So Roger Daltrey reckons old people have caused the NHS crisis?

I think it is very dangerous to see old people as expendable

Absolutely.

Indeed. Wasn’t it Gandhi who said, I think that the measure of a society is how it treats its weakest members?
Do we want a society where the oldies are considered dispensable?

Do we want aa society where the oldies are automatically assumed to be in the weakest group in the community. Some are, some aren't.

No I don’t necessarily think we are the most vulnerable at all, but that is the perception when health is discussed.
I was quite flabbergasted recently, when I, as a reasonably fit person, was asked if I had an advanced care directive in place. This was at an Outpatient appt for a gastroscopy!!

I suppose the NHS asks for comments like this when it harps on about larger numbers of old people with their need for higher levels of care. This - the baby boomers reaching old age - has been foreseen for years but nothing has been done, no advance planning and building of capacity, because of a funding system that doesn’t allow the NHS to plan further than the end of its nose.

Well, the young, if they are lucky, will get old one day. (Goodness, you wake up one day, and there you are - ‘old’) - and I hope to goodness that the majority won’t need expensive medical care, though I suspect that won’t be the case.
Some, sadly, don’t reach old age, they don’t get the opportunity (my brother and sister included). Easy to use scapegoats though, (usually the “elderly”); and at the moment it seems to be the “baby boomers”. When all of the baby boomers are gone, I wonder who the next target will be to blame all the ills of the NHS on? (If there is an NHS as we know it, that is).

The reason hospitals are full of old people is because of the success of the NHS and the huge developments in medicine combined with a population, which, despite all the problems of social conditions at present, is better nourished, better housed, better heated and where health and safety regulations mean that working conditions do not leave people at the mercy of occu[ational diseases, which shorten their lives and make many of those shorter lives unpleasant with disease, in the way they did.

As a result younger people today are healthier than they were 50 or 60 years ago and most of us can expect to enjoy good health well into our old age. Which is more than their grandparents and great grandparents could.

Another big difference is smoking cessation. It was predicted that people would live longer. And now the young don't seem to drink alcohol - my adult GCs don't anyway and think we're the odd ones.

Yes I agree that the present population is generally healthier than before, but my GP says the biggest problem he sees now is obesity with associated effects such as diabetes, arterial disease and arthritis for example.
Seems that modern processed diets, lack of exercise and alcohol are starting to reverse the trend of health and longevity in both sexes.

ww You are right about alcohol and the young drinking less and stats support this, but stats show that adults aged 55-64 are more likely to drink at more risky levels, and the least likely not to drink.
Perhaps we are gradually seeing a culture change?

Having read the article, he certainly isn't doing what the OP claims and proposing the NHS should abandon us while he uses private health care. He is saying that sometimes with a public health system difficult decisions need to be taken, and he thinks older people should consider their choices carefully when offered treatment, and that he personally wouldn't necessarily take it up. Part of that choice is weighing up the cost to the NHS. I think it's a valid point of view.

He's a twit

M0nica

Most people, old and young working and retired, generally use the NHS very little when they are young and healthy and pay in far more to the NHS than they get out.

Old people are young people who have continued living until they are old, a fact that seems to elude many people in their youth, So most of us, having paid in to the NHS for 30,40,50 years without using the NHS very much, think it quite reasonable that when we get old and nead medical care, we should be able to get all the care we need, which we have already paid for up front.

Love it!

Bridie22

I think your comment Mae is slightly out of context, he also critizes the fact that 50% of nhs funding pays for executive wages, and that the system is broken.
Roger has been the teenager charity figurehead for many years after his sister died at 32.

I think the fact that he supports teenage cancer charities doesn't mean that he's supportive of older adults.

2507C0

He's a twit

I'm not sure why all these celebs think they're entitled to pontificate and we should take their opinions seriously just because they found fame in the entertainment industry.

It is true that we live longer, therefore there are more old people than there were needing treatment. There are more people full stop! We also all have higher expectations as treatments advance, treatments that didn't exist when the NHS first began.
He did also lay blame at the door of NHS executives and their vast salaries. I suppose he's entitled to his view as are we, only we won't hit the headlines!
Btw I was ridiculously flattered to be told that at 71, having my second old hip replacement last week, I was young! 😄

I fully agree with you, mae13! Multi/Millionaire ''celebrities'' who have absolutely no idea what it's like to be poor, or did but no longer do, blaming the elderly for NHS stuff. It's. not the old people, it's the selfishness of the pompous twits like him!

I'm 58 so not exactly an oldie but he should be grateful for elderly people who fought in the wars because if they didn't his parents might not have met and produced him! I wished they hadn't!

The usual attempt to blame the pensioners who have paid tax for years to support the system which is now failing them. Daltrey should know better.

He’s 79, spuddy. Old enough to be your father. His father may well have fought in the last war. How does ‘the selfishness of pompous twits’ cause problems with the NHS?

I saved a cartoon many years ago.
A self important college freshman walking along the beach took it upon himself to explain to a senior citizen resting on the steps why it was impossible for the older generation to understand his generation.'You grew up in a different world, actually an almost primitive one. The young people of today grew up with tv, jet planes space travel. We have nuclear energy , cell phones computers and much more. After a brief silence the old man said, "you are right son, We didn't have those things when we were young...so we invented them! Now what are you doing for the next generation!

What I cannot understand is why older people seem to be such a surprise to government and population alike. After WW11 the population basically exploded. I am not going into advantages this gave for economy etc. The NHS came into being in 1948 helping to improve health for all. Why has Government not noticed that come decades later there would be a demand on NHS by a lot more people and a large proportion would be old. It does annoy me about old people being singled out as a drain on resources when costly medical advances are available to all ages. Does RD have an age in mind when people either shouldn't be entitled to any NHS assistance or when we should cease to exist?

He has made a lot of money out of the old people he is describing. He is wealthy and cushioned from realities of everyday life for most people. He votes Tory and voted for Brexit and then moaned because he couldn't go on tour anymore because of bureaucracy involved due to Brexit. Great that he supports teenage cancer charities but don't blame your contemporaries for the mess the Health Service is in.

Not sure why they still call it National Health service, it's now a fragmented and post code service with so much of it outsourced. It's run by business men with an eye to profit margins and their own interests. Mr Bevan would be turning in his grave if he saw the state of the service now.

He hasn't said any of you shouldn't be offered treatment he has said you need to consider if you want to take it.
He was probably heavily influenced by his tour with Wilko Johnson (Dr Feelgood) who refused Chemo for his pancreatic cancer. It isn't about money. It is about facing mortality.

‘He hasn't said any of you shouldn't be offered treatment he has said you need to consider if you want to take it’

Thank you Glorianny someone else who’s read the whole interview, not just the bits they then misinterpret.