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Silent crisis of soaring excess deaths in Britain is only tip of the iceberg

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Re: Silent crisis of soaring excess deaths in Britain is only tip of the iceberg

#141

Post by ajross »

starkd wrote: post #104
solar-ice wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed; the reason people exonerate it is that the Tories have been threatening the population with a dismantling and privatisation of the NHS for over a decade now, and that's not what anyone wants. People want the NHS to work, to be funded and managed appropriately. A primary reason it doesn't is the Tories crippling it.

What makes you so sure government bureaucracy is even capable of doing this? It never had a great track record to begin with.

NHS and Medicare have historically had both very efficient allocation of resources and excellent health outcomes. This NHS argument is about new data that to me seems impossible to deconflate with a global pandemic.

Basically, libertarians are just wrong on this. Government-run health care works great and we have many decades of evidence showing that.

Re: Silent crisis of soaring excess deaths in Britain is only tip of the iceberg

#142

Post by eunice »

ben_w wrote: post #94
thrown_22 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The left has somehow ended up as the party of the political managerial class instead of the working class, this is one of the best explanations why we're in such a weird place where the socialists are all trust fund kids who would rather have the working class arrested than talk to them.

If the (UK) left is the party of the political managerial class, what is the (UK) right? When I'm feeling particularly sarcastic I might call them the party of dilettantes, but is that apt?

boomers obsessed with manufactured culture war garbage

Re: Silent crisis of soaring excess deaths in Britain is only tip of the iceberg

#143

Post by origin_path »

solar-ice wrote: post #40
jajahusjsna wrote: post #8

Covid is one aspect of this. Another is the massive. underfunding of the NHS over the last decade. This has become much more evident post-covid thanks to the backlogs. - Getting a GP to see you in person is now quite difficult (they want to do everything via phone). - Seeing your GP (depending on your area) can involve a 2-3 week wait and waiting in an hours long phone queue. - When you are referred to hospital for t…

Indeed; the reason people exonerate it is that the Tories have been threatening the population with a dismantling and privatisation of the NHS for over a decade now, and that's not what anyone wants. People want the NHS to work, to be funded and managed appropriately. A primary reason it doesn't is the Tories crippling it.

That's what lots of people want - I can assure you, I know quite a few - but the British left attacks anyone so viciously and nastily that they aren't ever going to admit it to anyone seen in the vicinity of a Guardian.

The NHS has collapsed since COVID. No, it isn't due to lack of funding, that's a lie. NHS funding has increased massively under the Conservatives who haven't talked about even limited privatisation for the last decade or more. The reason it collapsed is that rigid commands and control systems cannot cope with change and the NHS was already dysfunctional before that. When they emptied the hospitals they created a massive backlog that they already knew they could never catch up on even with more funding.

At any rate it's irrelevant. The excess deaths are much more likely to be vaccine linked despite the collapsed state of the NHS. The timing, causes of death and split between vaxxed and unvaxxed doesn't really work for the theory it's lockdown caused.

Re: Silent crisis of soaring excess deaths in Britain is only tip of the iceberg

#144

Post by heurisko »

zmgsabst wrote: post #10
scrlk wrote: post #5

Quoted post unavailable.

This was always a QALY negative treatment. One might even conclude the reason it happened is governments seeking power (lockdowns, propaganda and censorship, travel restrictions, etc) rather than genuine public health.

I think the government and the media had a negative feedback loop.

I've noticed the media prefers to saturate news with one topic. For years it was brexit, then that stopped completely and it was Covid, then Ukraine, now energy price rises.

The Conservative government originally were keen on personal responsibility. But once the headlines started of older people in carehomes dying, there was no hope of doing nothing any more.

Lockdowns were the "something that has to be done".

Re: Silent crisis of soaring excess deaths in Britain is only tip of the iceberg

#145

Post by dominotw »

jajahusjsna wrote: post #8

Covid is one aspect of this. Another is the massive. underfunding of the NHS over the last decade. This has become much more evident post-covid thanks to the backlogs. - Getting a GP to see you in person is now quite difficult (they want to do everything via phone). - Seeing your GP (depending on your area) can involve a 2-3 week wait and waiting in an hours long phone queue. - When you are referred to hospital for t…

How does giving more funding to NHS solve " historic levels of obesity and heart disease." mentioned in the article.

Paying people directly after every workout might have a greater impact.

Re: Silent crisis of soaring excess deaths in Britain is only tip of the iceberg

#146

Post by origin_path »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #127
scrlk wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are never going to get a serious debate around reforming the NHS until people move on from only comparing the UK to the US. There are many other systems that work - people only need to look across to Europe.

In fact, I would argue that for all its possible faults (which all systems have) the fundamental problem with the NHS is not in how it is structured or in its processes. Rather, it boils down to funding. Nothing else. Just that. The one feature that the NHS has proven time and time again is that it is one of the most cost-efficient healthcare systems in the World, and given that it is working suboptimally that is a c…

NHS funding increases constantly over time, often by massive amounts. The NHS is currently not merely suboptimal. You could have argued that before Team Expert came along in 2020 but not now. It's totally collapsed. There are now people routinely dying whilst waiting to be seen in A&E let alone the massive backlog for cancer. By any metric the NHS in 2022 has completely ceased to function properly.

There seem to be a lot of British people in denial of this fact. The NHS is dead. The only reason it still exists at all is because it isn't a company so the usual safety systems like bankruptcy can't force a reset.

Note that other countries which spend comparable amounts don't have this problem. I'm lucky enough to have left the UK a long time ago and lines in a party of Europe where the healthcare system is easy more privatised and less controlled by the government. Things here are normal, good even and I can get seen by a gp or specialist more or less immediately.

Re: Silent crisis of soaring excess deaths in Britain is only tip of the iceberg

#147

Post by inglor_cz »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #137
bhk wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has been no drop in funding that might account for the recent "soaring excess deaths". Quite the opposite. https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-... You speak of massive underfunding, but NHS funding has increased in real terms almost every single year since the 1950s: https://fullfact.org/health/spending-english-nhs/ "At the moment, UK public health spending is the equivalent of about 7%…

So they spend slightly more than double what they did in 1955, when the cost of providing healthcare has gone up nearly 4x due to the Beaumol effect. That doesn't seem good? You'd expect the service to gradually get worse in that case, wouldn't you? https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/05/wh...

"worse" in what sense?

Outcomes of serious diseases are probably better in 1955, because science hasn't stood still.

Re: Silent crisis of soaring excess deaths in Britain is only tip of the iceberg

#148

Post by scrlk »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #127
scrlk wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are never going to get a serious debate around reforming the NHS until people move on from only comparing the UK to the US. There are many other systems that work - people only need to look across to Europe.

In fact, I would argue that for all its possible faults (which all systems have) the fundamental problem with the NHS is not in how it is structured or in its processes. Rather, it boils down to funding. Nothing else. Just that. The one feature that the NHS has proven time and time again is that it is one of the most cost-efficient healthcare systems in the World, and given that it is working suboptimally that is a c…

That makes sense - we should find if there are any limits to the existing system after spending is increased to match Western European nations (~11% of GDP [0]). (my gut instinct says that we have hit those limits: if the NHS was a good model, you would expect another country to copy it)

If the healthcare outcomes don't resemble what other systems can provide with the same level of funding, there needs to be a serious discussion as to whether the NHS model is fit for purpose for today.

[0] https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/e26f669c-en/index.html?i...

Re: Silent crisis of soaring excess deaths in Britain is only tip of the iceberg

#149

Post by inglor_cz »

alecco wrote: post #89
jajahusjsna wrote: post #8

Covid is one aspect of this. Another is the massive. underfunding of the NHS over the last decade. This has become much more evident post-covid thanks to the backlogs. - Getting a GP to see you in person is now quite difficult (they want to do everything via phone). - Seeing your GP (depending on your area) can involve a 2-3 week wait and waiting in an hours long phone queue. - When you are referred to hospital for t…

An aging obese population is the elephant in the room. This problem is not only happening in UK. About 15 years ago the NHS tried to add easy to read labeling to foods with a semaphore: red, yellow, green. And it was blocked during a Labour government with majority. Giving it more and more funds while not fixing the underlying problems is going to cause a massive budget crisis. We need to fix the causes not the sympt…

"easy to read labeling to foods with a semaphore: red, yellow, green"

Easy to read, OK, but would it actually be reliable?

It is way too easy to label avocado red because of high fat content while labeling a candy bar orange because sugar isn't officially considered that dangerous ... and unlike avocado farmers, highly processed food producers have a good lobby.

Re: Silent crisis of soaring excess deaths in Britain is only tip of the iceberg

#150

Post by thrown_22 »

bloqs wrote: post #133
thrown_22 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan... 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.

This is misprescription - it's the LACK of administrative staff to do that specific paperwork that has caused this. Political microwaving of the whole system to "reduce costs" but keep "front line staff" has meant everyone is doing jobs they arent qualified to do and suck at. The amount of people who think they understand the NHS is interesting, and clearly newspaper driven.

Currently 1 in 60 Britons work for the NHS, this includes babies.

At some point you have to admit that good intentions aren't enough.

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