As a Brit I can't help but notice that on every axis, our country appears to be in decline at the moment. Even before Brexit, things hadn't been going well, as this article shows. It's making me seriously consider moving away. I want to have hope that as a country we can turn around this societal regression, but I fear it's a deeper problem than just the current government. The class system and an unhealthy nostalgia…
> Even before Brexit, things hadn't been going well
While I think Brexit was unwise, it passed for this exact reason: things hadn't been going well.
In my district in the UK, there were occasions when average wait times for an ambulance for a Category 1 incident (eg. person not breathing) reached 48 hours last month. The target is 90% of patients reached in 15 minutes. Yet the reality is the average wait was 48 hours. I can't see any way that kind of thing isn't contributing to a shorter life expectancy.
I don’t get why people are even bothering to call at this point, surely you’re better off calling a taxi or driving the person yourself and then just carrying them into the ER and shouting for help. They’re in the building that way and they can’t just ignore a collapsed person in the middle of a hallway
In my district in the UK, there were occasions when average wait times for an ambulance for a Category 1 incident (eg. person not breathing) reached 48 hours last month. The target is 90% of patients reached in 15 minutes. Yet the reality is the average wait was 48 hours. I can't see any way that kind of thing isn't contributing to a shorter life expectancy.
How does something like that even happen...? All I can consider is the relatively small size of the UK, and how one can drive from one side of the other in the UK in just 15 or so hours...
In my district in the UK, there were occasions when average wait times for an ambulance for a Category 1 incident (eg. person not breathing) reached 48 hours last month. The target is 90% of patients reached in 15 minutes. Yet the reality is the average wait was 48 hours. I can't see any way that kind of thing isn't contributing to a shorter life expectancy.
Morbid question, but if someone dies while waiting, are they included in the “average wait time” statistic?
Concerted efforts by the Tories over decades to defund public health so that they can raise a generation of people who sincerely believe that it's best for the country for the government to get out of Healthcare and leave that to the more efficient private sector. It's a very slow process that requires first the defunding, then some brainwashing via television. The American model.
The UK NHS budget has been steadily increasing. You can't plausibly claim that the Tories have defunded public health over decades. Some might claim that the funding should have increased at a faster rate, but there are limits to what any society can spend on healthcare. https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-...
Just cause the dollar amount is increasing doesn't mean it isn't being defunded. You have to account for inflation, population size, and population age distribution.
How does something like that even happen...? All I can consider is the relatively small size of the UK, and how one can drive from one side of the other in the UK in just 15 or so hours...
My understanding after reading this article is that the problem has nothing to do with ambulances or medics. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/20/world/europe/uk-ambulance... First order problem, the hospitals have no beds. This means that ambulances end up waiting for hours and medics twiddling their thumbs at the ER until the staff can finally take the patient. Medics can't just abandon the patient because there lega…
b) is not exclusive to Britain. A very large portion of the US benefits from poorer countries to the south with high birth rates and porous borders. Probably applies to almost all large developed countries.
The UK NHS budget has been steadily increasing. You can't plausibly claim that the Tories have defunded public health over decades. Some might claim that the funding should have increased at a faster rate, but there are limits to what any society can spend on healthcare. https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-...
It's easier for people to believe in a personified evil with a face that can be hated and a body that can be killed than it is for them to accept that many of our biggest problems are intractable hyperobjects which are simultaneously nobody's fault and everybody's fault.
I do not think anyone would have a problem with intractable hyperobjects if the King, Prime Minister, and others also had to wait in the same queue at the emergency room.
What people have a problem with is that the problem seems to be tractable for some, and not for others, and whether or not those “some” are worthy of it.
I don't know honestly, never been to any of these places and after moving around several times within the US I realize how nice it is to just be setted in one place, but here's what I would consider: Netherlands (I really like biking), Germany (Cologne seems like a nice vibe), France (Probably Paris, Food obviously, but I also really appreciate people's willingness to protest stuff)
> Probably Paris Paris is probably one of the worst places to live in Europe. Looks nice on postcards and it's nice to visit when you never live there, though.
I like it, and especially compared to the US it's a huge upgrade
The UK NHS budget has been steadily increasing. You can't plausibly claim that the Tories have defunded public health over decades. Some might claim that the funding should have increased at a faster rate, but there are limits to what any society can spend on healthcare. https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-...
Just cause the dollar amount is increasing doesn't mean it isn't being defunded. You have to account for inflation, population size, and population age distribution.
NHS spending has increased by over 6.5% yearly since 2010, with even more massive increases planned for 2024-25.
Want a comparison? France's healthcare spending increased 0.3% yearly in the same timeframe. The UK is outpacing France's spending increases by 2,066%.
The spending argument is made from political propaganda, not from fact.
I am curious what country you could move to that isn’t co-opted by the wealthy and powerful. Sure isn’t Canada. Sure isn’t anywhere in the EU. Super-duper-sure it isn’t anywhere in Asia.
Point to a single time in history this hasn't been the case. Things are a lot better now than they used to be. The only thing that has really changed is that the post-war American boom is over. Cheap labor, cheap money, cheap everything has returned to baseline and reached the costs felt elsewhere in the industrialized world.
Things aren’t better at all. People say this because we have better technology, medicine, etc. but there was never a time in the past when humans had the life sucked out of them as they do now. We are raised inside boxes, our whole lives elapse inside boxes staring at screens and our social and emotional brain networks atrophy, leaving us damaged and hollow. Like zombies. There is no escaping the state. The law is absolute, there is no chance of escape or starting over. There is no land that is mysterious, the world has been collapsed. There’s no mystery in the world compared to before. AI gets better by the month and now most people can’t rationalize or ignore it: humans will face obsolescence soon. This is bad not just for the obvious reasons. We ingest chemicals and environmental contaminants that make us extremely sick. People are keeling over from heart attacks, obesity much more than they used to. I’ve read a lot of history and I would much rather live in 1720 than 2020.