Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

uk.news.yahoo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 429 posts

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

#241

Post by solar-ice »

pharmakom wrote: post #214
jeromegv wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have actively worked at crippling it. Now that it’s crippled they tell you.. oh but surely the government can’t fix it, we need private enterprises to fix it! You walked right into it. What makes you think private business are capable of delivering something cheaper than what the government can do? The most expensive health care in the world is private.

This makes me wonder… if Conservative strategy is to run it into the ground and then privatise, which is an unpopular plan with the public, then how are they able to consistently win elections?

Largely because the Tories are also willing to be fairly openly xenophobic, which is very popular with a large portion of the public. "Making sure the poors don't take more than they deserve" is another one of their popular policies.

The more-well-off also think Tory policies will get them a house and security. In practice, the UK housing market is completely fucked and gets more so every year, but... it doesn't stop people believing it.

Basically the health of the NHS is about the tenth thing on some people's minds when voting, until they get cancer or break an arm, at which point they start complaining about it.

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

#242

Post by DanBC »

rleigh wrote: post #221
Teever wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think this should be an option?

Why should it be an option? Because we live in a free country, and should be free to spend our money as we see fit. Even if others don't agree with it. Why should we all be compelled by the force of law to divert a huge fraction of our income to an organisation which is so ineffective and inaccessible? We are forced to spend a significant fraction of our salaries on the NHS whether or not we want to. If we feel that…

We've had privatisation experiments in English healthcare for years.

Dentistry is a fucking mess. Eye care is a fucking mess. Care and Nursing homes are a fucking mess. Large private provision of GP care? They can't do it and they hand the contracts back. Specialist commissioning in mental health? It's a fucking mess.

> It's run by Whitehall and politicians, with little input from those actually doing the real work.

If you say things like this it makes me think that you don't know that NHSEngland/Improvement is an arms-length-body, nor what that means in terms of command and control of the English NHS. It makes me think that you didn't know what CCGs were nor how they worked, and that you don't know what an ICS/ICB is nor how they work.

> If there is to ever be any improvement in the NHS, there needs to be competition.

What is "choose and book"? We tried competition, and it dramatically increased costs without doing anything at all to improve care. We're now spending considerable amounts of money rolling back some of that law.

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

#243

Post by mcintyre1994 »

ogogmad wrote: post #38
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…

One person I'm speaking to claims that the NHS hires too many bureaucrats who are impossible to fire, and who he believes provide the doctors with too much paperwork. He suggests that instead of paying those bureaucrats, the money should go to doctors, nurses and equipment. He claims that the NHS gets about the same amount of money - GDP-wise - as other European countries, while underperforming them. They already hir…

Literally yesterday the Daily Mail published a front page ‘exposing’ the fact that the NHS spends a total of £1 million on diversity. If that’s the best a paper hellbent on attacking the NHS can find, it’s hard to imagine there’s actually much waste.

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

#244

Post by lotsofpulp »

MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #225
lotsofpulp wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reliance on foreign skilled health care labour. I think it is more accurate to say cheap labor.

No, we really did import a lot of skilled labour and did not train enough of our own people.

Domestic people were not discriminated against from training.

Birthrates went down, so supply of labor decreases, so prices have to increase to attract more people to do the desired type of labor. Or if the country is desirable enough, the country can open up immigration to increase supply of labor and keep prices lower than if they had kept immigration closed.

Domestic labor can keep moving onto more desirable jobs while immigrants keep doing the less desirable work in exchange for being able to immigrate. Works well, until birthrates drop too low and/or immigrants stop coming for whatever reason.

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

#245

Post by DanBC »

zbdngkhab wrote: post #124
tchalla wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a “simple” explanation if you take some time to understand how vaccine works. Just because there’s a side effect form vaccine doesn’t mean that the vaccine isn’t the best option. Your thought process is classic example of zero risk bias.

If it's not a simple explanation why did vaccine companies need absolving of any liability by govts? So safe they need to avoid liability? So safe many of the vaccines had complication rates far higher than any flu vaccine in history? Look I'm glad we had the vaccines so quickly. Trump pushing them through regulation was extremely good for man kind and we have all benefited. But stop acting like there is no risk.

> why did vaccine companies need absolving of any liability by govts?

We know some people will be harmed by vaccination. Despite that, we need to vaccinate as many people as possible. Because of that, we make it easy for people who've been harmed to claim compensation from a government and industry backed fund, rather than force those harmed people to go through the courts against multi-billion dollar companies with very expensive lawyers.

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

#246

Post by Nexxxeh »

hotpotamus wrote: post #166
origin_path wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Perhaps for some reason your friends are disproportionately feckless cowards? I've met zero people in my life who have any fear of criticizing health systems, public or private. Perhaps the people I've met are just unusually heroic. And so your aunt is currently able to purchase a higher quality of care because she has the money to do so? And this is an option for all moneyed citizens of the UK?

While I'm not a fan of your tone (not that of your parent poster), I agree entirely with the bones of your post. I do not think their experience as stated is anywhere near... universal.

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

#247

Post by loriverkutya »

ricardobayes wrote: post #229
rleigh wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

In the UK id you are self employed you still need to pay National Insurance which is as far as I know used for funding healthcare.

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

#248

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#249

Post by rvieira »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #54

How has brexit affected the nhs?

Definitely a drop in EU nursing and health-related staff (up to 87% in post-referendum). This may have been balanced with an increase of non-EU staff, but the direction is still wrong (understaffing increasing year on year).

https://www.health.org.uk/chart/chart-large-drop-in-the-numb...

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

#250

Post by Nexxxeh »

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #243
ogogmad wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One person I'm speaking to claims that the NHS hires too many bureaucrats who are impossible to fire, and who he believes provide the doctors with too much paperwork. He suggests that instead of paying those bureaucrats, the money should go to doctors, nurses and equipment. He claims that the NHS gets about the same amount of money - GDP-wise - as other European countries, while underperforming them. They already hir…

Literally yesterday the Daily Mail published a front page ‘exposing’ the fact that the NHS spends a total of £1 million on diversity. If that’s the best a paper hellbent on attacking the NHS can find, it’s hard to imagine there’s actually much waste.

The Daily Mail has a very anti-immigration and anti-diversity agenda, which fits well into the pro-Tory agenda. That story is a winning combination.
Post reply on HN