The NHS has been failing for at least the last 25 years.
We've had labour, lib-dem/con and conservative Governments and countless health ministers in all this time.
I fail to see the political connection?
We've had labour, lib-dem/con and conservative Governments and countless health ministers in all this time.
I fail to see the political connection?
You sound like the Daily Mail.
If it's been "failing" for a quarter of a century why is it always ranked as one of the best health services in the world?
Yes it has it's problems but it far from failing.
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/health-and-social-care...
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/files/publications/f... [PDF warning]
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/uks-healthcare-ranked-t...
http://www.bmj.com/bmj/section-pdf/187348?path=/bmj/343/7826... [PDF warning]
As a USer with good insurance, it's a hard pill to swallow to trade next day doctor appointments, same day urgent care (not ER) with very short waits, and quick schedules for surgical procedures for the broader coverage other countries offer with more rationed care.
That said I am fairly healthy and can probably count the number of doctor visits in the last 10 years on one hand so I may have just been lucky in my limited experiences.
'In decline' maybe? The NHS has been in some crisis or another for all of these years.
Standards have got considerably worse in many measures recently.
When people talk about the winter crisis it's differently to previous winter crises -- A&Es turning away ambos because the corridors are full isn't something that used to happen.
In the past Ambos have been turned away, but that's because the beds were full. Those A&Es still had emergency capacity (in the corridors).
'In the past Ambos have been turned away, but that's because the beds were full...'
And before this, what? Ambos queuing up, patients treated in ambos, patients waiting a long time for ambos, etc, etc.
You have to go a long way back to find a time when everything was working as it should be.
This leaves some spare in the system for when things are very busy - you put people in corridors.
But now all the corridors are full. We've had A&Es declare major incidents.
We've even seen, and I don't think we've seen it before, triage on resus. That alone is a big flag that things are fucked.
> And before this, what? Ambos queuing up, patients treated in ambos, patients waiting a long time for ambos, etc, et
Right, you think we'll go from fully working NHS to fully broken NHS in the blink of an eye. These things you mention were fixed once, and they've been getting steadily worse (as the Conservatives de-funded social care, and privatised drug & alcohol services, and cut MH services, and defunded the rest of the NHS) - the crisis started a few years ago, and is building year on year.
OK, it was the Conservatives what done it. I get it.
I said this in my first post.
Here, for example, is a chart of A&E 4 hour breeches: https://twitter.com/FactCheck/status/948953869509423108
However, this aside, do you have any ideas regarding turning around this perceived calamity?
Personally, I think the solution is politically unpalatable but I am not so narrow minded as to think there may be a solution that doesn't simply resort to giving doctors and nurses a bonanza pay rise.