Health warning - it's the Grauniad
Patients getting sicker as they face long waits for NHS care, says top GP
Patients are developing cancers and enduring so much pain that they cannot climb stairs because of the 7.2 million-strong waiting list for NHS scans and treatment, Britain’s top GP has said.
Prof Kamila Hawthorne, the chair of the Royal College of GPs, said the record delays for care and the uncertainty for patients about when they would finally be seen was leaving people feeling “helpless and forgotten”.
Nothing to do with strikes and taking a long break during the pandemic debacle I suppose. Nothing to do with the NHS being well past its expiry date. Maybe Sir Keir has some sticking plaster to keep his tottering totem upright for a little longer.
5 comments:
I think covid will be what breaks the NHS. Not so much because of a tsunami of infected people needing treatment, but because all the things that the State response to covid has inflicted on the economy (inflation, people leaving the workforce, working from home, lack of desire of those still in employment to actually do any work) are more concentrated in the State sector. State owned and run bodies are finding it even harder than previously to do anything. There are shortages of everything, budgets are being over run by prices rises, there are vacancies everywhere, the workers still in place are often 'sick', or 'working from home', which is code for doing b*gger all. All of which points to an NHS that soon will consume hundreds of billions in taxes yet produce nothing. At some point the dam will break and there will be a wave of public opinion that says 'Sweep it away, whatever replaces it can only be better than what we have now'. And the politicians who were banging pots and pans for the NHS a few years ago will do a 180 degree turn and jump on this bandwagon, because thats what they do.
Oh, Sir Keir certainly has got a sticking plaster. It's called our taxes. He could even get a couple of terms in office by deploying it. Because the electorate can be told that it's working for quite a few years, and in any case, it was the heartless Tories who broke the NHS in the first place.
Sobers - state education seems to be tottering too, but I don't see much encouragement in voting patterns. People seem to be extraordinarily tolerant of being shafted by the political class, the civil service and the public sector generally.
Perhaps something relatively small will initiate a cascade of frustration, but it's not something I'd bet on. On the other hand, people must be aware that things could be much better, a quick internet browse will show that.
Sam - yes he'll try taxation if he gets the chance, but he'll struggle to show a clear improvement. At some point people have to stop voting for the usual crew, but I don't think they will.
" I don't see much encouragement in voting patterns. People seem to be extraordinarily tolerant of being shafted by the political class, the civil service and the public sector generally. Perhaps something relatively small will initiate a cascade of frustration, but it's not something I'd bet on. "
My feeling is that when it happens it will be sudden and unexpected, by the governing class at least. Rather like Brexit. Just as the old saying is that you go broke slowly for years, then all at once, I think the same will apply to the NHS. The end will be rapid, and come seemingly out of the blue. In hindsight everyone will say 'Well it was obvious, the fault lines had been there for years' but no-one will expect it.
Sobers - you could be right, I hope you are, and as you say, if it happens it will be sudden and unexpected. Can't wait.
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