Let's turn the clock back to 1948

Nan99

Unfortunately, the doctors in NHS are not taught anything about nutrition. If more people were told about how life-threatening it can be to eat meat, dairy, and eggs. Cows milk is for calves, not people. Going plant-based can reverse heart disease, diabetes, and other autoimmune diseases. The more people ate this way the NHS would not have so many sick people to look after. The NHS only tries to cure instead of prevent. Also NHS needs a good shake up because I don't think it is run as efficiently as it should be.
Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food, Hippocrates.

How is it life threatening to eat meat, dairy and eggs?
Also the NHS does employ nutritionists and dietitians. There are a wide gamut of services provided in the NHS these days. It has expanded way beyond what could have been envisioned when it was set up. Prior to the NHS lots of people were too scared to go to the doctor as they could not afford to pay anything, and often medicine was so poor that if you went to hospital you did not come out again which added to fears.

Does anybody think that the current Labour party leadership would have anything near the vision and imagination and sheer bravery that was needed to bring about the NHS?

Possibly not, but they don't to have the same vision, imagination and bravery.

Nan99 I am pretty outraged by your post. My daughter is a fit vegetarian. There is nothing in her power - diet, exercise, prayer, which will restore her pancreas. Her body damaged it, as it would any pancreas donated to her. She is alive because of injectable insulin.

Eating too much of anything is bad for you, but a good mixed diet combine with regular exercise helps people live healthier and longer.

Bear in mind the extent to which life expectancy has increased in recent years. Life expectancy in 1950 in this country was around 65. This after antibiotics were prescribed widely for bacterial infections that killed so many people in the past. and child mortalty rates had also aready fallen considerably.

In 1971 life expectancy was 68 for men and 72 for women localhistories.org/a-history-of-life-expectancy/. Life expectancy is now about 80 for men and 84 for women www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/whats-happening-life-expectancy-england.

For children to be born in 2045, life expectancy is 90 for men and 94 for women.

So if eating dairy, meat and eggs are life threatening, they are not trying very hard.

Source for the 2045 figures: www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies/bulletins/pastandprojecteddatafromtheperiodandcohortlifetables/2020baseduk1981to2070

M0nica

I am sorry but my recent experience of the NHS, does not encourage me to think it very wonderful and a system similar to the French system, where we pay more and can expect more sounds far more attractive, providing provision is made for those on limited incomes.

I don't think it's fair to compare current NHS after 12 years of reduced funding and pay freezes with a health system that spends more per head...

The French system is 70% funded by contributions by employers and employees. 30%is funded by top-up insurance by those who can afford it and by the state for those who can't.
Serious illnesses are funded at 100% for everyone.
It varies a bit depending where you are but we can always get a GP appointment with our own doctor within a few days and same day if urgent.
Our experiences of A and E and hospitalisation have been excellent.
When DH has arthritis pain he gets 20 physio sessions without question.
Nurses do daily home visits and transport is paid for.
There are flaws and shortages, but in our experience it works extremely well. We pay 300€ a month for our top-up (two of us) but that includes private rooms, spectacles etc.
(There is no road tax and our Council tax is 600€ a year. Swings and roundabouts).
If you can't afford top-up you don't have to pay.
France is fundamentally a socialist country.

My mother's sister qualified as a midwife in the mid 1940s, she married a doctor who trained at Barts. By 1955 they were so disillusioned working in the NHS that they emigrated to New Zealsnd to set up in practice.

pascal30

I was getting worried by the way the NHS appears to be being deliberately run down by this government and so I got some quotes for private medical insurance from Saga and Bupa. They started at around £600 per month!!! I hope everyone does everything within their power to ensure that the NHS can continue as a free service and crucially get this government out of power.

Most private health care will not /or certainly did not cover you if you have Kidney problems, they do not want to factor in the cost long term dialysis or possible organ transplant.
It might be the same for other long-term illnesses as well.
I know someone who lived in the USA and some of their medical bills were astronomical.
We need our N.H.S.

One of the reasons private medicine continued at the same time as the NHS is because consultants refused to join the NHS unless they could continue to practise privately. It wasn’t what Bevan wanted but without agreeing to it there would have been no NHS.

I would certainly be willing to top up to secure a better health service but if I was in charge, I would be ruthless in restricting treatment to obese people who had brought their health conditions on themselves, likewise heavy smokers and alcoholics.

hollysteers

I would certainly be willing to top up to secure a better health service but if I was in charge, I would be ruthless in restricting treatment to obese people who had brought their health conditions on themselves, likewise heavy smokers and alcoholics.

Well that should cut the healthcare bills down apparently 28% of the uk population are obese and an even greater number are overweight.
Any anybody that thinks alcoholism is a choice is sadly mistaken
Of course you would have to include in this people suffering from Anorexia or Bulimia

hollysteers

I would certainly be willing to top up to secure a better health service but if I was in charge, I would be ruthless in restricting treatment to obese people who had brought their health conditions on themselves, likewise heavy smokers and alcoholics.

But where do you draw the line? Would you also refuse treatment to people who had 'brought it upon themselves' by taking part in risky sports, for instance? That's just one example. Sorry, but that's the start of a very slippery slope.

The NHS was set up to be at the point of need. Need is the driving factor not what someone has done or not done to get there. That’s what was so wonderful.

Going plant-based can reverse heart disease

This is categorically not true, Nan99. I have been a wholefood-eating vegetarian all my long adult life, but I was diagnosed with a blocked artery a few years ago. The consultant said it was largely genetic. My diet had definitely helped ameliorate the situation, but (as far as I know) nothing can reverse heart disease.

Yammy read Mamies post. ut is clear you do not understand the part insurance plays in the French system. Under the French system you would be covered for all those conditions.

No one in their right mind could see the US system as other than an example of how bad things can be when governed by greed and money.

Some here talk of the NHS being underfunded, but I am less sure. Whenever you have a problem and the only solution anyone uses is throwing more money at it, the result is usually a badly managed and inefficient system.

I would like to see a team of people with knowledge, look at the current system, root and branch, From looking at the demands the government imposes on the system, to how it is run, the endless duplications and inefficiencies at every level from major policies to how appointment systems work. It may be we need to get a clean sheet and completely different sytem based on the experience of other countries, it could be that we need to cut down the obsessive statistic gathering, it might be handing back responsibilities to the consultants. I do not know, but I do think it is time we found out.

What we have at the moment is the NHS saying it is underfunded, The government gives them billions of £s more, and six months later the NHS is back again saying it is underfunded and needs billions more, so the government grumbles and gives in and the NHS gets more billions of pounds, and six months later saying it is under funded, and so it goes on in circle that pours more and more money in, but never gets any return.

The NHS requires a root and branch forensic examination. It needs to be taken apart and rebuilt.

It has been taken apart and rebuilt several times and each time more funding has been thrown at the wrong part of the NHS with more administrative roles and allied expenditure when it should go to patient level.

25Avalon

It has been taken apart and rebuilt several times and each time more funding has been thrown at the wrong part of the NHS with more administrative roles and allied expenditure when it should go to patient level.

I don't think it's been taken apart and rebuilt at all. It's been tinkered with to suit the political ideology of the government in power.

It really needs a good going over by experts in all related fields but that would be so expensive that I don't think any government would dare do it.

It could also do with a comprehensive upgrade of its IT systems but, once again, very expensive and you can't guarantee that it would be done right. Governments have presided over a number of failed or botched attempts to upgrade/replace IT systems in various departments...

I think the best we can hope for is a government that will actually put in the spending needed to get it back on its feet again. Because at the moment it is falling apart.

Bluntly I would probably be dead as my family wouldn't have been able to afford private fees.

Every time I read a thread like this it amazes me that people are unable to recognise why there are more administrative posts in the NHS than there used to be. If there were no clinical governance requirements, litigation risks, financial challenges, or most pertinently, government targets there would need to be less admin and management staff. Without them, under the current government the requirements would be exactly the same, but who would be doing the admin work - the clinicians.

It seems really silly now - but when the NHS was formed, it was anticipated that, after an initial rush, demand would decrease - as the nation got healthier!

One of the things that frightens me about the American system is the thought I might be persuaded to have unnecessary surgery for profit making.
There is no possibility of that with the NHS!

Hetty58

It seems really silly now - but when the NHS was formed, it was anticipated that, after an initial rush, demand would decrease - as the nation got healthier!

The nation certainly got healthier. The problem with health is that the demand is almost infinite, if you’re cured of your major health issue you then focus on the next most major thing - we all do it, until we get to the level of say, ear syringing, or cosmetic varicose vein removal, or IVF. All vitally important to the individual, but not life endangering. If you add in all elements of mental health, it becomes clear that demand is always going to be there.

DH was born in March 1948. His Italian grandparents got the local Italian "midwife" in for the delivery. He was a breech birth and she propped the end of the bed up on books to try and slow down the delivery. Mother and child both survived but my mother in law was left unable to have any more children.

Keeping to the birth theme - DD's friend moved to the US and had first hand experience of the US system. Her first pregnancy was placenta praevia and she spent some weeks in hospital before the birth. Her C section was followed by a massive bleed and she was very lucky to survive. Her husband had just changed his job and the health insurance that went with it wasn't so good. She and the baby had to go home a couple of days later because there was no more money to pay for the hospital.

Somehow the NHS has to be supported.