The word "funding" does not appear in this article. The NHS has been systematically underfunded since the Conservative entered power more than a decade ago. The crisis is real, but it is a political choice.
The blue bars in the chart are recessions, when funding relative to GDP jumped mainly due to a drop in GDP, not an increase in funding.
https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/70-years-of-nhs-s...
The historical lesson is yes, if you want big increases in NHS funding elect a Labour government (although by 1997 the Conservatives were already ramping up health care spending), but I'm not convinced the UK economy has much leeway to support spending a lot more than the current 7% of GDP on health care.
The UK has a similar system to Canada. Costs are controlled by controlling the funding. You set a cap to what you'll spend and let the system figure out how best to allocate those funds. It's a big reason why the cost per capita for healthcare is quite low - you simply choose not to spend more.
The demand for healthcare spending is almost infinite. You can set it up so everyone get an MRI the same day the doctor orders it. If you cut back and it takes a week for a non-urgent MRI is that a "proper" level of funding? How about waiting one month? Two months?
The truth is, a country needs to decide how much money they are willing to spend on healthcare. Some spend very little, some spend a lot. There is no "fully funded" system, only trade offs.
Our Ontario government capped nurse pay to 1% per year which is effectively a 8% paycut/year given the current inflation
On top of that, the real economy's capacity to supply workers with stuff to buy with their income is in deep trouble worldwide right now and everyone is feeling it. That means real wage drops across the board and real damage to the ability to actually fund something like this.
Yes, that's how inflation works. Not a new problem, and GDP generally grows accordingly as well.
------------------------
"Mr. Macklem: [... T]he high inflation that we have today is not normal. It's not here to stay. We are resolute in our commitment to bring inflation down. We are taking action and we will continue to take action to bring inflation back down. So as a business, don't plan on the current rate of inflation staying. Don't build that into longer term contracts. Don't build that into wage contracts. It is going to take some time, but you can be confident that inflation will come down.
-----------------------
- Tiff Macklem, Governor and CEO of the Bank of Canada in a webinar hosted by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Transcript here: https://20336445.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/203364...
The reason he speaks to that is that he's worried about inflation increase due to a wage-price spiral. Depressing wages is a way to prevent that. And I'll mention now; I have no idea how true this is.
Healthcare is an insurance service itself. It's designed to keep people going so they can continue to contribute to society.
The more productive the producing sector, the more of society you can have working in healthcare.
I won't pretend that Brexit hasn't been mishandled as a lot of the opposition predicted (also in news water wet), but the EU/EC has unfortunately for them shown a lot of its attitude toward Britain is as promoters had been saying.
Sorry not maeaning to derail too much.
Or should I read this as a veiled appeal for Corbyn to return as the leader of the Opposition for another try? (In which case I'll take my leave.)
It's interesting how every time you show there's a problem with a political party everyone assumes instead of damning the system your trying to politically point score. I think the real change needs to be made in the civil service and certain powers striped from Whitehall but it'll never happen.
In 1997 the NHS had 1/5th the budget it does today. Do we think that service has improved 5 times in the period?
Like universities the NHS has been eaten from the inside by administrators whose sole purpose is to keep doctors from doing actual work. Talk to a nurse and 4/5th of the bullshit they have to deal with is pointless paper work.
1997 to 2019 is an increase of about 3.5x
CPI over this period was about 80% but large % of NHS costs are salaries so would be expected to run ahead of CPI by at least 1%.
Net of all this funding has gone up by say 50%-100%
But over this period the UK has had a very large increase in the elderly population who are disproportionate users of the NHS (over 85s up by about 80% roughly I think).
Having had quite a bit of contact with the NHS over the last few years I’ve seen much less form filling than I’d probably have expected.
And of course that form filling for the nurse is also known as data collection / management information which in any other context would be deemed essential for proper management of the service.
The amount of people who think they understand the NHS is interesting, and clearly newspaper driven.
At some point you have to admit that good intentions aren't enough.
There was a TV programme ‘Can Gerry Robinson save the NHS’ fifteen years ago that had some very interesting examples of problems with lack of effective management.
One you accept that you never have identical cost/benefit with others, we're just talking what level is acceptable, and what services should be covered. People seem fine with paying for fire departments, even though some people live in wooden houses and have candles at night. Healthcare has a similarly low fraud incentive, and is generally not something we "invest" in. Most of the world has recognized that and arrange it through a publicly funded system.