291–300 of 429 posts
Excess death is higher in Europe in general. you can see the stats here: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps#excess-mortality What I find strange is the increase in excess death among children since April 2021.
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Added: I do agree that we shouldn't assume that mRNA vaccines are safe just because we want them to be, and large scale studies are required. But then large scale studies are, of course, happening. There'll be NHS reports on the long term effects of these vaccines for decades.
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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…
Money can solve that, but it isn't the only option.
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The UK has been spending less on healthcare as a percentage of GDP than comparable European countries, Germany and France. I agree more money doesn't solve the issue, especially as so much money was wasted on Covid testing and private beds that were never used. However in my lifetime the difference in healthcare spending between New Labour and Conservative has been noticeable. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.…
I'm not convinced that the UK has been all that comparable to Germany and France for years. GDP is of course an imperfect measure of the real size and capacity of the economy - Ireland has about twice the GDP per capita of all of those countries, but there's not really any way for their government to capture that economic activity as funding for stuff - and certain other metrics are not so great. For example, the ave…
But that's something most people don't use or even like. A stable job and better safety nets are preferred, and here DE/FR/etc excel.
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> that's not what anyone wants The NHS has been turned into what is effectively a state religion in some quarters. It's untouchable. It can't be criticised. It's immune to meaningful improvement and reform at this point. Yet everyone I know who works for the NHS has a litany of stories about the inefficiency and waste. And it consumes an increasing proportion of the GDP. Eventually, something will have to give. Its b…
I just don't know why that is, every piece of that puzzle I have met, was really efficient and generally doing a good job. Spain is now trying to fix this and pensions by doubling self-employed tax. UK should probably follow suit, UK self-employed tax is ridiculously low. 20% on profits until 50k pounds won't cover a functioning healthcare system (or pensions for that matter).
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Mass inoculation with a new type of vaccine that behaved very differently than the science hypothesized is also a very simple explanation. I don't really think anyone here has the ability or expertise to judge which is more fitting. For what it's worth, the fact circulatory issues is mentioned in the article should ring alarm bells for COVID vaccines being a potential cause. We just found out recently the prevalence…
> that behaved very differently than the science hypothesized Can you give more details about that part? IIRC it worked as intended.
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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.
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Price inelastic healthcare is a private equity dream. The project to leave NHS funding unreformed in order to buy acquiescence to its sell off, all the whilst leaving people to rot, is to my eyes scandalous. But somehow unremarked in the twilight zone that the UK has become.
The UK media is an example of an oligarchy successfully controlling the entire information landscape and consistently pushing for manufactured “problems of the week” while ignoring real disturbing trends in home ownership, poverty, health and inequality between London and the abandoned “regions”. The book “Fake law” was terrifying to me - it talks about a whole number of high profile judicial cases that were pretty m…
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…
"It takes forever to see a doctor on the NHS, now!"
"Let's get rid of the doctors altogether and see how they like it! They think they're so safe."
This thread really matches well with the thread about teacher shortages. The problem with the NHS is that it should cost far more, and should turn people down when they can't pay. Then patients would understand their place in relation to doctors, like in the US, and stop complaining.