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The National Health Service is the pride and joy of the United Kingdom, loved more by the people than any other British institution because it provides unconditional safety and security to all.
But it is facing an unprecedented crisis. The health care system is being pushed beyond its capacity, creating record delays in emergency services and the death toll nationally higher than during the pandemic.
Why we wrote this
British people rely on the National Health Service like no other institution. With the NHS “on the brink of collapse”, the country is fretting over the future of its long-trusted safety net.
At the same time, NHS doctors, nurses and front-line workers feel so overworked, underpaid and undervalued by the government that pays them that they are striking like never before in Britain.
“In the last 10 years in this country, we haven’t tried to grow our workforce at the rate we need and we haven’t invested in the basic facilities you need for modern health care,” says Shiva Anandasiva, chief analyst at the charity The King’s Fund. “As a result, you’ve basically got a system that is not resilient enough to withstand shocks. When you have multiple shocks, it’s no wonder that wait times and patient care are at such a poor level right now.”
They call at all hours of the day and night. The man who said he wouldn’t be able to play with his children if it wasn’t for the operation. A grateful woman for a front-line worker who offered help and support amid a family crisis. A 10-year-old child undergoing surgery after an epidemic.
This is Hopeline19, a free phone line that started as a way for the grateful British public to leave messages of support for Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) workers. About 17,000 people joined the service within days of its launch in September 2021. Today, 18 months later, 6,000 people still call each week.
“I don’t know if you’re listening to this on your 10-minute break, or the only break you get from a 12-hour shift, but I thank you from the bottom of my heart,” said one. collar
Why we wrote this
British people rely on the National Health Service like no other institution. With the NHS “on the brink of collapse”, the country is fretting over the future of its long-trusted safety net.
The NHS is the nation’s pride and joy, loved more by the public than any other British institution, including the Royal Family, the Armed Forces and the BBC, because it provides unconditional safety and security to all. But it is facing a crisis like never before – declining confidence in its ability to effectively support both its workers and the public. The health care system is being pushed beyond its capacity, creating record delays in emergency services and the death toll nationally higher than during the pandemic.
At the same time, NHS doctors, nurses and front-line workers feel so overworked, underpaid and undervalued by the government that pays them that they are striking like never before in Britain. As they do, they are gaining support from those who want to protect those who provide such a critical social safety net.
This has drawn fresh attention to the fact that Chancellor Jeremy Hunt admitted last month: “The NHS is on the brink of collapse … with doctors, nurses clearly on the front line under unbearable pressure,” he said.
“The NHS has reached the point where it can no longer save your life,” says Alastair McLellan, editor of the Health Services Journal.
Britain’s favorite public institution
The NHS came into existence on July 5, 1948. It was the first universal health care system financed by taxes, and is “free at the time of delivery”, meaning that treatment is provided according to need, not by an individual’s ability. to pay The service has removed two monarchs, 15 prime ministers and 29 health secretaries.
But spending on health care in Britain has fallen over the past decade. The United Kingdom invests about 0.3% of gross domestic product on health care capital spending, less than any other country in the G-7. This is now reflected in the deteriorating health of the British public, which is holding back economic growth for the first time since the Industrial Revolution, Andy Haldane, former chief economist at the Bank of England, said in a recent speech.
Today, the NHS is in dire straits. A record 7.21 million people were waiting for treatment in England at the end of October. Nearly 4,000 patients are spending more than 12 hours in emergency departments every day, a record four-hour target. Most alarmingly, figures from the Office for National Statistics show that, on average, the number of additional deaths is currently higher than during the pandemic, a quarter of which is attributed to interruptions in emergency care.
Mr McLellan says there are two main problems, and one of them has nothing to do with treatment. Rather, it is logistical.
Patients are stuck in emergency departments (called “accident and emergency” or A&E in the UK) rather than transferred to hospital beds because the wards are occupied by people who are medically fit to leave, but who have been discharged. Can’t because they don’t have to. Necessary care at home. In this situation up to a third of the beds in some institutions are occupied by people.
“If you can’t get people out of hospital, you can’t get people out of A&E,” says Mr McLellan. “If you can’t get people out of A&E, you can’t get them out of the ambulance queue outside A&E. And if an ambulance is queuing outside A&E, it doesn’t respond to life-threatening calls.”
Another, more pressing, problem is staff shortages, exacerbated by the post-Brexit departure of thousands of foreign-born health professionals, including 4,000 European doctors.
Many remaining hospital staff have begun skipping breaks and working overtime for free, to maintain standards of care, and have resorted to annual holiday sales or food banks.
Such stress has had an impact: in the year to last June, 1 in 9 nurses left the NHS, and a survey by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) found that 6 in 10 were considering or planning their resignation. Already, more than 30,000 nursing positions are filled.
At a time when the country is still feeling the effects of Covid-19, and facing a cost-of-living crisis, recession and energy crisis, the NHS is under more pressure than at any other time in its history, he says. Shiva Anandasiva, Principal Analyst at The King’s Fund, a charity working to improve health and care in England.
“We’ve run our system in what I call the red zone on dial for a long, long time,” he says. “Over the last 10 years in this country, we haven’t tried to grow our workforce at the rate we need and we haven’t invested in the basic facilities you need for modern health care.”
“As a result, you’ve basically got a system that is not resilient enough to withstand shocks. When you have multiple shocks, it’s no wonder that wait times and patient care are at such a poor level right now.”
The government is backing down
For the first time in its 106-year history, the RCN called a strike this month to demand a pay rise. The nurses walked out for two days, and the strike will continue into the spring if they fail to reach an agreement. A recent poll found that 59% of Britons supported the move.
“Anger has turned into action, our members are saying enough is enough,” RCN general secretary Pat Cullen said in a statement. “Our members will no longer tolerate a financial knife edge at home and a raw deal at work.”
Ambulance employees went on a 24-hour strike on Wednesday as well.
While the strike is primarily concerned with pay, front-line workers also cite underfunding and staff shortages that they say create working conditions that leave them with no choice but to strike. A recent survey by the GMB trade union found that 1 in 3 ambulance staff were involved in a delay that resulted in the death of a patient.
“We found higher levels of PTSD among our nursing staff than recent returnees from combat zones,” says Claire Goodwin-Fee, founder and CEO of Frontline19, a service that provides psychological support to frontline workers.
Regardless of how things stand at the moment, Britons are almost unanimous in their desire to see the NHS survive and – ultimately – thrive.
“Generally speaking, people on the street are huge fans of the NHS and supporters of health workers, which we saw during the pandemic,” says Ms Goodwin-Fee. “I’ve never met anyone who wants to get rid of it.”
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