NHS

If the NHS was to operate differently Jen, there would be no winter crisis every year and her ambulance would have arrived sooner. It may not have saved her, but there would be no doubt that she'd received help in an appropriate time.
I don't think it's right that 4% of people in one area use up half the health budget - the other 96% will not get a decent service with their half. You do need to draw the line somewhere and help people in other ways.

Interesting article here from the Mirror. No paywall.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/shocking-images-people-lying-floor-11804756

Why did May not go there and apologise?

Anyway, what's that got to do with a woman waiting four hours for an ambulance after telling them she had chest pains, and dying before they got there?

I wonder why she was in Frimley Park Hospital, rather than one of these?

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/02/ae-doctor-sorry-for-third-world-conditions-as-nhs-winter-crisis-bites

Fewer people for her to meet?

Interesting article in the Guardian.
'Theresa May, on a visit to Frimley Park hospital in Surrey, apologised for delays to operations and hospital admissions, saying she recognised it was difficult for somebody who had had their operation postponed, and hoped procedures could be rescheduled “as soon as possible”.

The prime minister said: “I know it’s difficult, I know it’s frustrating, I know it’s disappointing for people, and I apologise.”

Her visit came after it emerged that tens of thousands of planned operations could be delayed for at least a month as the NHS deals with the most urgent cases.

Hospitals in England also set another unwanted record last week with A&E units forced to divert patients elsewhere because they could not cope a total of 39 times – the highest number this winter.'

There's an interesting article in the FT today about how one hospital has been using a more collaborative approach to healthcare. It looks like this is going to be rolled out to a larger area.

"For more than a year nurses, family doctors, social workers and mental health staff in Surrey and parts of neighbouring counties have worked together to treat patients before they deteriorate to the point of needing a hospital admission.

It appears to be working, according to Andrew Morris, who heads the local health system — challenging the idea that a cash infusion is the only solution to what ails the NHS.

As his counterparts elsewhere struggled with spiralling hospital admissions, Sir Andrew says: “This is the first year when our activity has not grown. We usually get an increase of 8-12 per cent every year in emergency admissions and this year we haven’t seen that increase as a result of these [changes].”

He points to the local Frimley Park Hospital, which is currently admitting about 125 people a day. A new ambulatory care service — in which senior doctors based in the emergency department treat less seriously ill patients so they do not have to be kept in overnight — has “turned around [another] 35 to 40 people a day that before we had it we would have admitted”, he says."

The article highlights several areas where current policy and incentives are not appropriate - things like targets for individual hospitals and financial incentives to treat more patients. Studies in one area found 4 percent of local people were, between them, consuming up to 50 percent of the health and social care budget, so they now employ coaches, to help these people stay healthier.

Here's a link, but unfortunately the FT is behind a paywall.
www.ft.com/content/a13600ce-f17e-11e7-ac08-07c3086a2625

Something has GOT to be done about this now.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jan/05/essex-woman-dies-after-waiting-nearly-four-hours-for-ambulance

Neither Hunt nor May should be allowed to get away with cutting the service any more.
I read another article about medics going to treat people in ambulances queued up outside the hospitals, but this woman didn't even get into the ambulance.

pbs.twimg.com/media/DSnsbDeW4AAhZiE.jpg:large

The man who posted this tweeted that it was time to set up his own ambulance trust with the lovely fleet of fourteen parked outside the front door.
He is the chief executive of the Wigan and Leigh NHS trust.

Apparently there were 200 people waiting for an ambulance at St Helier hospital in Surrey.
All those government ministers in the county, including Hunt, and they can't sort out their own NHS services. Not much chance for the rest of us.
He

Brilliant. They've got the money to challenge Hunt.

www.crowdjustice.com/case/jr4nhs-round2/

You can still donate if you want to.
There has been a big upsurge of support over the last two days. I wonder why!

Please leave type 2 diabetics out of it . WeAre not all fat slobs eating a bad diet many could have done nothing to avoid developing it . You could just as well blame cancer sufferers . I have experience of both .

I am not advocating a private system....far from it. I work in the NHS and uphold its values and personally think it does a fantastic job especially if urgent care is required. However...there are now so many health problems in society the books don't balance! Take Type 2 diabetes....it is bankrupting the NHS almost on it's own. The point I am making is that increased tax is the fairest way of helping fund the gap. This means the poorer and less advantaged would not necessarily pay more. Working in the NHS there is a huge amount of wasted appointments that people just don't turn up for (although often that does indeed allow a list or clinic to catch up!), and many more wasted prescriptions etc to mention a few. We all have a responsibility to use the NHS carefully and not liberally. Private health care is absolutely not better than NHS...But having an option to alleviate some of the strain will free up those vital services for those that need them. I absolutely up hold the NHS, but the the funding is not a bottomless pit, we have to be prepared to pay for the service, and taxes to me seem the fairest way!

How will the unemployed/poor/ elderly afford a private medical health service?

Sixtylooming - I'm open to any discussion about keeping our NHS, particularly specific taxes.
Your point about seeing a doctor on the day is well made but - my GP centre is now struggling to recruit. It's a teaching practice and has always had an excellent reputation with good GP's who live locally send their children to the same schools as their patients etc. We are within half an hour of the city yet on open countryside. What's not to like. We are currently having great difficulty recruiting. Young medics no longer want to be GP's, a direct link to the ridiculous notion they will also be business managers. Our GP's work 12 hour plus days. Money isn't everything and given their good salaries who can criticise them for working less than full time in all these circumstances.
I can see a doctor on the day I phone if it's necessary, if it isn't an emergency and I want to see my regular GP I wait 3 weeks.
I have very good treatment from three specialist consultants. I am not complaining about them, or about our GP practice but - I fear the future for vulnerable people, for my grandchildren and my own adult children.

I do not see that going down the private route, which the present Government is hell bent on doing will solve anything. As far as I know there is no evidence that private health care is more efficient or cost effective than the NHS. It is just an idealistic solution. Our NHS was judged by Commonwealth Fund Thinktank to be the best, safest and most affordable (ahead of Australia as it happens). It just needs better funding.

Hunt claimed that there was crises in the NHS during labour’s term in office.

In fact there was just one in winter 1999/2000 after which the Labour Government made the decision to increase the funding to European average, and the NHS plan was introduced.

sixty I suspect that the majority of people in the U.K. also think that the NHS needs to be paid for, but the point is we have never been asked if we are willing to cough up more.

Unfortunately, the only way to solve this is higher taxes to pay for it. It really has reached the point that it is unsustainable as free for everything. The increase in demand, treatment and health issues cannot be absorbed by the current funding. To introduce charges will be unpopular and no government wants to do that. I work in the NHS and have done for nearly 40 years. I am proud to be a front line NHS worker, but the pressures now are near intolerable with peoples expectations and the capacity we have to deal with. Look at Australia's health care system, part private, but it works..we need something like that. You can see a GP on the day you phone, get an MRI with a couple of days and results back with the GP quickly. They do pay for some of their health care, but boy it is more efficient than we have. People in the UK just have to accept that if they want a better service it has to be paid from somewhere....

Worse NHS Secretary in history eh?

Yes most would go along with that, but really it is the worse government in recent history isn’t it?

I think he's gone back into hiding again after criticising Blair on twitter.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jeremy-hunt-blasted-by-doctors-after-accidentally-admitting-to-nhs-winter-crisis_uk_5a4defbee4b025f99e1ffa38?utm_hp_ref=uk-politics

Jeremy Hunt also co-authored a book in 2005 calling for the "de-nationalization" i.e. privatization of the NHS - so is it really a big surprise that the "crisis" is happening while he is in charge

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-hunt-privatise-nhs-tories-privatising-private-insurance-market-replacement-direct-democracy-a6865306.html

One main reason - Jeremy Hunt.

newsthump.com/2018/01/04/you-cant-blame-me-for-the-nhs-im-only-in-charge-of-everything-says-jeremy-hunt/

Two main reasons for the NHS being in crises.

1. Investment has dropped by as much as 50% particularly in equipment.

2. A huge lack of recruitment.

Causing third world conditions, people are seeing conditions that people haven’t experienced in their working lives, conditions are worse now than they have ever been.
400,00 people now waiting longer than the target time.
Targets are simply no longer being met for A&E, elderly (that’s us folks) are dying as a result because the appropriate care is no longer quickly available, as was previously available.

All caused by the evils government’s plan of austerity.

Over the last 15 to 20 years the NHS has been subject to continual reorganisation and increased bureaucracy which has placed an enormous burden on all sectors and staff. Added to that is the creeping privatisation of the NHS with as far as I can no improvements to care. At the same time clinicians have made enormous strides in new treatments and clinical innovation. Government needs to turn its attention from ever more mad new management ideas and constant reorganisation to clinical outcomes as the driver for investment and change and make a concerted effort to reduce bureaucratic overload.

The issue of funding arguments between Health and social care is long standing, despite many attempts to resolve it. Thirty years ago, social work teams had direct access to the l.a. Home care and residential services. I’m not suggesting it was a golden age but there were links between hospital and area teams and easier access to services than is often the case now. Meals on wheels didn’t just deliver a hot meal every day to frail elderly people, the provided a friendly, well known face. If there was no reply, the area team would phone relatives or go to the address. These services were not inexpensive and could no doubt be streamlined but we did share a sense of responsibility and community.

I agree with those who believe this government is running down the NHS with the aim of privatisation. I would like to see a system of taxation that is used to fund effective health and social care services. It can’t be impossible, those of us who have worked in these areas know that much groundwork has gone into attempts to combine. The issue continues to be competition for funding.

Read the taxresearch article.
It is deliberate, no question about it.

"One paper published by the Centre for Policy Studies is particularly notable in this respect. Written by John Redwood, then (as now} Conservative MP for Woking, and Oliver Letwin, who had then to start his House of Commons career, it was entitled 'Britain's Biggest Enterprise: ideas for radical reform of the NHS' and was published in 1987[ix]. In a quaint reminder of the way things once were, the very obviously type written text remains available on the web. It is laden with barely veiled attacks on the NHS, behind the usual expressions of support for the NHS’s long suffering employees encumbered, as they were, by having to work in such a hostile system. But what really matters is the prescription it made for the direction of NHS reform, which it recognised could only be achieved in piecemeal fashion. The incremental goals would, it suggested, be:

Establishment of the NHS as an independent trust;
Increased use of joint ventures between the NHS and private sectors;
Extending the principle of charging;
A system of 'health credits';
A national health insurance scheme.

Looking at the NHS in England it is clear that the first and second goals have largely been achieved and are now deeply embedded within its structures. In social care charging is similarly profoundly embedded. So too is the concept of a 'health credit’ becoming more commonplace in some aspects of NHS service[x]. That said, whilst it is still appropriate to note that options three and four are far from complete, it is not unfair to say that they are works in progress. In that case the concern that an insurance system remains the direction of travel, as expressed by Professor Stephen Hawking[xi], appears to be entirely realistic in the circumstances. The neoliberal assault on the NHS is very real."