And the problem with "visions" is they aren't always accurate,believable or come true. Lets have less of the Mystic Meg vibe and a concrete plan please. Which includes increasing the number of GP's, nurses and hospital staff for starters.
Yes. My sister is a recently qualified NHS consultant. Her job is impossible to do well, because she is so overworked. She’s trained for it for 20 years and is trying to figure out what else she can do if she resigns now. She is the most efficient person I know and she is traumatised by the number of extremely sick patients she has and by the fact that she can’t properly care for them because her team is so understaffed. One of the three or four doctors who works for her has just gone on sick leave due to stress, so she is even more overworked. If she goes on holiday she has to cancel a clinic because no-one can cover for her. It’s not an NHS anymore.
My sons both work in the NHS and frankly its more like a third world country. Its not fit for purpose in its current state. One son has worked there for 11 years but he is becoming so disillusioned I wouldn't be surprised if he leaves.
I live in France and there are plenty of things wrong with the way things work but the Health System is fantastic. Everywhere works to the same rules and regulations. It can be annoying at times especially the paperwork. One of the important things like aftercare and bed blocking doesn't occur here. I live in a very small town of about 1000 people but there is a new hospital for just this being finished at the moment. I payment up front of 25 euros for seeing the GP same day face to face appointment. About 60 to 70%is then put back into your bank account. Because I have no thyroid i.e. a lifetime illness all of my treatment is free including any operations etc.etc. and all medications. The trouble is in the UK people will not tolerate paying to see a GP even if it's only about £7 they are so used to not paying for anything on the NHS.
In the UK universal credit is paid well after people qualify for it, so if we had this system poor people would have to choose between food and medical care, before having their medical care refunded (IDS never really cared about people at the bottom of the pile) but yes I agree with what you say about France and the French healthcare system. Similar method of paying upfront and then being refunded in Ireland and in Australia, I think.
I had an orthopaedic operation done in France nearly 20 years ago. U.K. surgeons look at my X rays in complete admiration for what they did over there, because the skill was so high. Another point, but not unrelated. When you don’t have enough porters / ICU beds to carry out an operation or complete your surgical list, you don’t get the experience of operating on patients (or training) that you need.
France know how to look after people. But you are also a more socialist leaning nation. The UK, and especially London, is PURE capitalism. Everything costs a mint. So people are either extremely wealthy or average or destitute. I don't believe the same extreme disparities exist in France.
But also, the NHS is a left-leaning idea. It's a socialist construct operating in a Capitalist environment. Therefore all the left or Labour or 'working class' will never accept a fee while the richest take it for free.
The UK is not a place anyone would want to live right now !
I agree that the U.K. is becoming one of these places that experiences net flows of human and financial capital elsewhere. We (the U.K.) have hired nurses from Africa, India and elsewhere to fill our own shortfall for so long, so can’t be shocked when U.K.-trained doctors and nurses say they now want to work in Australia and New Zealand.
Net human capital came from Europe. They came here because we paid better than their home countries. They then made their money and returned to their countries. It was win-win - pay lower salaries than UK workers expect and the expats will return in time to their European families, wives, children, partners.
We have to stop living in lala land. It's really quite depressing.
The U.K. inequality gap is become wider by the minute. More people jumping to private health insurance, private school fees rising much faster than inflation and still people are prepared to pay because state school class sizes are growing and funds depleted etc.. The quality of social / cheap housing is poor and the cost of private housing is extortionate.
Brexit has destroyed us. That, plus the pandemic, plus years of austerity, plus low wages, low growth, everything low low low unless you live in Kensington.
We have to move into the current day. We keep harking on about the NHS - it was a post-war idea, for post-war needs. Surely we can move the needle forward to keep it going without having to insist on 'free at the point of service'. Paying a fee would help people take more responsibility for their health, where they can.
The point is we do pay, we already pay for opticians and NHS dentistry, even that is becoming a thing of the past. We pay for prescriptions, unless exempt and even services that were once on the NHS like podiatry, are now pretty much unavailable unless you pay privately. Physiotherapy and many other services have such long waiting lists that many are now forced to try and find the money to pay a non NHS practitioner.
Its privatisation bit by bit by the backdoor. It makes me wonder what is happening to all the NI and taxes we pay for the NHS.
Either it will be sunlit uplands tripe of the not-kidding-anyone sort that fits with the last years of Brexit or it will be intentional and meaningful and led by people in the NHS who deliver services and care.
Someone has to find out which government in power started the introduction in the NHS for bids for various services from the private sector. You will all be surprised at the answer it's probably not the one you are thinking of. I have a MP in the family.
This privatisation by the back door is wrong and should have been stopped years ago. No one stopped it although everyone in the government knew what was happening but never had the insight to stop it, look at what's happened now.
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