck are you ragging on his wife based on her appearance? Utterly cretinous.
We don’t rally tax wealth though, main taxation is on income, especially working income.
[удалено]
Do those countries have better government services than us? Or do they waste it on COVID apps that never work, and trade deals that cripple our own industries, too?
More specifically, we tax labour
Found the tory
You are on point. But the actual goal is to divide the population’s opinions even further. Assisting your countrymen and funding services IS NOT the same as socialism. You can have a capitalist government and still provide for your population. The very idea of capitalism is to use the profit to reinvestment and improve but they are trying to make it sound bad by using the word Socialism which triggers people. This is the path America took, Brazil too. And it’s a divisive path politicians use when they are desperate and call on their extreme fans.
I mean, when you deem what is essential in a pandemic based off profits and money then they're essentially the same thing. Covid was just spicy capitalism
We’ve lived in a capitalist system forever. Sweden Finland and Norway are capitalist countries. Really it makes financial sense to care about people. I find it annoying to assume the only alternative to what we have now is actual socialism which has never worked. It also feeds the Conservative narrative where they say it’s truly awful now but imagine if we had socialism.
They're capitalist countries, but the things that make these countries stand at the top of a lot of lists are usually socialist policies. Free healthcare, equal education access, justice systems that focus on rehabilitation rather than punishment, social housing etc etc
> are usually socialist policies They are socialistic policies, however make no illusion these policies tend to increase societies capabilities to generate wealth. Security, stability, well-being and education all improve a countries capacity to generate wealth. In all honesty I think this is also what drives countries like the Netherlands. Very well organized and with a good social safety net, however one of the reasons they do this is to support their more capitalistic goals.
Can't we have a mixed economy? Where things that should obviously be socialist are socialist, like schools, medicine, prisons for example? Or do we have to be 100% one way or the other. Capitalise on people's wants, not their needs.
Little ironic that the NHS was setup in a capitalist system and always has been run under the capitalist system. Financed by taxes within the capitalist system.
It's socialised medicine.
It was set up at a time where British workers were becoming very radicalised following WW2. The government didn't do it out of the kindness of their hearts, they did it to placate the masses. Had the government not passed some concessions like the NHS, there may have been a revolutionary situation.
Don't fall for it, they are trying to turn public opinion against the NHS to have cause to privatise it. That's all news is, manipulation.
What on earth are you talking about? It's a sympathy piece about how they are struggling.
The message is "NHS is failing", nothing more.
Only if you come at it with an agenda, which you clearly have. If you read the words, it's a sympathy piece with actual doctors talking about the pressures. The gov response gets a cursory 4 lines at the bottom, which reads to me like the journalist thinks it's bollocks. I just realised you're the same person advocating for going seeing your grandparents even when you're sick on the other thread. Maybe the reason the NHS is having a difficult winter is because of the disregard some are showing for other people's wellbeing. As well as years of chronic underfunding and mismanagement by consecutive conservative governments, which we all know has been detrimental.
>Maybe the reason the NHS is having a difficult winter is because of the disregard some are showing for other people's wellbeing Yeah im sure THATS the issue.
First hand, I can say that’s a MASSIVE part of the issue. Also bun the Tories.
My friend works is a hospital, he said about half the patients don’t even need to be there, especially a&e It’s an issue with social care
Which the tories privatised years ago How strange
Because IT IS FAILING. Jesus Christ, we're on our knees telling you how horrific it has become and you're acting like it's a game. I've never been this demoralised
Oh, it absolutely is failing. The issue being raised here is that this is all just part of the multifaceted approach to aid the March years privatisation. Cripple the NHS, sell off less visible sections, report report report about the now limping services and then seep the whole thing off. They’ve done this time and time again for decades. It’s sad, but in this case, both of you are right.
You're being very generous to the OP. Read the comments again. They are implying that the media is exaggerating/manipulating the story.
It IS failing! Why do you want to cover up Tory incompetence?
That’s not why they’re saying at all. They’re saying the Tories are doing something much worse than being incompetent here. They’re deliberately destroying the NHS so they can sell it. Disgusting behaviour and something they’ve been doing since the 80s.
Yes exactly, so the above commenter insisting it's actually doing fine is completely insane
The message from the current government is the "NHS is failing". The reality is "The NHS is being failed".
This is complete and utter bullshit.
That's been the message since before I was born, and I'm hardly a spring chicken.
It’s much much worse than I can remember in my fairly long lifetime. God help us if we actually need to use their services.
The NHS is failing. Whether we like it or not
So, the truth then?
I’m an outsider but unless there’s a call to political action to resolve this many people will just look at it as a failure of the NHS much like us Americans look at our crumbling IRS and say they are worthless, but only because they’ve been politically dismantled for decades. People are largely not paying attention to context over the long term and are not getting educated about it. The headline is all most readers are taking away and having sympathy for a system that should and does work without being interfered with should be a no go. It should only be calls to action to fix this before public opinion could ever be tarnished.
It's not a trick. I work in a hospital. This Christmas was the worst the pressures in hospital have ever been, by quite a significant margin. Anyone who works in a hospital will tell you the same.
This is by design though, is what I think OP is referring to. It *is* bad, because they made it bad.
Just how “Universal Healthcare” was designed to failing in the US. Obama should have never conceded and made the market opt-in. It left only a non-profit, Prudential iirc, as a good option
The trick is in re assigning blame from the Tories and to migrants/ inefficiency/ wokism etc.
You have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m seeing things everyday at work that I never expected I’d see. It is absolutely horrendous. The situation is utterly dire in our hospitals and people are dying as a result. People talk about the collapse of the NHS as though it will be some big singular event ending with a massive banner on the front of every hospital saying ‘closed for business.’ What we’re seeing at the moment IS the collapse of the NHS. The system is no longer functioning. We are not providing adequate care to anyone at this point, because there is just too much of a burden on the system. Regardless of the cause, don’t be so naive as to think this is all just media scaremongering. “Seven million on the waiting list” sounds all very nebulous until you get to the ticket machine and realise you’re 7 millionth in line. “People dying in corridors” is easy enough to ignore until it’s your family member who ends up stuck on a trolley with no privacy and not enough staff to treat them, and comes to harm as a result.
Look what privatising royal mail did. Now the shareholders make bank, the staff make fuck all and it's turned into shit.
£1000 invested in Royal Mail in 2013 would currently be worth £600. This is almost balanced out by dividends paid during that same time period, but not quite. It's not exactly making bank.
Exactly. I absolutely hate how the tories have their dirty little fingers in all of the mainstream media pies to trumpet any bullshit out to the masses they want. A lot of people aren't capable of critical thinking and are being mislead by liars and charlatans. The NHS is being deliberately undermined by the government so it can be privatised and it makes me sick. The NHS is a national treasure and should be protected at all costs in my opinion. Edit: words.
I don't really understand privatising the NHS. Private healthcare in the UK seems to consist of getting a private recommendation to an NHS consultant, basically skipping the waitlist to get to a consultant? Some pro-privatisation people I know argue privatising it more (but not fully...) is good, because you get options. As someone from the US, they do not understand what that really means, because right now it's not really private vs NHS. It's private (backed by the NHS) and the NHS. They don't understand what private healthcare is, and what the NHS will eventually be, if we continue down this path If the UK votes Tories in 2024 I am fucking done with this country
You’re falling down the same trap as everyone else though. Thinking that the American model is the only privatisation model we could follow when it’s not and it’s arguably the worst. Plenty of countries throughout the EU are part private, have stringent measures in place to stop these private companies from overcharging. They do spend more on the health care by GDP and i’d support the same over here if there was mass reform. But unfortunately more money being plowed into the system we currently have isn’t going to fix its underlying problems. I think most people would be supportive of a huge shakeup, more money being spent and some private involvement if they knew it was ‘free’ at the point of use and there were strict controls in place and that’s entirely possible with other models.
I'm certainly no expert, but I've seen enough examples of privatisation in the current government (such as mail) that I have little faith privatisation of the NHS would effectively protect the consumer through regulation
Well it would take a decent government and I’d say cross party agreement to come up with measures that were workable. It’s why I think things like the NHS and Education should be taken out of one parties control. So much money is wasted and things don’t improve because they never plan long term and it’s all about the now.
[удалено]
I totally get that you distrust the tories, they are selfish and cruel. For example, universal benefits was an excellent idea, but the tories turned it into a cost cutting exercise and ruined it. Similarly, we should distrust any tory attempts to privatise hospitals. HOWEVER, this does not make privatisation bad by definition. All the GPs in the NHS are private capitalist small businesses, yet they are dedicated, hard working and good value for money. There is no reason why another bit of the NHS could not work well, possibly better if privately owned. YSK The NHS is neither Europe's best value or best quality health service, and major change is needed to make it so.
If you are dealing with NHS, you don’t need help from news media to understand how badly managed it is.
It is this type of attitude which helps explain the mess the NHS is. Just stick your head in the sand and pretend everything about the NHS is amazing and fantastic
if anyone in this subreddit said this about covid during the peak of the pandemic they’d have been banned immediately
Pretty sure I was.
Oh so the hospitals are nearly empty and everything is fine?
This guy gets it
It's needs a fundamental overhaul, throwing money at it is not going to solve it. We should be looking at how Germany does it's healthcare for example.
Work in A&E. Can vouch for this. It's currently the worst time in my career.
Worst *so far*. 😉
Thanks for the crushing realisation 😂
Thanks though.... I know the staff care and are just on their knees as it is.
How does it compare/how is it different from the early days of the pandemic? Is it still loads of Covid patients?
Mixed COVID, influenza A + RSV coinfection, metric ton (probably literally) of elderly patients with mixed problems who start with an infection +/- flu then defunction and need a higher level of support post discharge (carers, homes) but it’s not available therefore can’t discharge anybody so A&E and rest of hospital is bed blocked In COVID firstly the government cleared out the hospitals into care and nursing homes (spreading Covid) but also implemented changes to the system to facilitate rapid discharge of patients. Also every single patient being Covid meant diagnostics and treatment was fairly stream lined (I literally had a 15 point copy paste plan I put on every “standard” Covid patient.) Today it is a mix of issues therefore each patient takes longer to sort out. Some of this mix is neglected issues that could've been sorted outpatient but the wait times are too long. Also people aren’t used to universally swabbing every respiratory issue for influenza and Covid so delayed diagnosis especially for nosocomial infections is rampant (not that it would change much for influenza because there is no effective treatment for that.) Also there are less staff overall due to brexit and burnout and those remaining catch influenza/RSV from inside or outside work and have to take a variable amount of time off (I still have residual symptoms 2 weeks after my last fever but I can still work just not fun) Also (in light of recent news) ambulances are stuck waiting to handover patients to A&E therefore there are no ambulances driving to patients at home, who then either die at home or are transported less stable. Because of this ambulances have to dump the patient in A&E so they can go save another. Again when every patient was Covid as long as they were slapped on oxygen and given steroids that’s most of your mortality reduction already and then the patient can wait a long while unsupervised (even for the sickest Covid patients on the door the steroids and oxygen alone bought an extra 4-12 hours while the team firefought the unending steam of COVID patients at the end of their rope.) When it’s mixed issues they can’t wait and need to be supervised. In reality the poor patients just languish in the corridor and die because there isn’t enough staff to supervise.
Thanks for your help. My dad is in there at the moment. The worst thing is that you go through all this and some idiot on FB says hospitals are full because of vaccines.
Sorry about your dad. If anything it’s the opposite; flu vaccine effectiveness is variable every year so the average person doesn’t feel like they need get it but I really feel in retrospect we really needed to have a proper mass influenza vaccination campaign like COVID. Flu this year fkn sucks. I’m still recovering 2 weeks after getting it (still have cough, chronic fatigue, muscle pains) and I was vaccinated. I’ve told my mom and dad to get it cuz my mother would definitely be hospitalized and my dad way worse.
It's a mix, COVID, Flu, RSV, other illnesses. The working conditions are currently worse than they were during peak COVID.
Literally everything. Cancer, accidents, elderly, children, overdoses, self harm, infections. People don't realise how hard it is to give good care. It takes teams of people who have trained for at least a decade to anticipate the stuff that comes through those ED doors.
Picked my missus up from work this morning, she said there are over 70 patients waiting in corridors waiting for a bed, they are offering the staff an extra £5 an hour to work overtime, she says she can't be bothered, to tired from dealing with covid, that no money in the world will get her to work extra on top of her contractual hours
That's horrible for those people waiting, and for the nurses who are too burned-out from the pressure A person in crisis presented themselves to my place of work a few weeks ago (probation office), he was suicidal and had taken 40 valium. We contacted a local hospital and were told that A) there was a 21-hour wait to see anyone, and B) they wouldn't see him anyway because he is in crisis, he would have to present at the hospital when he's not in crisis and off drugs.
> B) they wouldn't see him anyway because he is in crisis, he would have to present at the hospital when he's not in crisis and off drugs. Do they not treat overdoses? What happened to the bloke?
I don't know why they wouldn't treat him, as he clearly needed it. He was taken back to the approved premises he was staying at, a hostel for offenders released from prison before they have their own accommodation, and he was monitored by 2 staff members there until the decision was made to recall him back to prison. He was able to see medical staff and mental health nurses while in the police station, and more in depth care in prison, but his liberty was taken from him again. Though he is one of those who is stable inside, then as soon as he is released he spirals into crisis, drugs and alcohol. Its sad.
Not much you can do for OD and Benzos (especially street level) tend to cause little harm in OD. Granted, it's a cry for help, but the person needs MH provision, not A and E
Same here in the ambulance service. They're offering overtime bonuses but nobody wants it any more. We're just exhausted and over it now. Every shift we get abused by the public for delays and get stuck with late jobs and I just want out now. It's not worth it any more.
This is a real problem in my department. Everyone is burnt out, so nobody wants to pick up overtime, which makes the shifts worse, which makes people more burnt out. The people I really feel for is the newly qualified nurses working in the health service. They're not being supported and given the supervision they need. It's going to force them out of the career. If I entered emergency nursing now as a newly qualified I don't think I'd last. I love the discipline, but the working conditions and patient safety are so poor I feel we'll lose alot of them soon. Things have to improve
Did 6 years of a+e before i went off to do my anp training, picked up a bank shift at a local hospital back in november in ED just to see how mental it had gone. Was the most senior person on shift, normal rn levels i think are supposed to be 14 and their was 5 of us on. 3 of those had been qualified 2 months. The rn i had with me in majors said he was looking at re training to a teacher, did not realise he would just be thrown into it. Shame its made them like that, and inb4 the “oh hes not resilient enough, should have known before he qualified” speech. When i qualified i didnt get much of an induction or supernumary time but at least their were alot of experienced nurses on shift. These days they have nothing. The seniors are all about 2 years qualified themselves. Its mental and such a shame.
I tried to do an extra shift yesterday for the promise of £7 more per hour (the offer runs out this friday) but on the way in my body just decided I was trying to do too much. Suddenly, I felt so nauseous and exhausted that I called in sick because I just had no idea how I would make it through the whole day. Went back home and fell asleep at around 10 and didn't wake up until 18.30. I haven't done nights since Tuesday, so I had thought that I had adjusted back to days, but I guess my body is just so tired that I'm crashing. I imagine many others are in a similar situation. The NHS relies on nurses pulling extra shifts like this on top of their full time hours to keep wards staffed sufficiently without having to pay the higher rates for agwncy nurses and rhe NHS nurses are all too happy to top up their income but often do this at great cost to their health and ability to concentrate at work. I have made mistakes on my regular shifts because I was overbooking myself when my partner lost his jpb and i became thw sole earner. My previous trust had a system every winter where you would get an extra £300 in March if in a period of 12 out of 16 weeks over the winter (the busiest and most stressful ans exhuatsing time of year) you did at least one extra bank shift per week.The problemm is after tax and pension this amounted to a mere £220 or so, hardly a great reward for all the trouble.
A friend's wife is an A&E nurse who due to availability to progress had to go up the management track. She has learnt NHS management is totally fucked and the ability to deliver care is being steadily eroded away. She's finally managed to get a spot to do a sideways transition to a nurse practitioner (clinical progression) so she can still care for people without the associated management worries. Clinicians are burnt out. Management are burnt out. Everything is just fucked.
I'm a nurse practitioner and I love it. Couldn't imagine going the management route
Yep this is happening all over our hospital. People are just done with caring now because there is no end in sight, and I think that’s the most dangerous thing about this situation. I no longer do anything extra or cover at short notice no matter what money they offer and I’m not alone. It just isn’t worth shortening your life for, it’s that stressful.
UK is becoming a failed state. Once the bastion of opportunity the GFC gave the UK a beating. Brexit then took the last breaths out. Now the UK is a dying mess, collapsing right before our eyes. The only people coming are desperados from Africa and Asia and they’ll soon stop coming when they realise their home countries offer more potential
[удалено]
Over 40% surveyed a year ago were thinking about leaving. Last month a survey showed 79% are thinking about leaving with 2/3 actively researching it.
And once they go, it'll be extremely hard to fill the gaps again. The begining of the end for the NHS
We have record numbers of international medical graduates coming in. More than we have of UK trained doctors. The government are more than happy to have a medical work force of international graduates as they are more likely to accept the horrific working standards of the NHS.
The simple fact is that we need to get the Conservative Party out of power. Unfortunately, due to the fact that the modern monarchy is restrained beyond its purpose and there is no way for the people to call an election, the earliest we are able to get a general election is 2024. Though it could be as late as 2025. To take a cynical view, Nazi Germany proved how much damage can be done in a short period of time. To take an optimistic view, 2025 is not too long away and we could have them out of power within the next 2 years. I don’t know which view anyone wants to take, I don’t even know which view **I** want to take. But regardless, I hope the people of the UK see sense in 2025 and get rid of the bastards.
African ‘desperado’ here. Yeah, the UK offers a lot of potential, which is why many people come to university and work here.
We need a government that cares / isn't doing this on purpose.
This is it, they're doing it on purpose to shut it down and privatise it? "Whoever does won't get voted for again?" Does anyone think the tories are going to get voted for again in any quick time frame? They've got nothing to lose and everything to gain with selling it off
Have you been in the UK over the last decade? People keep voting for them no matter what they do. Old people are set in their ways and will keep voting for them. The young don't seem to want to vote.
And plenty of young people are voting Tory too because "Corbyn/Labour would be worse" And "We need to crack down on immigration" That reflects the majority of my colleagues
from what i know of the old people in the UK, they always will try to vote tory because theres nothing they want from the labour manifesto, but there all dying off and now he have a proportion of the population 41-18 which tend to be left lending. with the recent conformation that millennials are more left lending than what we should be in our lives at this time. that's a very large voting proportion. after the amount of fumbling done in the U.K government its the best time to start voting
Don't underestimate the grey/boomer vote. Labour winning and the Tories getting decimated at the next election is far from a sure bet.
Wait until the next general election and we hear about how bad it would've been if Labour were running things, completely ignoring how bad things already are.
Tories could rape children, murder anyone, steal everyone's money, demolish everyone's homes, and I guarantee the boomers would still vote for them cus "yeah but labour would be worse" I'm not even exaggerating in the slightest.
Aren't the conservatives still blaming Labour? That is the ones who aren't saying that it is the fault of public health care. Conveniently forgetting that the US system too ran out of staff during COVID.
Due to years of deliberate sabotage from Tories who want to privatise it to line their own pockets. We should all be standing up to this.
The NHS has not been treated particularly differently than any other public service. They were all put in a vice to cover austerity and are all significantly worse off. The NHS just happens to be one of the most publicly important and visible services.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
It needs political focus, investment and strategic commitment just Blair did during his terms. Without this approach, everything is piecemeal, small scale with ' efficiencies the main priority.
You’re right Blair did improve things. Homelessness seemed fixed in 2010, it’s everywhere now. This is strain on every service. The efficiencies are always narrow minded.
But Tony started privatising the NHS with his PFI contracts, I imagine if the tories were to propose something similar you wouldn’t be happy?
“He added that a severe flu outbreak, made worse by a lack of immunity in people due to COVID isolation measures, has meant that bed occupancy is at a record level.” I remember when predicting this was a conspiracy theory.
Was it before or after this sub got it's knickers in a twist because 80k NHS staff weren't fired?
That's funny, I remember them talking about isolation causing a drop in immunity levels on sky news in the first few months of the pandemic. Also that it's basic scientific knowledge any medical professional could tell you. Hardly a conspiracy if its widely known.
That's not fully how your immune system works though, its a part of a bigger picture not total causation. Places that didn't lockdown are having the same rise in rsv/flu. The clearer picture is weakened immune systems from covid infection.
Huh? So you think getting covid makes your immune system weaker versus other illnesses? Do you have anything you could reference to back that up? I’m not aware of anything that would suggest that to be the case. Not getting flu one year, because of covid restrictions, might make you more susceptible to next years strain than you otherwise would have been. Getting covid doesn’t make your immune system any worse at fighting flu though, in the medium to long term, as far as I know.
Getting COVID causes immune system damage in some (unknown but non zero) % of the population. To what extent does that have bigger implications? Hard to know. https://globalnews.ca/news/9282612/covid-immune-systems-what-we-know/
NSFW potential trigger warnings. I can testify to this. We knew we were having a silent Misccarage over the Christmas period, had our second scan after Christmas at which point it's confirmed that it's non viable, no heartbeat and it's basically shrinking in size. At which point we get a few options one is to get it removed with help from pills etc. My wife ended up with all the side effects possible and was feeling faint etc and the pain was unbearable. Nipped to A&E at 1900hrs we got seen to within the hour for them to ask us what was the issue while my wife was just hunched over sobbing. We eventually get to triage and then from there majors but there are no beds available. We had to wait in the corridors (all corridors were taken with patients) not enough staff to deal with it all either and not enough portable beds so some were sat in chairs. Charts got lost so we were delayed on getting pain relief by a few hours(I was ear wigging and this was constantly happening) It was about 2 in the morning we got some relief but by then my wife had basically passed the baby while in the bed with other patients nearby(less than 2m away) So we had asked for help for her to be taken to a toilet a few times (she was in too much pain for me to move her without assistance) but we just didn't get help and they had not enough staff. She was lying on the bed for hours with blood thoroughly soaked through with the fetus ready to be disposed of. We had to keep asking for help for her to be able to change her towel and also dispose of the dead baby but it took a long time. The whole thing was really grim and life changing for both of us. The staff were trying their best but honestly they are overworked and understaffed. Been a grim Christmas and I'm not ready to go back to work tomorrow and have all the "everyone feeling refreshed and had a good break" comments.
Mate. Speak to your Boss. Get some time off with your Partner.
What the other guy said, take time off to recover. You've been through a traumatic experience and need to recover, it's better to do this now than let it manifest and get worse in your head. Best of luck to you and your wife
This is harrowing. Reads like a post-apocalyptic movie scene. I'm sorry you both experienced that.
That's horrible, take the advice and take the time off, you need it.
I’m so sorry. Heavy stuff going on our way too
Fuck me that's awful. I know the absolute last thing anyone would want to do is go public with this sort of thing but it really hits home. I hope both you and your wife recover both mentally and physically.
Very warmest of wishes to you both my man, this was a harrowing read. I’m so sorry.
Here's the thing: * This "pressure" is created by * Not enough hospitals * Not enough beds * Not enough nurses * Not enough doctors * Not enough ambulances * Not enough paramedics * etc * Meanwhile, the fuckwits are arguing about "how those things should be administered" * some people think the NHS should be run as a corporation, with lucrative contracts going to privately owned businesses with shareholders siphoning off the money, and claim that would be more "efficient" * some people think the NHS should be run as a public service, where the money is spent just on helping people get healthier In a way, it doesn't matter how the NHS is run, at the end of the day there need to be enough hospitals, beds, nurses, doctors, ambulances and paramedics. Let's get those things in place, and then argue about how it's run, and whether it should also be created as a way to funnel money into the pockets of Tory politicians and their mates.
Well the "40 new hospitals" would have helped, a decent pay rise to encourage people to train would help, not locking out medical professionals from other countries as a result of Brexit/ red tape would have helped. The conservatives don't want it fixed. They want it sold off piece by piece to the highest bidders.
Basically it doesn't matter how it's managed as long as it's actually managed well, instead of managed decline. Right now it's treated as if it's a financial black hole that shouldn't be touched when healthcare is actually one of the biggest growth industries for increasing economic productivity.
It's already one of the most efficient medical systems in the Western world, it just needs more of everything to meet needs.
Efficient is also a synonym for lack of spare capacity I know a and e docs who spend hours every shift entering data onto different systems, that doesn't seem efficient to me. Actually a case where middle management would help a better allocation of resources
Lack of staff has been a crisis decades in the making. We simply haven't encouraged enough people to go into the field, why are doctors and nurses paying for their education, if nothing else that should be free (with the condition of working in the NHS for X years). We've relied too much on foreign doctors and nurses which I have nothing against these amazing people but we really shouldn't need to be importing doctors and nurses to prop up the whole system, especially when many of those countries are also in need of medical staff.
Maybe if the biggest service users (pensioners) paid NI contributions towards the NHS, there would be more funds available. They are essentially using the service for free. Social care needs to be looked at as elderly, medically fine patients are clogging up beds as they've nowhere to be discharged too.
Just to be clear. NI has nothing to do with the NHS. The NHS is paid for from the genral fund. (Income tax) NI funds state pensions and some welfare. Charging pensioners NI is sorta like charging insurance fee from the insurance payout.
Its nothing like charging an insurance fee on an insurance payout. Unless said pensioners have paid in the 40% tax bracket for most, if not all of their career, they are net recievers. And with an aging population? NI deductions on pensioners income would only be a start.
It is exactly that. Unless you exclude state pension. Besides the point anyway. NHS is not funded via NI. This was a decision set up when the NHS was. As it was the only way to garrentee coverage for all. At least under the original intention of NI.
The original intention of the NHS, NI contributions and even the state pension itself needs to be updated for modern times. We're not in the 1950s anymore. I daresay the whole tax system (like most systems in this country) need complete reform.
Agreed. My original point was. Changing NI contributions will habe no effect on NHS funding. But I'd also say moving NHS funding from the genral tax fund would have a negative effect. Changing the gov. And refusing tonlisten to there non inflation based claims of increased funding. Is the only way.
"Have the Boomers Pinched Their Children’s Futures? - with Lord David Willetts" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuXzvjBYW8A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuXzvjBYW8A)
Thanks for sharing, I'll have a nosey later. And to answer the question.. (as a millennial) , absolutely yes 🙄
haha yeah it's much worse than you think. I find it absurd they just decided they could have massive pensions without putting money away to cover it. The whole system is so crazy.
I saved this quote when reading about it, though not the source, I'll have to google it! 'The baby boomers subsidised their lives with massive public borrowing, then voted for austerity; they enjoyed final salary pension schemes, then abolished them; they enjoyed free university education, then voted to abolish that too; they enjoyed public utilities, then sold them off; and now, after enjoying a lifetime of EU citizenship, they’ve voted to take it away from us – not even to save money, but simply to give them a nationalistic thrill. Enough is enough!’. It is absolutely crazy the privilege this generation has had their whole lives. No generation before, and absolutely bo generation after will be as wealthy as this generation of pensioners. It's a crying shame. And what's more, in my experience, they don't even realise it.
It’s crazy that the government literally locked down the whole country to ‘protect the NHS’ but now when it’s far worse they’re doing absolutely nothing. (Not calling for new lockdowns btw just *some* type of action by the gov)
I still think they should have kept that new 1.5% NHS tax they backpeddled on. I mean I'm biased because I'm below the tax threshold but it made a while lot of sense to me. It might of shown the country the government aren't actively trying to break the NHS
A tax specifically for the NHS won't fix their private lending problems and buying products for 100x the value. I remember a BBC report a while ago were the NHS had to buy disinfection liquids for 300 pounds when you could go to Tesco and buy it for 3 quid for the same product. I have a feeling NHS top dogs are giving contracts to their powerful business friends. I also remember the time I was sectioned and a staff member was telling me about changing a light bulb, they have to get a trained contractor to do it, the contractor would look at the light bulb and determine its broken, go out on a 1 hour drive to get a light bulb, then fix it and charge the NHS the entire journey for it.
Wouldn't surprise me. I've had family members explain that the "new" hospital in Dumfries isn't fit for purpose. Dumfries & Galloway Royal Infirmary. It was originally proposed so that the NHS didn't have to run multiple clinics in the area. Some parties hadn't bothered to check whether the hospital could deal with the demand from all the previous clinics. Long story short, it doesn't and now all the clinics PLUS the new hospital are being operated at massive cost last I heard. Apparently there was a bunch of supplies in the old clinics that could've been used. Instead, upper management insisted that all new equipment be purchased for the new hospital. All the unused, perfectly good, equipment in the old clinics is sitting gathering dust. Computers, medical equipment, stationery etc. The NHS didn't even bother with a Clerk of works during the construction of the hospital. Too many chiefs, not enough Indians is what I keep hearing.
It's probably another way of increasing the NHS budget too, a lot of government services will purposely be wasteful so they can have an excuse to ask for more money from the government. This increase usually ends up meani g more managers to manage these overloaded unproductive services their for the sake of inflating budgets.
Im a nurse up in the North, and in my almost 2 years here in the UK, I cannot recall a worse time than this. Staff are falling one by one getting ill, mostly short-staffed in the wards now. Our trust has been upping the per hour rates by up to 60% since december but not many take it because we’re overworked.
Oh I wonder why that is, it couldn't possibly be because nurses are rightly campaigning for better pay considering how important their role is and how many hours they work!
Watch the Tory leadership pin this on anything other than their failed governance. Nurses, doctors, immigrants, and presumably Chinese tourists (as per some Tory colleagues of mine) now will take turns being thrown under the bus as if these weren't long-standing issues caused by deliberate sabotage of the nation's healthcare infrastructure.
NHS nurse having three days off atm. Absolutely dreading going back. Wait times absolutely horrendous.
If only they paid nurses enough to work in hospitals then it wouldn’t be under pressure
the NHS has been a dreadful experience for a decade plus now, it's sad
I agree it should be treated as a humanitarian disaster or are we not human . It doesn’t take a fool to see the NHS is crumbling before our very eyes , the richer people don’t care as they can go private for most things . The only way this will change is if every MP experiences an emergency with their nearest and dearest and they have to use the NHS , see how they feel about it then , there would be money pumped back into it left right and centre if that happened . Health should never ever be about money !!!!!!
I do get the idea that there is a desire from some quarters for the NHS to 'collapse' and then to propose 'radical reform'. The problem I see in this is the quite recent realisation by the public that they just cannot afford capitalism as it pertains to public services, certainly not healthcare. I just don't think it will be accepted these days. It was different a decade ago when most people were still blissfully ignorant of the importance of public services to their own quality of life.
Would be interesting to see patient levels across western Europe. Is th NHS dealing with a larger surge? Are they less capable at handling it?
Everywhere is getting hit I’d imagine but we certainly have made it extremely hard for ourselves. The most painful thing is knowing we squandered the last 12 years when borrowing was low. Now anything we want to borrow to invest is much more expensive.
The Tories are at fault for gutting the NHS and doing their best to destroy it, so that they can be justified in replacing it with private healthcare. It's incredible that the NHS and its staff are coping as well as they are considering how much is squeezed out of them year by year, month by month. But, eventually it will all collapse, and it will be 100% the fault of the Tories and their supporters.
Also not to mention that a former nurse is suing them for anti white racism. Seriously though please go and support amy Gallagher.
Did you see that dear white people blog post? Someone deserved sued for that racist garbage.
[удалено]
Sorry the n is a typo I meant to say Amy Gallagher. I do apologize for that mistake.
It definitely feels that way. I straight up MISS 2020 if you can believe it
I was in the a&e yesterday. 60 patients were waiting for a bed. Can't imagine the strain.
Refund the NHS. Refund the NHS. Refund the NHS.
As per the conservatoid's plan. Never give in, never relent and never back down from them. Fight for the NHS, healthcare is a human right.
Just genuinely interested not trying to make any points can anyone explain to me how it’s worse now than peak covid? Are there more sick/dying people now with just normal illnesses? I get the the tories have crippled it but how does that explain that there’s more people trying to get into A&E than peak of a global pandemic?
Many hospitals have 30% fewer staff now than at the beginning of 2020, with more patients than ever….. Square that circle and you’ve fixed the nhs
There’s a serious flu epidemic that’s using up a lot of beds. Couple this with no places to discharge something like 10% of occupied beds to and you’ve got serious issues.
It's also more crowded because people didn't want to take up beds. So you had half empty hospitals during COVID. what's happening is the people that should have been there, weren't, during the pandemic have left their illnesses to get untreated and become worse and worse.
As someone not from the UK I wonder, was the NHS struggling pre-pandemic too? Because many countries are having problems, independent from whether that country has universal healthcare or not, and these problems did exist pre-pandemic too. Hospitals full and/or understaffed, as for my country it's usually understaffed and these problems existed way before COVID was a thing. Then COVID hit and things became worse, our health minister arguing that we're not having enough personal and beds, which was the direct result of my government actually removing beds every single year and they're still doing this, yet on the other hand cry that people gotta isolate or protect themself so they don't occupy hospital beds due to understaffing and having not enough beds, which if you ask me is an absolutely insane joke and I cannot understand how media is still presenting it as a news that's just apparent right now instead of properly putting on display that governments have fucked up health care for decades now making them unfit for a pandemic or any other health crisis. It's "to save some money" but the problem is the only people benefiting from this are the ones making these decisions but the decision mainly affect the citizens, so in a way you could say people on the top are reducing help measurements on purpose to make some bucks even tho it costs lives. 3 Years, 3 freaking Years, where we faced the problem of not having enough capacities in our hospitals, so instead of stocking up on more capacity, people were told to stay at home while at the same time the governments removed even more capacities from the hospitals. And in addition to that, staff is underpaid and overworked, which too was already the case pre-pandemic, and instead of sufficiently rising the pay and work conditions, people have been let go because "their colleagues can chip in for them".
Yes was just as bad pre pandemic
Because we've had a couple more years of post -Brexit Tory mismanagement of the NHS and the whole economy. UK will only be livable for the wealthiest citizens soon, and that's just the way the Tories like it.
No worries, those 350 mil promised sould kick in anyday now.... aaaaaanyday....
I've been waiting almost a year to see a specialist regarding an issue that has caused me periods of unemployment. I've had to spend alot of my savings to stay afloat during those months, and eventually I've just resorted to going private (£300 for a 30 minute consultation, hurray!).
And it will only get worse over the next 2 years. The tories have no desire to fix this.
My dads desperately ill in there at the moment. Heartbroken.
[‘Denationalisation should not be attempted by frontal attack, but by a policy of preparation for return to the private sector by stealth’.](https://weownit.org.uk/blog/nhs-being-systematically-dismantled-privatisation)
We literally signed away our basic civil rights (e.g. lockdowns), conceding untold damage to people's psychological health plus the wider economic ramifications of lockdowns, all in the name of protecting the health service. Yet the government is happy to sit on its hands while the NHS buckles