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Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week
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Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week
#92But what has caused the collapse of emergency healthcare in the UK? A lack of supply or an increase in demand?
Increase in demand - much of which is attributed (by the NHS itself) for people having poor life-styles (meaning tending to obesity [0] and not maintaining physical and mental fitness), and the tendency for people to be kept alive longer existing with chronic conditions that a few decades ago would have naturally expired (dead!). There's been an endemic problem for the last 30+ years where-by a large proportion of th…
The UK has an ageing population. A higher percentage of older people and fewer younger people. Saying that those old people should have died earlier would be disgusting so I'm sure that's not what you meant.
So to be clear there's an increase in demand because British people are living longer. That's a good thing and should result in increased funding.
Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week
#93Canada is having the same issue with 20hr waits in the emergency room and others being rejected outright https://globalnews.ca/news/9066662/emergency-rooms-canada-bi... I’ve heard a big part is all the doctors have been going on vacation all at once now that COVID is largely over, after not taking them for two years. They don’t have enough staff to cover even partial shortages. That plus the elephant in the room of p…
There's a public sector salary cap in many parts of Canada, despite roaring inflation. And a general vibe from the public and the government that generally despises public sector unions and would almost certainly backlash against nurses and teachers should they sensibly decide to go on strike. For two years they busted their asses for the public in tough straits and now COVID numbers in the hospital system are still…
It's the same in the UK, junior doctors and nurses have had terrible compensation for years (the Conservatives even scrapped the student bursaries).
And now they're surprised when they all leave for Australia and the USA where they can earn 3-4x as much...
Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week
#94Meanwhile the prime minister is on perma vacation and the replacement candidates are focused on banning on shore renewables and squabbling among each other
The replacement candidates are also both sure that the main issues facing the UK public are "woke" politics and trans people[0], and seem entirely unphased about the pending crisis around energy bills and the price of food. And the opposition seem pretty uninterested in taking advantage of this massive open goal. Incredible. [0] no, not in a nice "let's all remember to treat LGBTQ+ compassionately and with respect" w…
> And the opposition seem pretty uninterested in taking advantage of this massive open goal.
Never interrupt your opponent while they are making a mistake.
Right now, Labour and the Lib Dems don't have a particularly credible method to cause an election. Given that, their best _political_ option is probably to allow the Tories to run themselves into the ground.
Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week
#95For those not from the UK there’s a wider narrative at play here. Any and all government bashing is almost a national sport and pastime at this stage. Throw in some numbers to try to prove your point and you’re going to be well received. So there’s a lot of misinformation out there. Perhaps this Twitter chap is talking rubbish too. For the record not saying our government is perfect but holy heck it’s hard to keep up…
"This Twitter chap" is a journalist at the Financial Times and is a senior fellow at the London School of Economics. He's not just some rando bashing government...
So you're saying as a result of these two positions that he holds he cannot possibly be wrong and I should blindly trust anything he says so long as he shows some workings?
Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week
#96But what has caused the collapse of emergency healthcare in the UK? A lack of supply or an increase in demand?
Its always the same answer. People stuffing their faces with garbage food and chilling on the couch all day. Apparently there was an explosion of obesity in UK during covid. These people clog up all the available supply leaving very little for the rest. Its the same story everywhere. Ppl whine about funding, shortages ect but no one cares about if we can do something about the demand. Govt pushed covid vaccine on you…
Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week
#97Canada is having the same issue with 20hr waits in the emergency room and others being rejected outright https://globalnews.ca/news/9066662/emergency-rooms-canada-bi... I’ve heard a big part is all the doctors have been going on vacation all at once now that COVID is largely over, after not taking them for two years. They don’t have enough staff to cover even partial shortages. That plus the elephant in the room of p…
There's a public sector salary cap in many parts of Canada, despite roaring inflation. And a general vibe from the public and the government that generally despises public sector unions and would almost certainly backlash against nurses and teachers should they sensibly decide to go on strike. For two years they busted their asses for the public in tough straits and now COVID numbers in the hospital system are still…
At the same time there are plenty of medical specialists in the sunshine list making 400K+ CAD. Keeps me wondering why radiologists are paid that well, compared say with oncologists. Also do not forget 1) province caps on medial school admission and 2) administrative bloat. Nurses shortage is only one of the many issues with the healthcare in Canada.
Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week
#98But what has caused the collapse of emergency healthcare in the UK? A lack of supply or an increase in demand?
Lack of qualified staff willing to work at the current pay rates. There are shortages in plenty of sectors at the moment so medical personnel who have had enough are leaving or retiring early and they can’t be replaced because pay rises are not keeping up with inflation. I’m going to look for my source just now but I read that there are 100,000 vacancies in the care professions currently. Postal workers, train driver…
The British Medical Association quotes a shortage of 50,000 doctors: https://www.bma.org.uk/bma-media-centre/nhs-short-of-50-000-...
There's an amazing chart here: https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/nhs-delivery-and-w... which shows the "Practising doctors per 1,000 inhabitants: England, UK and OECD EU nations". The UK is 16th out of 19.
Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week
#99I hadn't (here in the USA) heard anything about "collapse of emergency healthcare in England" -- can anyone provide some links for some context? What is actually going on, and (to the extent people know/educated guess) why? Have wait times been gradually increasing, or has there been a sudden increase? ("collapse" sounds sudden?) Etc etc.
The Conservative Party have been in power for 12 years. When they gained power they pursued a policy of "austerity" to reduce the size of the govt and local govt, reduce the funding of nationally funded things, and to replace such govt owned things with "public private partnerships". This can be seen everywhere from social care (private care homes), schools (academy schools), transport (where area contracts are bid for by private companies), etc.
With health specifically the goal is to have more privately owned profit making companies in the NHS. The NHS as it is constructed doesn't allow for this. But for the Conservatives this opportunity for them and their backers. For the public, there is a national pride in the NHS.
So we entered the pandemic with an already under-funded and stretched health care system.
Much to the chagrin of those in charge though... this has not led to any calls for privatisation. Nor has it led to a boom in people taking out private health care cover.
It turns out that the British stiff upper lip response to something they're nationally proud of is that they'd rather die than embrace health privatisation. So we're in uncharted territory... the playbook that had allowed the privatisation of almost everything else isn't working now, it's just killing people.
Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
But they voted for first past the post!! In my opinion that was the defining moment that cemented the UK's decline. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Kingdom_Alternativ...
I voted against an Alternative Vote, I do support Proportional Representation.
Watching from next door (we've had STV PR in Ireland since independence), I never got this. PR _wasn't on offer_. Unless you actually preferred first past the post to AV (PR > FPTP > AV seems like a weird preference ranking, but I suppose it might be _someone's_), why on earth didn't you vote for AV?