Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
Its funny how the left love to compare us to Europe for almost everything like holiday day entitlements etc until the topic of the NHS comes up and then its just the NHS or America with nothing else allowed into the conversation.
But it's not just the left, is it? The Conservative party's rhetoric for quite some time now has been that the NHS is absolutely untouchable, and that rhetoric has only grown stronger through the pandemic.
That's because actual discussion on health services requires nuance, which is something which has been lacking from our politics for a very long time.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
To put it more politely, basing the Leave campaign on the proposition that Brexit might somehow bring about a transformation for the better in UK healthcare was not entirely honest.
Anyone who had been in an NHS hospital and observed the number of EU staff on whom they rely should have worked that out for themselves.
So petrol requires 3x the energy of all electricity combined 😲
And all petrol is expected to be replaced with electricity?
Actually that seems like a very good thing with respect to wind variability. Given that cars have batteries and can be charged over a period of many hours (especially if cars are plugged in overnight) as that means that when the wind is variably blowing high then chargers can be programmed to automatically and cheaply recharge car batteries, while when wind is low then the chargers can be programmed to automatically switch off unless the car really needs recharging.
However that only works for homes with driveways that have their own chargers. It doesn't work for anyone who needs to recharge exclusively on-demand at a service station equivalent.
If we were to have joined up thinking the one thing we should really be encouraging is for as many new homes as possible to be semi-detached, with driveways and ideally chargers installed while the wiring is being done, or at least set for the capability to have chargers installed.
Conflating electricity with energy conveys the impression that the renewable battle is nearly won, whereas in truth we still have a long, long way to go.
As predicted last week, first Daily Mail article counting the private jets - 52 in Glasgow yesterday, including four that flew from Glasgow to Prestwick empty to park, as GLA was full. Four planes for Biden, landing in Edinburgh and going in a 85-vehicle convoy to Glasgow.
Yes the crazy brigade of climate activists are saying we shouldn't fly, but as far as I'm aware Biden is not amongst them.
If as I believe (and I think you do too) the future is dependant upon switching to clean technology aviation and not abandoning aviation, then what is wrong with the US President and his entourage flying to a summit designed to help us get there?
Yes, it is typical denialism-lite. To not take what is going with climate change seriously because some attendees are less than perfect. Leaders always have camp followers.
Though I do think its a valid argument to use with the crazies who do follow these events, the Gretas of this world, who are adamant we're not doing enough and that we shouldn't be travelling and this needs to all happen overnight.
Ok, you first.
Sure, Greta can be annoyingly monomaniac on the subject of climate change, but consciousness raising and getting engagement with the topic is a very useful role. No one expects a teenager to have all the answers, including herself, but she has done a sterling job of raising publicity around the world.
Yes. Less than a decade ago, we still had politicians like Boris Johnson cracking jokes about windmills and Anne-Marie Trevelyan denying the existence of climate change as well as a host of right-wing commentators making fun of "loony left" proposals to deal with global warming. Now, thanks in large part to campaigners like Greta, those who dismiss the seriousness of climate change are very much in the minority.
That minority includes China.
Perhaps Greta might like to go to China.
A country which is planning to build another 43 coal fired power stations to go with the 1000+ it already has (over half of the entire world's):
Likewise all the XR and Insulate types might like to go to the Chinese embassy for their next stunt.
I suspect they wont.
How is a net zero by 2060 pledge dismissing the seriousness of climate change? If Xi wanted to say Fuck it, I don't believe it, why wouldn't he say that?
Perhaps because making a promise which he has no intention of keeping keeps gullible fools in the western world happy and focused on energy restrictions in their own countries.
Leading to the closure of western factories and steelworks and not those in China.
Where is your evidence he has no intention of keeping it? The world leader I would least trust to do something they said they would do is a great deal closer to home. Is there a correlation between epicanthic folds and unreliability?
"China burns half the world’s coal and is still building new coal power plants, though they are increasingly uneconomic and unnecessary. It also burns coal directly in factories that produce half the world’s steel and cement. One notable aspect of my smog-filled days in Beijing was the virtual absence of private cars – the streets were mostly filled with bicycles. China has since become the largest global automobile market, as well as the world’s largest importer of crude oil.
But here’s the paradox: it also leads the world in the very clean technologies that make Xi’s plans feasible. China is by far the largest investor, producer and consumer of renewable energy. One out of every three solar panels and wind turbines in the world are in China. It is also home to nearly half the world’s electric passenger vehicles, 98% of its electric buses and 99% of its electric two-wheelers. The country leads in the production of batteries to power electric vehicles and store renewable energy on power grids. By 2025, its battery facilities will be almost double the capacity of the rest of the world combined.
China’s clean energy drive and economies of scale have driven down the once-exorbitant cost of these technologies to the point where they are threatening their fossil fuel competitors everywhere. Large-scale solar photovoltaics and onshore wind projects are now the cheapest form of new power generation for at least two-thirds of the world’s population. It will soon be cheaper to build new solar and wind plants than to continue to operate existing coal plants. The cost of electric cars and buses continues to plunge, and they will be as cheap as their polluting alternatives within the next five years."
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
As predicted last week, first Daily Mail article counting the private jets - 52 in Glasgow yesterday, including four that flew from Glasgow to Prestwick empty to park, as GLA was full. Four planes for Biden, landing in Edinburgh and going in a 85-vehicle convoy to Glasgow.
Yes the crazy brigade of climate activists are saying we shouldn't fly, but as far as I'm aware Biden is not amongst them.
If as I believe (and I think you do too) the future is dependant upon switching to clean technology aviation and not abandoning aviation, then what is wrong with the US President and his entourage flying to a summit designed to help us get there?
Yes, it is typical denialism-lite. To not take what is going with climate change seriously because some attendees are less than perfect. Leaders always have camp followers.
Though I do think its a valid argument to use with the crazies who do follow these events, the Gretas of this world, who are adamant we're not doing enough and that we shouldn't be travelling and this needs to all happen overnight.
Ok, you first.
Sure, Greta can be annoyingly monomaniac on the subject of climate change, but consciousness raising and getting engagement with the topic is a very useful role. No one expects a teenager to have all the answers, including herself, but she has done a sterling job of raising publicity around the world.
Yes. Less than a decade ago, we still had politicians like Boris Johnson cracking jokes about windmills and Anne-Marie Trevelyan denying the existence of climate change as well as a host of right-wing commentators making fun of "loony left" proposals to deal with global warming. Now, thanks in large part to campaigners like Greta, those who dismiss the seriousness of climate change are very much in the minority.
That minority includes China.
Perhaps Greta might like to go to China.
A country which is planning to build another 43 coal fired power stations to go with the 1000+ it already has (over half of the entire world's):
Likewise all the XR and Insulate types might like to go to the Chinese embassy for their next stunt.
I suspect they wont.
That minority doesn't include China, really. From what I've read, China thinks climate change is a very serious issue. One may think that its progress on tackling it is too slow, but I see no evidence of climate change denialism. Given its stage of economic development and its population size, it's hardly surprising that it's behind most of the West in reducing emissions (although apparently China's emissions per person are around half of those in the USA).
I wouldn't be at all surprised if, 20 or so years down the line, Chinese technology makes a significant contribution to tackling global climate change.
I wonder if any other country had over half of the world's coal fired power station capacity, was rapidly building more and also funding others throughout the world there would be so many willing apologists for it.
Éric Zemmour, Macron’s far-right rival, wins backing from Russia
“Then it is possible that we will see an alliance of Moscow, Paris and Berlin, which will confront the Anglo-Saxons led by the United States and Great Britain.”
This would seem to be the most likely outcome when the Western Alliance disintegrates.
Which would have been less likely without Brexit.
Nothing whatsoever to do with Brexit.
More the fact Zemmour and Putin are both ferociously anti Woke, which they see as largely a product of the Anglo Saxon world.
In any case Zemmour is a French nationalist and has no love for the EU and has made clear he has some sympathy with Brexit. However he is a Gaullist not an Anglo Saxon
Gaullists (aka Franks), Angles and Saxons. All products of the Teutonic forests.
Weird one, that. France was very like England in being a Romano-Celtic culture which saw a big influx of Teutonic tribes which become the ruling class. But the Franks adopted the culture of the existing population. The Angles and Saxons did not. I've never found a satisfactory explanation of this. My favourite theory I've seen is that actually the east of Britain was already substantially Germanicized in the Roman period. It makes a sort of sense - in those days, cultures clustered around littoral areas rather than landmasses. But it's far from watertight.
Ha ha. I'm going off on odd tangents today! Maybe because I've got a new project locally. Firing up my mind!
I'm inclined to agree with your theory about the East of Britain; Tacitus (IIRC) says something about the people in the area of Britain first reached by the Romans spoke a language similar to that in the North West of the mainland. AIUI, later historians rather pooh-poohed this, relying rather on such writers as Bede, but it's odd that one has to go quite a long way West before one gets any trace of Celtic names for places. The various River Avon's are about the most easterly. Of course, too, the British had had 300+ years of a Latin speaking ruling class, and the British language(s) of AD400 were probably very different from those spoken by Boudicca or (if he existed) King Coel of Camulodunum. And you are of course right in that the seas and rivers were easier for travel than the forested and wild animal inhabited land.
Genetics suggest that many of the people now living in England today have ancestry going back to pre-Saxon times.
As predicted last week, first Daily Mail article counting the private jets - 52 in Glasgow yesterday, including four that flew from Glasgow to Prestwick empty to park, as GLA was full. Four planes for Biden, landing in Edinburgh and going in a 85-vehicle convoy to Glasgow.
Yes the crazy brigade of climate activists are saying we shouldn't fly, but as far as I'm aware Biden is not amongst them.
If as I believe (and I think you do too) the future is dependant upon switching to clean technology aviation and not abandoning aviation, then what is wrong with the US President and his entourage flying to a summit designed to help us get there?
Yes, it is typical denialism-lite. To not take what is going with climate change seriously because some attendees are less than perfect. Leaders always have camp followers.
Though I do think its a valid argument to use with the crazies who do follow these events, the Gretas of this world, who are adamant we're not doing enough and that we shouldn't be travelling and this needs to all happen overnight.
Ok, you first.
Sure, Greta can be annoyingly monomaniac on the subject of climate change, but consciousness raising and getting engagement with the topic is a very useful role. No one expects a teenager to have all the answers, including herself, but she has done a sterling job of raising publicity around the world.
Yes. Less than a decade ago, we still had politicians like Boris Johnson cracking jokes about windmills and Anne-Marie Trevelyan denying the existence of climate change as well as a host of right-wing commentators making fun of "loony left" proposals to deal with global warming. Now, thanks in large part to campaigners like Greta, those who dismiss the seriousness of climate change are very much in the minority.
That minority includes China.
Perhaps Greta might like to go to China.
A country which is planning to build another 43 coal fired power stations to go with the 1000+ it already has (over half of the entire world's):
Likewise all the XR and Insulate types might like to go to the Chinese embassy for their next stunt.
I suspect they wont.
That minority doesn't include China, really. From what I've read, China thinks climate change is a very serious issue. One may think that its progress on tackling it is too slow, but I see no evidence of climate change denialism. Given its stage of economic development and its population size, it's hardly surprising that it's behind most of the West in reducing emissions (although apparently China's emissions per person are around half of those in the USA).
I wouldn't be at all surprised if, 20 or so years down the line, Chinese technology makes a significant contribution to tackling global climate change.
Richard's point was that the XR types won't protest against China, not that China doesn't take climate change seriously. As this BBC article highlights, when it raised the same question to XR types:
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
Its funny how the left love to compare us to Europe for almost everything like holiday day entitlements etc until the topic of the NHS comes up and then its just the NHS or America with nothing else allowed into the conversation.
But it's not just the left, is it? The Conservative party's rhetoric for quite some time now has been that the NHS is absolutely untouchable, and that rhetoric has only grown stronger through the pandemic.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
It's awful, I agree. Competent and sometimes heroic doctors and nurses - this is why we clapped for the NHS: not because we admire the institution but because its workers were continuing to work in the face of not inconsiderable personal risk - but an atrocious standard of customer service. Doubly galling when we are told it's the envy of the world. Even more so when more and more that we do appears to be for the good of the NHS: we locked down to save the NHS; we grow the economy to fund the NHS. We are a health service with a country attached.
But what do we do? Any hint that we might reform it is howled down; exponents of reform painted as baby eaters.
As predicted last week, first Daily Mail article counting the private jets - 52 in Glasgow yesterday, including four that flew from Glasgow to Prestwick empty to park, as GLA was full. Four planes for Biden, landing in Edinburgh and going in a 85-vehicle convoy to Glasgow.
Yes the crazy brigade of climate activists are saying we shouldn't fly, but as far as I'm aware Biden is not amongst them.
If as I believe (and I think you do too) the future is dependant upon switching to clean technology aviation and not abandoning aviation, then what is wrong with the US President and his entourage flying to a summit designed to help us get there?
Yes, it is typical denialism-lite. To not take what is going with climate change seriously because some attendees are less than perfect. Leaders always have camp followers.
Though I do think its a valid argument to use with the crazies who do follow these events, the Gretas of this world, who are adamant we're not doing enough and that we shouldn't be travelling and this needs to all happen overnight.
Ok, you first.
Sure, Greta can be annoyingly monomaniac on the subject of climate change, but consciousness raising and getting engagement with the topic is a very useful role. No one expects a teenager to have all the answers, including herself, but she has done a sterling job of raising publicity around the world.
Yes. Less than a decade ago, we still had politicians like Boris Johnson cracking jokes about windmills and Anne-Marie Trevelyan denying the existence of climate change as well as a host of right-wing commentators making fun of "loony left" proposals to deal with global warming. Now, thanks in large part to campaigners like Greta, those who dismiss the seriousness of climate change are very much in the minority.
That minority includes China.
Perhaps Greta might like to go to China.
A country which is planning to build another 43 coal fired power stations to go with the 1000+ it already has (over half of the entire world's):
Likewise all the XR and Insulate types might like to go to the Chinese embassy for their next stunt.
I suspect they wont.
That minority doesn't include China, really. From what I've read, China thinks climate change is a very serious issue. One may think that its progress on tackling it is too slow, but I see no evidence of climate change denialism. Given its stage of economic development and its population size, it's hardly surprising that it's behind most of the West in reducing emissions (although apparently China's emissions per person are around half of those in the USA).
I wouldn't be at all surprised if, 20 or so years down the line, Chinese technology makes a significant contribution to tackling global climate change.
I wonder if any other country had over half of the world's coal fired power station capacity, was rapidly building more and also funding others throughout the world there would be so many willing apologists for it.
Or perhaps the reason some people are never willing to criticise China is that they want all the 'blame' to be placed on the western world.
Especially on the UK.
Not forgetting on the USA or Australia and if somehow possible on Israel.
As predicted last week, first Daily Mail article counting the private jets - 52 in Glasgow yesterday, including four that flew from Glasgow to Prestwick empty to park, as GLA was full. Four planes for Biden, landing in Edinburgh and going in a 85-vehicle convoy to Glasgow.
Yes the crazy brigade of climate activists are saying we shouldn't fly, but as far as I'm aware Biden is not amongst them.
If as I believe (and I think you do too) the future is dependant upon switching to clean technology aviation and not abandoning aviation, then what is wrong with the US President and his entourage flying to a summit designed to help us get there?
Yes, it is typical denialism-lite. To not take what is going with climate change seriously because some attendees are less than perfect. Leaders always have camp followers.
Though I do think its a valid argument to use with the crazies who do follow these events, the Gretas of this world, who are adamant we're not doing enough and that we shouldn't be travelling and this needs to all happen overnight.
Ok, you first.
Sure, Greta can be annoyingly monomaniac on the subject of climate change, but consciousness raising and getting engagement with the topic is a very useful role. No one expects a teenager to have all the answers, including herself, but she has done a sterling job of raising publicity around the world.
Yes. Less than a decade ago, we still had politicians like Boris Johnson cracking jokes about windmills and Anne-Marie Trevelyan denying the existence of climate change as well as a host of right-wing commentators making fun of "loony left" proposals to deal with global warming. Now, thanks in large part to campaigners like Greta, those who dismiss the seriousness of climate change are very much in the minority.
That minority includes China.
Perhaps Greta might like to go to China.
A country which is planning to build another 43 coal fired power stations to go with the 1000+ it already has (over half of the entire world's):
Likewise all the XR and Insulate types might like to go to the Chinese embassy for their next stunt.
I suspect they wont.
That minority doesn't include China, really. From what I've read, China thinks climate change is a very serious issue. One may think that its progress on tackling it is too slow, but I see no evidence of climate change denialism. Given its stage of economic development and its population size, it's hardly surprising that it's behind most of the West in reducing emissions (although apparently China's emissions per person are around half of those in the USA).
I wouldn't be at all surprised if, 20 or so years down the line, Chinese technology makes a significant contribution to tackling global climate change.
I wonder if any other country had over half of the world's coal fired power station capacity, was rapidly building more and also funding others throughout the world there would be so many willing apologists for it.
Or perhaps the reason some people are never willing to criticise China is that they want all the 'blame' to be placed on the western world.
Especially on the UK.
Not forgetting on the USA or Australia and if somehow possible on Israel.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
It's harder to complain when it's free, and most others aren't.
Up until the point where they cut the wrong leg off, obvs. Then a politely worded complaint might be reasonable.
I am told by a surgeon that *some* of the wrong leg cases are not as bad as you'd think, in that they happen where a double amputation is scheduled for 2 separate operations in the same week and they just get the order wrong. This is credible in that a leg which needs amputating presumably looks different from one which doesn't.
As predicted last week, first Daily Mail article counting the private jets - 52 in Glasgow yesterday, including four that flew from Glasgow to Prestwick empty to park, as GLA was full. Four planes for Biden, landing in Edinburgh and going in a 85-vehicle convoy to Glasgow.
Yes the crazy brigade of climate activists are saying we shouldn't fly, but as far as I'm aware Biden is not amongst them.
If as I believe (and I think you do too) the future is dependant upon switching to clean technology aviation and not abandoning aviation, then what is wrong with the US President and his entourage flying to a summit designed to help us get there?
Yes, it is typical denialism-lite. To not take what is going with climate change seriously because some attendees are less than perfect. Leaders always have camp followers.
Though I do think its a valid argument to use with the crazies who do follow these events, the Gretas of this world, who are adamant we're not doing enough and that we shouldn't be travelling and this needs to all happen overnight.
Ok, you first.
Sure, Greta can be annoyingly monomaniac on the subject of climate change, but consciousness raising and getting engagement with the topic is a very useful role. No one expects a teenager to have all the answers, including herself, but she has done a sterling job of raising publicity around the world.
Yes. Less than a decade ago, we still had politicians like Boris Johnson cracking jokes about windmills and Anne-Marie Trevelyan denying the existence of climate change as well as a host of right-wing commentators making fun of "loony left" proposals to deal with global warming. Now, thanks in large part to campaigners like Greta, those who dismiss the seriousness of climate change are very much in the minority.
That minority includes China.
Perhaps Greta might like to go to China.
A country which is planning to build another 43 coal fired power stations to go with the 1000+ it already has (over half of the entire world's):
Likewise all the XR and Insulate types might like to go to the Chinese embassy for their next stunt.
I suspect they wont.
That minority doesn't include China, really. From what I've read, China thinks climate change is a very serious issue. One may think that its progress on tackling it is too slow, but I see no evidence of climate change denialism. Given its stage of economic development and its population size, it's hardly surprising that it's behind most of the West in reducing emissions (although apparently China's emissions per person are around half of those in the USA).
I wouldn't be at all surprised if, 20 or so years down the line, Chinese technology makes a significant contribution to tackling global climate change.
Richard's point was that the XR types won't protest against China, not that China doesn't take climate change seriously. As this BBC article highlights, when it raised the same question to XR types:
No, Richard's point was exactly that China doesn't take climate change seriously. In response to a post ending "those who dismiss the seriousness of climate change are very much in the minority", Richard replied "that minority includes China". Read the thread.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
What we have is running at capacity / over capacity which means there is zero leeway.
There are a lot of things that need / could be done to fix the capacity issue and we need to start looking at them.
Social care and an increase in convalescence (say in a premier inn type place with limited onsite medical care) are essential starting points.
As predicted last week, first Daily Mail article counting the private jets - 52 in Glasgow yesterday, including four that flew from Glasgow to Prestwick empty to park, as GLA was full. Four planes for Biden, landing in Edinburgh and going in a 85-vehicle convoy to Glasgow.
Yes the crazy brigade of climate activists are saying we shouldn't fly, but as far as I'm aware Biden is not amongst them.
If as I believe (and I think you do too) the future is dependant upon switching to clean technology aviation and not abandoning aviation, then what is wrong with the US President and his entourage flying to a summit designed to help us get there?
Yes, it is typical denialism-lite. To not take what is going with climate change seriously because some attendees are less than perfect. Leaders always have camp followers.
Though I do think its a valid argument to use with the crazies who do follow these events, the Gretas of this world, who are adamant we're not doing enough and that we shouldn't be travelling and this needs to all happen overnight.
Ok, you first.
Sure, Greta can be annoyingly monomaniac on the subject of climate change, but consciousness raising and getting engagement with the topic is a very useful role. No one expects a teenager to have all the answers, including herself, but she has done a sterling job of raising publicity around the world.
Yes. Less than a decade ago, we still had politicians like Boris Johnson cracking jokes about windmills and Anne-Marie Trevelyan denying the existence of climate change as well as a host of right-wing commentators making fun of "loony left" proposals to deal with global warming. Now, thanks in large part to campaigners like Greta, those who dismiss the seriousness of climate change are very much in the minority.
That minority includes China.
Perhaps Greta might like to go to China.
A country which is planning to build another 43 coal fired power stations to go with the 1000+ it already has (over half of the entire world's):
Likewise all the XR and Insulate types might like to go to the Chinese embassy for their next stunt.
I suspect they wont.
That minority doesn't include China, really. From what I've read, China thinks climate change is a very serious issue. One may think that its progress on tackling it is too slow, but I see no evidence of climate change denialism. Given its stage of economic development and its population size, it's hardly surprising that it's behind most of the West in reducing emissions (although apparently China's emissions per person are around half of those in the USA).
I wouldn't be at all surprised if, 20 or so years down the line, Chinese technology makes a significant contribution to tackling global climate change.
I wonder if any other country had over half of the world's coal fired power station capacity, was rapidly building more and also funding others throughout the world there would be so many willing apologists for it.
Can't believe a word the yellow man says, eh?
I am guessing that like everyone else you buy enough Chinese junk to account for as much Chinese emissions as a Chinese person does. What you gonna do bout dat?
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
Any attempt to change the NHS to the French model would be denounced as privatisation and a wish to introduce the US model.
But it works and is amazing and costs very little. But that's my experience and compared to the six and seven hour waits in shocking conditions that exist at A&E here makes the UK look third world
I think France spends a bit more on health than the UK and his similar levels of life expectancy (higher French smoking being matched by higher British obesity).
IIRC the French health system does have many attractive features and I can believe it works better than the NHS does for various types of people.
But also worse for various other types of people.
Does it? I haven't a clue so would love to know the pros and cons.
In the latest Commonwealth Report the UK ranks 9th out of 11 based on clinical outcomes. Only the US and Canada are worse. We also have the second worse record for avoidable deaths with only the US worse. That said, in common with other countries we have achieved an almost 20% reduction in avoidable deaths since 2009.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
Its funny how the left love to compare us to Europe for almost everything like holiday day entitlements etc until the topic of the NHS comes up and then its just the NHS or America with nothing else allowed into the conversation.
So you are a fervent cheerleader of Europe over us in this area. Good to hear.
I'm not. I'm happy to look at the entire planet, consistently.
That's great. But let's hear you say in this instance that Europe has better health services than us and that the US has a worse one.
Much of Europe, as well as other nations like Australia, have better health services than us and the US has a far worse one.
When I lived downunder the Liberal-led (their Conservative) Coalition came to power in 1996 with a major budget deficit to resolve.
One of the first things they did was to cut across the board almost every department's budget, but they also passed a tax cut/credit against private healthcare provisions.
They made the argument was that Medicare (their universal healthcare provider) cost much more to treat someone than if someone paid privately for treatment. That it was cheaper to give a tax credit against private insurance or private healthcare, than it was to treat that same person on Medicare and it got them out of any Medicare waiting lists thus allowing Medicare to give better treatment for those who universally need it.
Even if you have private healthcare, you still need to pay for universal healthcare via Medicare.
As predicted last week, first Daily Mail article counting the private jets - 52 in Glasgow yesterday, including four that flew from Glasgow to Prestwick empty to park, as GLA was full. Four planes for Biden, landing in Edinburgh and going in a 85-vehicle convoy to Glasgow.
Yes the crazy brigade of climate activists are saying we shouldn't fly, but as far as I'm aware Biden is not amongst them.
If as I believe (and I think you do too) the future is dependant upon switching to clean technology aviation and not abandoning aviation, then what is wrong with the US President and his entourage flying to a summit designed to help us get there?
Yes, it is typical denialism-lite. To not take what is going with climate change seriously because some attendees are less than perfect. Leaders always have camp followers.
Though I do think its a valid argument to use with the crazies who do follow these events, the Gretas of this world, who are adamant we're not doing enough and that we shouldn't be travelling and this needs to all happen overnight.
Ok, you first.
Sure, Greta can be annoyingly monomaniac on the subject of climate change, but consciousness raising and getting engagement with the topic is a very useful role. No one expects a teenager to have all the answers, including herself, but she has done a sterling job of raising publicity around the world.
Yes. Less than a decade ago, we still had politicians like Boris Johnson cracking jokes about windmills and Anne-Marie Trevelyan denying the existence of climate change as well as a host of right-wing commentators making fun of "loony left" proposals to deal with global warming. Now, thanks in large part to campaigners like Greta, those who dismiss the seriousness of climate change are very much in the minority.
That minority includes China.
Perhaps Greta might like to go to China.
A country which is planning to build another 43 coal fired power stations to go with the 1000+ it already has (over half of the entire world's):
Likewise all the XR and Insulate types might like to go to the Chinese embassy for their next stunt.
I suspect they wont.
That minority doesn't include China, really. From what I've read, China thinks climate change is a very serious issue. One may think that its progress on tackling it is too slow, but I see no evidence of climate change denialism. Given its stage of economic development and its population size, it's hardly surprising that it's behind most of the West in reducing emissions (although apparently China's emissions per person are around half of those in the USA).
I wouldn't be at all surprised if, 20 or so years down the line, Chinese technology makes a significant contribution to tackling global climate change.
I wonder if any other country had over half of the world's coal fired power station capacity, was rapidly building more and also funding others throughout the world there would be so many willing apologists for it.
Can't believe a word the yellow man says, eh?
I am guessing that like everyone else you buy enough Chinese junk to account for as much Chinese emissions as a Chinese person does. What you gonna do bout dat?
This is really something that should be factored into emissions. If something is imported, the emissions from production and shipping should be added onto the importing country.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Judging the NHS towards the end of a pandemic is a bad time to do so. Comparisons seem to be NHS now vs other healthcare pre covid which of course is better than what we have today, so was the pre covid 19 NHS service (although the omniscient pb crowd probably have in depth real time understanding of at least 20 health systems).
In reality France, which has been mentioned most, has similar issues, lack of staffing, low morale, and overstretched hospitals.
OT. Burnham's big problem is his maleness. Could Labour really elect yet another pale stale male when there are plausible female alternatives available?
OT. Burnham's big problem is his maleness. Could Labour really elect yet another pale stale male when there are plausible female alternatives available?
"What people seem to be forgetting is how poorly Burnham performed when he first ran for the post in the aftermath of the party”s GE2015 defeat and in the follow-up election when Corbyn was forced to defend his post."
Burnham actually stood for the Labour Leadership the first time in 2010, and the second time in 2015. Only in the latter election did he face Corbyn! It was Owen Smith alone who faced Corbyn in the "follow-up" in 2016!
In 2010, Burnham came a poor FOURTH in the first round, as follows:
David Miliband 37.8% Ed Miliband 34.3% Ed Balls 11.8% Andy Burnham 8.7% Diane Abbott 7.4%
In the second round, of course Ed Miliband defeated his brother by 50.7% to 49.3%, another very tight result like Quebec 1995, Welsh Referendum 1997, and EURef in 2016!
Then, in 2015, Burnham performed a little better, coming second place, though trailing Corbyn by over 40 points:
Jeremy Corbyn 59.5% Andy Burnham 19.0% Yvette Cooper 17.0% Liz Kendall 4.5%
And then, just for the sake of completeness, the 2016 contest was a straight fight between Corbyn and Owen Smith:
Jeremy Corbyn 61.8% Owen Smith 38.2%
It seems OGH has forgotten Owen Who and who can blame him?
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Nothing to do with that. It is structurally unsound. Has been for years and years. If you're wheeled in to A&E with a broken leg there is a fighting chance that all will go well.
Anything more complicated, involving MDTs, complex diagnoses, dependencies on other units, is absolutely useless.
And that is now failing. Before Covid and Brexit I broke my hand. Went to A&E and they gave me an appointment to see a consultant six weeks later. Six weeks for a broken bone. Went private had it seen to the following Wednesday.
One of countless anecdata points with friends and family. Just ask around yours and the stories will be forthcoming I guarantee.
Whatever is wrong with the NHS it has been wrong for a long time.
So petrol requires 3x the energy of all electricity combined 😲
And all petrol is expected to be replaced with electricity?
Actually that seems like a very good thing with respect to wind variability. Given that cars have batteries and can be charged over a period of many hours (especially if cars are plugged in overnight) as that means that when the wind is variably blowing high then chargers can be programmed to automatically and cheaply recharge car batteries, while when wind is low then the chargers can be programmed to automatically switch off unless the car really needs recharging.
However that only works for homes with driveways that have their own chargers. It doesn't work for anyone who needs to recharge exclusively on-demand at a service station equivalent.
If we were to have joined up thinking the one thing we should really be encouraging is for as many new homes as possible to be semi-detached, with driveways and ideally chargers installed while the wiring is being done, or at least set for the capability to have chargers installed.
Conflating electricity with energy conveys the impression that the renewable battle is nearly won, whereas in truth we still have a long, long way to go.
At the risk of revisiting a PT trope, it would be even better in carbon terms to promote development which didn't require massive amounts of car use at all - electric or otherwise. Electric cars are more carbon-efficient than internal combustion engines but lifestyles where you can walk to school, to your local shop; get a bus or a tram or a train to work or the big shops is far, far more carbon efficient.
Medium-high density development can be good quality and popular. European cities develop this way and are popular places to live. Some places in Britain too - residents of Edinburgh, for example, emit relatively little carbon in their travel habits because their city is such that fewer trips need to be made by car. (This is to some extent counterbalanced by them having to use more carbon to heat their homes because it is cold!) Few would claim Edinburgh is not a pleasant urban environment. It won't suit anyone, but done well it could suit many, many people.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
Any attempt to change the NHS to the French model would be denounced as privatisation and a wish to introduce the US model.
But it works and is amazing and costs very little. But that's my experience and compared to the six and seven hour waits in shocking conditions that exist at A&E here makes the UK look third world
I think France spends a bit more on health than the UK and his similar levels of life expectancy (higher French smoking being matched by higher British obesity).
IIRC the French health system does have many attractive features and I can believe it works better than the NHS does for various types of people.
But also worse for various other types of people.
Does it? I haven't a clue so would love to know the pros and cons.
In the latest Commonwealth Report the UK ranks 9th out of 11 based on clinical outcomes. Only the US and Canada are worse. We also have the second worse record for avoidable deaths with only the US worse. That said, in common with other countries we have achieved an almost 20% reduction in avoidable deaths since 2009.
Interesting that they mention Australia as one of the better-performing nations, considering what I just wrote. Worth noting that Australian life expectancy is now nearly 2 years longer than British life-expectancy.
Maybe one day someone will be brave enough to advocate an Australian-style healthcare system?
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
Anyone who’s ever lived abroad will say the same, at least in the experience of people I know.
As someone who works on branding, you would appreciate more than most how well they have brainwashed the population into treating it like a religion managed to cement the NHS into the national phyche.
OT. Burnham's big problem is his maleness. Could Labour really elect yet another pale stale male when there are plausible female alternatives available?
If you keep offering people apples or bananas and every time they choose an apple, would you expect the next choice to be an apple or banana? Being male is a huge advantage for Labour leadership candidates.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Nope the system has been shit since long before Brexit was ever dreamed of. In terms of doing its actual job and both preventing people getting ill and helping them get better it has been close to the bottom of the rankings for decades. Blaming Brexit is just you in denial about how badly it needs complete reform.
Mr. Enjineeya, renewables, on the whole, are a great idea. Wind is uniquely foolish because it's inherently unpredictable.
I'd go for solar, hydroelectric, tidal (when it gets there), with plenty of nuclear, and retaining gas for cooking/heating.
But, as I wrote the other day, if you're really concerned about this then trembling at the tiny impact of UK action is a waste of time. Organise a boycott of China until they mend their ways. That *might* have the impact you seek. Assuming you want to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide.
I think you are rather overconcerned about wind not blowing.
In the UK we are about maxed-out on hydro. Solar has a similar 'problem' to wind in that there are pesky things like winter and clouds.
The complementary nature of wind and solar is important.
Gas will go for emissions reasons - I'm with the group that says get rid of combustion processes in the grid.
Modular Nuclear is promising (I predict this in large measure for India).
Tidal - maybe, but we aren't far ahead with that yet.
I think the thing about 'minor impact of UK' is a bit of a red herring imo; the large emitters are signing up. For us that is an opportunity. I'm not with apocalyptics on UK, and things like the strategic need for reduced oil / coal can be accommodated within Net Zero.
Maybe I’m naive… but how can beds be the bottleneck in elective surgery? Is a bed in which to recover not the lowest cost element of the process? Are operating theatres and surgeons really under-utilised for lack of beds? Even if beds are the primary constraint, is the NHS so incompetent that surgery is scheduled, and the process started, without a bed being ringfenced.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
Any attempt to change the NHS to the French model would be denounced as privatisation and a wish to introduce the US model.
But it works and is amazing and costs very little. But that's my experience and compared to the six and seven hour waits in shocking conditions that exist at A&E here makes the UK look third world
I think France spends a bit more on health than the UK and his similar levels of life expectancy (higher French smoking being matched by higher British obesity).
IIRC the French health system does have many attractive features and I can believe it works better than the NHS does for various types of people.
But also worse for various other types of people.
Does it? I haven't a clue so would love to know the pros and cons.
In the latest Commonwealth Report the UK ranks 9th out of 11 based on clinical outcomes. Only the US and Canada are worse. We also have the second worse record for avoidable deaths with only the US worse. That said, in common with other countries we have achieved an almost 20% reduction in avoidable deaths since 2009.
Interesting that they mention Australia as one of the better-performing nations, considering what I just wrote. Worth noting that Australian life expectancy is now nearly 2 years longer than British life-expectancy.
Maybe one day someone will be brave enough to advocate an Australian-style healthcare system?
How much do you think the nature of the healthcare system influences life expectancy? I personally have no idea.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
To put it more politely, basing the Leave campaign on the proposition that Brexit might somehow bring about a transformation for the better in UK healthcare was not entirely honest.
Anyone who had been in an NHS hospital and observed the number of EU staff on whom they rely should have worked that out for themselves.
Haven't you been paying attention, that 'inexactitude' was a work of genius, continually confirmed by quislings and remoaners bringing up the lie on the Clapham (and all points north, west, south and east)) omnibus.
OT. Burnham's big problem is his maleness. Could Labour really elect yet another pale stale male when there are plausible female alternatives available?
If you keep offering people apples or bananas and every time they choose an apple, would you expect the next choice to be an apple or banana? Being male is a huge advantage for Labour leadership candidates.
As I posted above, Abbott came 5th (last) in 2010, and Cooper and Kendall came 3rd and 4th (last) respectively in 2015.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
Its funny how the left love to compare us to Europe for almost everything like holiday day entitlements etc until the topic of the NHS comes up and then its just the NHS or America with nothing else allowed into the conversation.
But it's not just the left, is it? The Conservative party's rhetoric for quite some time now has been that the NHS is absolutely untouchable, and that rhetoric has only grown stronger through the pandemic.
Indeed, the idea that the NHS is this all encompassing force of good that can never be changed is no longer just a preserve of the left. The current Tory party has bought into it as well. We're lucky we have a health secretary who seems to believe that the NHS exists to serve the people rather than the previous one who thought it was the other way around. I fear that the second view is pervasive among both left and right now and the NHS will continue to be a money black hole and no one will have the guts to reform it.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
To put it more politely, basing the Leave campaign on the proposition that Brexit might somehow bring about a transformation for the better in UK healthcare was not entirely honest.
Anyone who had been in an NHS hospital and observed the number of EU staff on whom they rely should have worked that out for themselves.
Haven't you been paying attention, that 'inexactitude' was a work of genius, continually confirmed by quislings and remoaners bringing up the lie on the Clapham (and all points north, west, south and east)) omnibus.
Campaigning genius doesn't make for good government, sadly.
You only have to look around right now to see that.
Despite Cummings undoubtedly being right with most of his critique of the PM, it remains appropriate that the architect of such nonsense (and the even more egregious lie that ranking election candidates in order would have led to babies dying in maternity units) is now consigned to oblivion.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Nope the system has been shit since long before Brexit was ever dreamed of. In terms of doing its actual job and both preventing people getting ill and helping them get better it has been close to the bottom of the rankings for decades. Blaming Brexit is just you in denial about how badly it needs complete reform.
Ranked 10th in one survey, 13th in another. It seems the UK has to be perceived to be the best or worst at things for some reason, when we are actually typically quite middling but above average.
Maybe I’m naive… but how can beds be the bottleneck in elective surgery? Is a bed in which to recover not the lowest cost element of the process? Are operating theatres and surgeons really under-utilised for lack of beds? Even if beds are the primary constraint, is the NHS so incompetent that surgery is scheduled, and the process started, without a bed being ringfenced.
“Bed” is a synecdoche for all the various bits needed to support a patient coming round from a general anaesthetic: you also need a nurse, a ventilator and various other machines. My understanding is that this same mix is required by a patient with the most advanced form of Covid and that they might occupy it for weeks rather than the hours required to come round from surgery.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
Its funny how the left love to compare us to Europe for almost everything like holiday day entitlements etc until the topic of the NHS comes up and then its just the NHS or America with nothing else allowed into the conversation.
So you are a fervent cheerleader of Europe over us in this area. Good to hear.
I'm not. I'm happy to look at the entire planet, consistently.
That's great. But let's hear you say in this instance that Europe has better health services than us and that the US has a worse one.
Much of Europe, as well as other nations like Australia, have better health services than us and the US has a far worse one.
When I lived downunder the Liberal-led (their Conservative) Coalition came to power in 1996 with a major budget deficit to resolve.
One of the first things they did was to cut across the board almost every department's budget, but they also passed a tax cut/credit against private healthcare provisions.
They made the argument was that Medicare (their universal healthcare provider) cost much more to treat someone than if someone paid privately for treatment. That it was cheaper to give a tax credit against private insurance or private healthcare, than it was to treat that same person on Medicare and it got them out of any Medicare waiting lists thus allowing Medicare to give better treatment for those who universally need it.
Even if you have private healthcare, you still need to pay for universal healthcare via Medicare.
Yes, I was surprised the Chancellor didn’t address this in the Budget, reversing the BIK treatment of employer-provided health insurance, or providing tax breaks on private provision, would have made quite the difference to investment in private facilities (which could be used to get the NHS waiting lists down in their spare time, with no public capital investment required).
I’m actually quite surprised that no-one has yet set up full private district general hospital in one of the leafier bits of London, although the are plenty of private GP surgeries, dozens of small surgery units and hundreds of clinics. There must be a fair few people willing to throw £100 or two, at not waiting in the A&E queue for a few stitches or a plaster cast.
So petrol requires 3x the energy of all electricity combined 😲
And all petrol is expected to be replaced with electricity?
Actually that seems like a very good thing with respect to wind variability. Given that cars have batteries and can be charged over a period of many hours (especially if cars are plugged in overnight) as that means that when the wind is variably blowing high then chargers can be programmed to automatically and cheaply recharge car batteries, while when wind is low then the chargers can be programmed to automatically switch off unless the car really needs recharging.
However that only works for homes with driveways that have their own chargers. It doesn't work for anyone who needs to recharge exclusively on-demand at a service station equivalent.
If we were to have joined up thinking the one thing we should really be encouraging is for as many new homes as possible to be semi-detached, with driveways and ideally chargers installed while the wiring is being done, or at least set for the capability to have chargers installed.
Conflating electricity with energy conveys the impression that the renewable battle is nearly won, whereas in truth we still have a long, long way to go.
At the risk of revisiting a PT trope, it would be even better in carbon terms to promote development which didn't require massive amounts of car use at all - electric or otherwise. Electric cars are more carbon-efficient than internal combustion engines but lifestyles where you can walk to school, to your local shop; get a bus or a tram or a train to work or the big shops is far, far more carbon efficient.
Medium-high density development can be good quality and popular. European cities develop this way and are popular places to live. Some places in Britain too - residents of Edinburgh, for example, emit relatively little carbon in their travel habits because their city is such that fewer trips need to be made by car. (This is to some extent counterbalanced by them having to use more carbon to heat their homes because it is cold!) Few would claim Edinburgh is not a pleasant urban environment. It won't suit anyone, but done well it could suit many, many people.
I agree that such things can make a big difference. Our household's electricity consumption is 60% of what it was 20 years ago, which is entirely attributable to modern devices using less juice.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
Its funny how the left love to compare us to Europe for almost everything like holiday day entitlements etc until the topic of the NHS comes up and then its just the NHS or America with nothing else allowed into the conversation.
So you are a fervent cheerleader of Europe over us in this area. Good to hear.
I'm not. I'm happy to look at the entire planet, consistently.
That's great. But let's hear you say in this instance that Europe has better health services than us and that the US has a worse one.
Much of Europe, as well as other nations like Australia, have better health services than us and the US has a far worse one.
When I lived downunder the Liberal-led (their Conservative) Coalition came to power in 1996 with a major budget deficit to resolve.
One of the first things they did was to cut across the board almost every department's budget, but they also passed a tax cut/credit against private healthcare provisions.
They made the argument was that Medicare (their universal healthcare provider) cost much more to treat someone than if someone paid privately for treatment. That it was cheaper to give a tax credit against private insurance or private healthcare, than it was to treat that same person on Medicare and it got them out of any Medicare waiting lists thus allowing Medicare to give better treatment for those who universally need it.
Even if you have private healthcare, you still need to pay for universal healthcare via Medicare.
Yes, I was surprised the Chancellor didn’t address this in the Budget, reversing the BIK treatment of employer-provided health insurance, or providing tax breaks on private provision, would have made quite the difference to investment in private facilities (which could be used to get the NHS waiting lists down in their spare time, with no public capital investment required).
I’m actually quite surprised that no-one has yet set up full private district general hospital in one of the leafier bits of London, although the are plenty of private GP surgeries, dozens of small surgery units and hundreds of clinics. There must be a fair few people willing to throw £100 or two, at not waiting in the A&E queue for a few stitches or a plaster cast.
From memory (seeing a sign when walking past rather than personal experience) there are one or two private A&E centres in central London: Google would probably tell you more.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
To put it more politely, basing the Leave campaign on the proposition that Brexit might somehow bring about a transformation for the better in UK healthcare was not entirely honest.
Anyone who had been in an NHS hospital and observed the number of EU staff on whom they rely should have worked that out for themselves.
Interesting though that it was framed in that way. It wasn't a case of 'stop spending money on Europe and have more money for yourself' or 'invest for the future' or even 'stop spending money for Europe and spend more on public services' - the default thing to do with state money is to spend it on the NHS. On the assumption that people who frame these questions know what they're doing, we do see ourselves as a health service with a country attached.
Maybe I’m naive… but how can beds be the bottleneck in elective surgery? Is a bed in which to recover not the lowest cost element of the process? Are operating theatres and surgeons really under-utilised for lack of beds? Even if beds are the primary constraint, is the NHS so incompetent that surgery is scheduled, and the process started, without a bed being ringfenced.
Because there’s no slack in the system at all, A&E admissions can and do take beds designated for routine surgery. So a bad car crash or a couple of heart attacks, can mean dozens of operations cancelled at short notice as the facilities and staff become occupied with the emergency.
Maybe I’m naive… but how can beds be the bottleneck in elective surgery? Is a bed in which to recover not the lowest cost element of the process? Are operating theatres and surgeons really under-utilised for lack of beds? Even if beds are the primary constraint, is the NHS so incompetent that surgery is scheduled, and the process started, without a bed being ringfenced.
“Bed” is a synecdoche for all the various bits needed to support a patient coming round from a general anaesthetic: you also need a nurse, a ventilator and various other machines. My understanding is that this same mix is required by a patient with the most advanced form of Covid and that they might occupy it for weeks rather than the hours required to come round from surgery.
Thank you, a new word for me! The point stands, however, that 18 months into a Covid pandemic a lack of “beds” should not be constraining elective surgery and certainly shouldn’t mean that surgery is cancelled at minutes notice.
Maybe I’m naive… but how can beds be the bottleneck in elective surgery? Is a bed in which to recover not the lowest cost element of the process? Are operating theatres and surgeons really under-utilised for lack of beds? Even if beds are the primary constraint, is the NHS so incompetent that surgery is scheduled, and the process started, without a bed being ringfenced.
“Bed” is a synecdoche for all the various bits needed to support a patient coming round from a general anaesthetic: you also need a nurse, a ventilator and various other machines. My understanding is that this same mix is required by a patient with the most advanced form of Covid and that they might occupy it for weeks rather than the hours required to come round from surgery.
I believe that the number of beds has had to be reduced because of COVID prevention measures, as well.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Nope the system has been shit since long before Brexit was ever dreamed of. In terms of doing its actual job and both preventing people getting ill and helping them get better it has been close to the bottom of the rankings for decades. Blaming Brexit is just you in denial about how badly it needs complete reform.
Ranked 10th in one survey, 13th in another. It seems the UK has to be perceived to be the best or worst at things for some reason, when we are actually typically quite middling but above average.
Post of the day, and it's still morning. Everything else is just partisan and ideological exaggeration, or complaints about partisan and ideological exaggeration.
Maybe I’m naive… but how can beds be the bottleneck in elective surgery? Is a bed in which to recover not the lowest cost element of the process? Are operating theatres and surgeons really under-utilised for lack of beds? Even if beds are the primary constraint, is the NHS so incompetent that surgery is scheduled, and the process started, without a bed being ringfenced.
“Bed” is a synecdoche for all the various bits needed to support a patient coming round from a general anaesthetic: you also need a nurse, a ventilator and various other machines. My understanding is that this same mix is required by a patient with the most advanced form of Covid and that they might occupy it for weeks rather than the hours required to come round from surgery.
Thank you, a new word for me! The point stands, however, that 18 months into a Covid pandemic a lack of “beds” should not be constraining elective surgery and certainly shouldn’t mean that surgery is cancelled at minutes notice.
I had to look up the spelling. I also have no idea how to pronounce it...
As predicted last week, first Daily Mail article counting the private jets - 52 in Glasgow yesterday, including four that flew from Glasgow to Prestwick empty to park, as GLA was full. Four planes for Biden, landing in Edinburgh and going in a 85-vehicle convoy to Glasgow.
Yes the crazy brigade of climate activists are saying we shouldn't fly, but as far as I'm aware Biden is not amongst them.
If as I believe (and I think you do too) the future is dependant upon switching to clean technology aviation and not abandoning aviation, then what is wrong with the US President and his entourage flying to a summit designed to help us get there?
Yes, it is typical denialism-lite. To not take what is going with climate change seriously because some attendees are less than perfect. Leaders always have camp followers.
Though I do think its a valid argument to use with the crazies who do follow these events, the Gretas of this world, who are adamant we're not doing enough and that we shouldn't be travelling and this needs to all happen overnight.
Ok, you first.
Sure, Greta can be annoyingly monomaniac on the subject of climate change, but consciousness raising and getting engagement with the topic is a very useful role. No one expects a teenager to have all the answers, including herself, but she has done a sterling job of raising publicity around the world.
Yes. Less than a decade ago, we still had politicians like Boris Johnson cracking jokes about windmills and Anne-Marie Trevelyan denying the existence of climate change as well as a host of right-wing commentators making fun of "loony left" proposals to deal with global warming. Now, thanks in large part to campaigners like Greta, those who dismiss the seriousness of climate change are very much in the minority.
That minority includes China.
Perhaps Greta might like to go to China.
A country which is planning to build another 43 coal fired power stations to go with the 1000+ it already has (over half of the entire world's):
Likewise all the XR and Insulate types might like to go to the Chinese embassy for their next stunt.
I suspect they wont.
How is a net zero by 2060 pledge dismissing the seriousness of climate change? If Xi wanted to say Fuck it, I don't believe it, why wouldn't he say that?
Perhaps because making a promise which he has no intention of keeping keeps gullible fools in the western world happy and focused on energy restrictions in their own countries.
Leading to the closure of western factories and steelworks and not those in China.
Another thing in which China has over half the world's output of:
To put Chinese steel production into historical perspective from 2019:
in the past two years (to be precise, the past 22 months) China has manufactured more steel than Britain has since the height of the Industrial Revolution in 1870.
Try, if you can, to get your head round that.
In the months since the last general election China has produced more steel than Britain - the country where modern steel manufacturing was invented - has produced. Ever.
And in the last two years Chinese steel output has increased by another 20%.
Just imagine how much steel has ever been produced in the UK - not just for use in this country but for things such as railways in Africa and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
All of that historic UK steel amounts to a few months of current Chinese production.
Maybe I’m naive… but how can beds be the bottleneck in elective surgery? Is a bed in which to recover not the lowest cost element of the process? Are operating theatres and surgeons really under-utilised for lack of beds? Even if beds are the primary constraint, is the NHS so incompetent that surgery is scheduled, and the process started, without a bed being ringfenced.
“Bed” is a synecdoche for all the various bits needed to support a patient coming round from a general anaesthetic: you also need a nurse, a ventilator and various other machines. My understanding is that this same mix is required by a patient with the most advanced form of Covid and that they might occupy it for weeks rather than the hours required to come round from surgery.
Thank you, a new word for me! The point stands, however, that 18 months into a Covid pandemic a lack of “beds” should not be constraining elective surgery and certainly shouldn’t mean that surgery is cancelled at minutes notice.
It is the lack of staff. They may be treating covid patients, they may be isolating, they may be off with stress or decided to retire. Not sure how much can be done in the immediate term, we can't magic up trained health professionals and the same is happening in other healthcare systems like the French one.
Let's see if they remain police officers after pleading guilty to such a charge.
Surely the right thing to happen here is we give them a big pay off to leave the met, and then six months later they join another force?
No, no, no
They retire sick, due to stress. Then, when the disciplinary matter is dropped - immediately they leave the job - they can apply to another police force. Not wait 6 months!
Though I presume they can sue their former force for the "stress" induced by investigated.
Maybe I’m naive… but how can beds be the bottleneck in elective surgery? Is a bed in which to recover not the lowest cost element of the process? Are operating theatres and surgeons really under-utilised for lack of beds? Even if beds are the primary constraint, is the NHS so incompetent that surgery is scheduled, and the process started, without a bed being ringfenced.
“Bed” is a synecdoche for all the various bits needed to support a patient coming round from a general anaesthetic: you also need a nurse, a ventilator and various other machines. My understanding is that this same mix is required by a patient with the most advanced form of Covid and that they might occupy it for weeks rather than the hours required to come round from surgery.
Thank you, a new word for me! The point stands, however, that 18 months into a Covid pandemic a lack of “beds” should not be constraining elective surgery and certainly shouldn’t mean that surgery is cancelled at minutes notice.
I had to look up the spelling. I also have no idea how to pronounce it...
Maybe I’m naive… but how can beds be the bottleneck in elective surgery? Is a bed in which to recover not the lowest cost element of the process? Are operating theatres and surgeons really under-utilised for lack of beds? Even if beds are the primary constraint, is the NHS so incompetent that surgery is scheduled, and the process started, without a bed being ringfenced.
Because there’s no slack in the system at all, A&E admissions can and do take beds designated for routine surgery. So a bad car crash or a couple of heart attacks, can mean dozens of operations cancelled at short notice as the facilities and staff become occupied with the emergency.
Yep and it was ever thus - when I had a bad smash and needed urgent surgery I was at first told it would be a week and then, after some more in sorrow than anger pleading with the surgical team in A&E, I was told I would have it the following morning. Unless of course there was a crash on the A1 or somesuch which would have put me behind whatever was required for that.
Let's see if they remain police officers after pleading guilty to such a charge.
Surely the right thing to happen here is we give them a big pay off to leave the met, and then six months later they join another force?
No, no, no
They retire sick, due to stress. Then, when the disciplinary matter is dropped - immediately they leave the job - they can apply to another police force. Not wait 6 months!
Though I presume they can sue their former force for the "stress" induced by investigated.
I would hope that a criminal conviction is a bit more serious than an internal disciplinary investigation; in fact I would hope that it represents the end of a particularly serious one.
Maybe I’m naive… but how can beds be the bottleneck in elective surgery? Is a bed in which to recover not the lowest cost element of the process? Are operating theatres and surgeons really under-utilised for lack of beds? Even if beds are the primary constraint, is the NHS so incompetent that surgery is scheduled, and the process started, without a bed being ringfenced.
“Bed” is a synecdoche for all the various bits needed to support a patient coming round from a general anaesthetic: you also need a nurse, a ventilator and various other machines. My understanding is that this same mix is required by a patient with the most advanced form of Covid and that they might occupy it for weeks rather than the hours required to come round from surgery.
Thank you, a new word for me! The point stands, however, that 18 months into a Covid pandemic a lack of “beds” should not be constraining elective surgery and certainly shouldn’t mean that surgery is cancelled at minutes notice.
I had to look up the spelling. I also have no idea how to pronounce it...
Maybe I’m naive… but how can beds be the bottleneck in elective surgery? Is a bed in which to recover not the lowest cost element of the process? Are operating theatres and surgeons really under-utilised for lack of beds? Even if beds are the primary constraint, is the NHS so incompetent that surgery is scheduled, and the process started, without a bed being ringfenced.
“Bed” is a synecdoche for all the various bits needed to support a patient coming round from a general anaesthetic: you also need a nurse, a ventilator and various other machines. My understanding is that this same mix is required by a patient with the most advanced form of Covid and that they might occupy it for weeks rather than the hours required to come round from surgery.
Thank you, a new word for me! The point stands, however, that 18 months into a Covid pandemic a lack of “beds” should not be constraining elective surgery and certainly shouldn’t mean that surgery is cancelled at minutes notice.
Yep that is a super good point. We are now coming on for two years of having a black swan event and we are operating on the basis that we did before, with all the constraints that entails.
I get that it takes seven years to train a doctor, etc but we are now two years in and things are worse than before.
There is a tsunami of very bad health outcomes that is going to play out (most likely silently because what's a cancer death here or delayed treatment there) over the next few months and years.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
To put it more politely, basing the Leave campaign on the proposition that Brexit might somehow bring about a transformation for the better in UK healthcare was not entirely honest.
Anyone who had been in an NHS hospital and observed the number of EU staff on whom they rely should have worked that out for themselves.
Haven't you been paying attention, that 'inexactitude' was a work of genius, continually confirmed by quislings and remoaners bringing up the lie on the Clapham (and all points north, west, south and east)) omnibus.
Campaigning genius doesn't make for good government, sadly.
You only have to look around right now to see that.
Despite Cummings undoubtedly being right with most of his critique of the PM, it remains appropriate that the architect of such nonsense (and the even more egregious lie that ranking election candidates in order would have led to babies dying in maternity units) is now consigned to oblivion.
I'm not entirely convinced that Cummings is consigned to oblivion for ever but his legacy that it is better to win ugly than not win is certainly still with us. In fact I feel BJ-ism prefers to win ugly because the resultant discord and bad feeling can be utilised thereafter.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Nope the system has been shit since long before Brexit was ever dreamed of. In terms of doing its actual job and both preventing people getting ill and helping them get better it has been close to the bottom of the rankings for decades. Blaming Brexit is just you in denial about how badly it needs complete reform.
Ranked 10th in one survey, 13th in another. It seems the UK has to be perceived to be the best or worst at things for some reason, when we are actually typically quite middling but above average.
Its tenth in the UN survey because of what is being measured. If you are measuring things like affordability of medicines or paperwork efficiency then we rank well. But on the things that actually matter like clinical outcomes we are down close to the bottom.
Maybe I’m naive… but how can beds be the bottleneck in elective surgery? Is a bed in which to recover not the lowest cost element of the process? Are operating theatres and surgeons really under-utilised for lack of beds? Even if beds are the primary constraint, is the NHS so incompetent that surgery is scheduled, and the process started, without a bed being ringfenced.
Because there’s no slack in the system at all, A&E admissions can and do take beds designated for routine surgery. So a bad car crash or a couple of heart attacks, can mean dozens of operations cancelled at short notice as the facilities and staff become occupied with the emergency.
Are the numbers of emergency admissions that unpredictable? I’m sure there are aspects of managing supply and demand in hospitals that are particularly challenging but the NHS seems to do particularly poorly if people are having surgery cancelled multiple times. Is the lack of slack in the system a consequence of the NHS model? If accidents resulted in substantial invoices going to insurance companies, would capacity exist to deal with them without screwing up non-emergency procedures?
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Nope the system has been shit since long before Brexit was ever dreamed of. In terms of doing its actual job and both preventing people getting ill and helping them get better it has been close to the bottom of the rankings for decades. Blaming Brexit is just you in denial about how badly it needs complete reform.
Ranked 10th in one survey, 13th in another. It seems the UK has to be perceived to be the best or worst at things for some reason, when we are actually typically quite middling but above average.
Its tenth in the UN survey because of what is being measured. If you are measuring things like affordability of medicines or paperwork efficiency then we rank well. But on the things that actually matter like clinical outcomes we are down close to the bottom.
Bottom of what? Globally would seem incredible? Which rankings are you referring to?
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Nope the system has been shit since long before Brexit was ever dreamed of. In terms of doing its actual job and both preventing people getting ill and helping them get better it has been close to the bottom of the rankings for decades. Blaming Brexit is just you in denial about how badly it needs complete reform.
Ranked 10th in one survey, 13th in another. It seems the UK has to be perceived to be the best or worst at things for some reason, when we are actually typically quite middling but above average.
Post of the day, and it's still morning. Everything else is just partisan and ideological exaggeration, or complaints about partisan and ideological exaggeration.
No sorry. It is entirely legitimate to want "our" health service to improve. I don't give a stuff about other countries, I do care that the NHS today, because of years of structural inefficiencies, and coming up for two years of Covid, is now really not fit for purpose.
I also have no problem with league tables comparing our performance health-wise with our near and comparable neighbours. That is understandable and, as a fan in 2016 of us staying in the EU, what I did for eg theories of trade, etc.
Maybe I’m naive… but how can beds be the bottleneck in elective surgery? Is a bed in which to recover not the lowest cost element of the process? Are operating theatres and surgeons really under-utilised for lack of beds? Even if beds are the primary constraint, is the NHS so incompetent that surgery is scheduled, and the process started, without a bed being ringfenced.
Because there’s no slack in the system at all, A&E admissions can and do take beds designated for routine surgery. So a bad car crash or a couple of heart attacks, can mean dozens of operations cancelled at short notice as the facilities and staff become occupied with the emergency.
Yep and it was ever thus - when I had a bad smash and needed urgent surgery I was at first told it would be a week and then, after some more in sorrow than anger pleading with the surgical team in A&E, I was told I would have it the following morning. Unless of course there was a crash on the A1 or somesuch which would have put me behind whatever was required for that.
My father had a heart bypass postponed literally as they were wheeling him into the theatre, because some poor bugger turned up basically dead in a helicopter, needing one rather more urgently! Stressful for all concerned.
Maybe I’m naive… but how can beds be the bottleneck in elective surgery? Is a bed in which to recover not the lowest cost element of the process? Are operating theatres and surgeons really under-utilised for lack of beds? Even if beds are the primary constraint, is the NHS so incompetent that surgery is scheduled, and the process started, without a bed being ringfenced.
“Bed” is a synecdoche for all the various bits needed to support a patient coming round from a general anaesthetic: you also need a nurse, a ventilator and various other machines. My understanding is that this same mix is required by a patient with the most advanced form of Covid and that they might occupy it for weeks rather than the hours required to come round from surgery.
Thank you, a new word for me! The point stands, however, that 18 months into a Covid pandemic a lack of “beds” should not be constraining elective surgery and certainly shouldn’t mean that surgery is cancelled at minutes notice.
I had to look up the spelling. I also have no idea how to pronounce it...
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Nope the system has been shit since long before Brexit was ever dreamed of. In terms of doing its actual job and both preventing people getting ill and helping them get better it has been close to the bottom of the rankings for decades. Blaming Brexit is just you in denial about how badly it needs complete reform.
Ranked 10th in one survey, 13th in another. It seems the UK has to be perceived to be the best or worst at things for some reason, when we are actually typically quite middling but above average.
Its tenth in the UN survey because of what is being measured. If you are measuring things like affordability of medicines or paperwork efficiency then we rank well. But on the things that actually matter like clinical outcomes we are down close to the bottom.
Bottom of what? Globally would seem incredible? Which rankings are you referring to?
The commonly cited overview is the Commonwealth Fund report. It draws on data from the WHO and OECD and rates 11 first world countries. It has been a standard for many years and was cited very widely by both politicians and the media when its last report came out in 2017. It has now reported again and I provided a link earlier in the thread.
The reason it is useful is because it breaks down its report so you can see how organisations like the WHO are ranking. This shows that although the UK does okay in non clinical measures, it consistently performs very badly in clinical outcomes and prevention against the other 10 ranked countries.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Nope the system has been shit since long before Brexit was ever dreamed of. In terms of doing its actual job and both preventing people getting ill and helping them get better it has been close to the bottom of the rankings for decades. Blaming Brexit is just you in denial about how badly it needs complete reform.
Ranked 10th in one survey, 13th in another. It seems the UK has to be perceived to be the best or worst at things for some reason, when we are actually typically quite middling but above average.
Post of the day, and it's still morning. Everything else is just partisan and ideological exaggeration, or complaints about partisan and ideological exaggeration.
No sorry. It is entirely legitimate to want "our" health service to improve. I don't give a stuff about other countries, I do care that the NHS today, because of years of structural inefficiencies, and coming up for two years of Covid, is now really not fit for purpose.
I also have no problem with league tables comparing our performance health-wise with our near and comparable neighbours. That is understandable and, as a fan in 2016 of us staying in the EU, what I did for eg theories of trade, etc.
Unfortunately the fact that the NHS has become a kind of national religion makes it almost impossible to reform it, as that would involve confronting entrenched institutional interests who have huge political clout. For instance, the BMA will never agree to anything unless they are sufficiently bribed - the experience of every health secretary since Nye Bevan. It's not really surprising that a 70 year old monolith like the NHS isn't really performing optimally despite the amazing efforts of many of its staff.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Nope the system has been shit since long before Brexit was ever dreamed of. In terms of doing its actual job and both preventing people getting ill and helping them get better it has been close to the bottom of the rankings for decades. Blaming Brexit is just you in denial about how badly it needs complete reform.
Ranked 10th in one survey, 13th in another. It seems the UK has to be perceived to be the best or worst at things for some reason, when we are actually typically quite middling but above average.
Post of the day, and it's still morning. Everything else is just partisan and ideological exaggeration, or complaints about partisan and ideological exaggeration.
No sorry. It is entirely legitimate to want "our" health service to improve. I don't give a stuff about other countries, I do care that the NHS today, because of years of structural inefficiencies, and coming up for two years of Covid, is now really not fit for purpose.
I also have no problem with league tables comparing our performance health-wise with our near and comparable neighbours. That is understandable and, as a fan in 2016 of us staying in the EU, what I did for eg theories of trade, etc.
Unfortunately the fact that the NHS has become a kind of national religion makes it almost impossible to reform it, as that would involve confronting entrenched institutional interests who have huge political clout. For instance, the BMA will never agree to anything unless they are sufficiently bribed - the experience of every health secretary since Nye Bevan. It's not really surprising that a 70 year old monolith like the NHS isn't really performing optimally despite the amazing efforts of many of its staff.
Part of the problem is that the BMA are treated as "experts" instead of a union like the NUM or Unite etc
Maybe I’m naive… but how can beds be the bottleneck in elective surgery? Is a bed in which to recover not the lowest cost element of the process? Are operating theatres and surgeons really under-utilised for lack of beds? Even if beds are the primary constraint, is the NHS so incompetent that surgery is scheduled, and the process started, without a bed being ringfenced.
Because there’s no slack in the system at all, A&E admissions can and do take beds designated for routine surgery. So a bad car crash or a couple of heart attacks, can mean dozens of operations cancelled at short notice as the facilities and staff become occupied with the emergency.
Are the numbers of emergency admissions that unpredictable? I’m sure there are aspects of managing supply and demand in hospitals that are particularly challenging but the NHS seems to do particularly poorly if people are having surgery cancelled multiple times. Is the lack of slack in the system a consequence of the NHS model? If accidents resulted in substantial invoices going to insurance companies, would capacity exist to deal with them without screwing up non-emergency procedures?
That’s a really interesting question. There’s probably a lot of analysis you can do, but if I were to guess I’d say they routinely underestimate the number of emergency admissions, in the same way that airlines routinely overbook flights. They’ve probably got the burns unit on standby next weekend, for example, and probably don’t look forward to the first weekend of the local amateur football league or the day of a large motorsport meeting. If the NHS had to give you £10k for a cancelled routine operation, they’d likely schedule fewer of them and the waiting lists would be longer, that’s just the game they play.
The one thing that’s not usually mentioned about the NHS, is that UK healthcare spending per capita is actually quite low, compared to other countries with similar standards of living and demographics.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Nope the system has been shit since long before Brexit was ever dreamed of. In terms of doing its actual job and both preventing people getting ill and helping them get better it has been close to the bottom of the rankings for decades. Blaming Brexit is just you in denial about how badly it needs complete reform.
Ranked 10th in one survey, 13th in another. It seems the UK has to be perceived to be the best or worst at things for some reason, when we are actually typically quite middling but above average.
Post of the day, and it's still morning. Everything else is just partisan and ideological exaggeration, or complaints about partisan and ideological exaggeration.
No sorry. It is entirely legitimate to want "our" health service to improve. I don't give a stuff about other countries, I do care that the NHS today, because of years of structural inefficiencies, and coming up for two years of Covid, is now really not fit for purpose.
I also have no problem with league tables comparing our performance health-wise with our near and comparable neighbours. That is understandable and, as a fan in 2016 of us staying in the EU, what I did for eg theories of trade, etc.
I confess I don't really think I know what "not fit for purpose" means.
Does it mean "could be better"? If so, agreed.
Does it mean "completely broken"? If so, disagree. The NHS gives many good experiences and outcomes.
Does it mean "cannot continue in its current form"? Wellll, that's a trickier question to answer. Projecting into the future, healthcare needs will change. That might require a change in emphasis or organisation, but it might not.
You might not give a stuff about other countries, but comparison helps us know what's realistic and, for some definitions of "fit for purpose", an answer.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Nope the system has been shit since long before Brexit was ever dreamed of. In terms of doing its actual job and both preventing people getting ill and helping them get better it has been close to the bottom of the rankings for decades. Blaming Brexit is just you in denial about how badly it needs complete reform.
Ranked 10th in one survey, 13th in another. It seems the UK has to be perceived to be the best or worst at things for some reason, when we are actually typically quite middling but above average.
Its tenth in the UN survey because of what is being measured. If you are measuring things like affordability of medicines or paperwork efficiency then we rank well. But on the things that actually matter like clinical outcomes we are down close to the bottom.
Bottom of what? Globally would seem incredible? Which rankings are you referring to?
The commonly cited overview is the Commonwealth Fund report. It draws on data from the WHO and OECD and rates 11 first world countries. It has been a standard for many years and was cited very widely by both politicians and the media when its last report came out in 2017. It has now reported again and I provided a link earlier in the thread.
The reason it is useful is because it breaks down its report so you can see how organisations like the WHO are ranking. This shows that although the UK does okay in non clinical measures, it consistently performs very badly in clinical outcomes and prevention against the other 10 ranked countries.
As always, just citing stuff like the WHO numbers is no real measure unless you break them down as this report does.
That is entirely consistent with us being about 10th-13th in the world.
The countries that report is looking at are ranked 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 13th, 14th, 16th, 18th and 22nd in the world on the LPI rankings. The missing ones are small nations. So the report is saying on some specific outcome measures we are near the bottom of the top 11 big countries in the world, on other measures we are better.
Maybe I’m naive… but how can beds be the bottleneck in elective surgery? Is a bed in which to recover not the lowest cost element of the process? Are operating theatres and surgeons really under-utilised for lack of beds? Even if beds are the primary constraint, is the NHS so incompetent that surgery is scheduled, and the process started, without a bed being ringfenced.
Because there’s no slack in the system at all, A&E admissions can and do take beds designated for routine surgery. So a bad car crash or a couple of heart attacks, can mean dozens of operations cancelled at short notice as the facilities and staff become occupied with the emergency.
Are the numbers of emergency admissions that unpredictable? I’m sure there are aspects of managing supply and demand in hospitals that are particularly challenging but the NHS seems to do particularly poorly if people are having surgery cancelled multiple times. Is the lack of slack in the system a consequence of the NHS model? If accidents resulted in substantial invoices going to insurance companies, would capacity exist to deal with them without screwing up non-emergency procedures?
That’s a really interesting question. There’s probably a lot of analysis you can do, but if I were to guess I’d say they routinely underestimate the number of emergency admissions, in the same way that airlines routinely overbook flights. They’ve probably got the burns unit on standby next weekend, for example, and probably don’t look forward to the first weekend of the local amateur football league or the day of a large motorsport meeting. If the NHS had to give you £10k for a cancelled routine operation, they’d likely schedule fewer of them and the waiting lists would be longer, that’s just the game they play.
The one thing that’s not usually mentioned about the NHS, is that UK healthcare spending per capita is actually quite low, compared to other countries with similar standards of living and demographics.
It is lower but not as much as you would think. Compared to France for example it is about 0.9% of GDP lower. Still a substantial amount but not vast compared to some of the differences between other countries. The Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand all spend less as a % of GDP. Norway, Sweden and Canada a little bit more. The big difference is the US which spends over 16% of GDP on health care for the worst outcomes of any first world country.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Nope the system has been shit since long before Brexit was ever dreamed of. In terms of doing its actual job and both preventing people getting ill and helping them get better it has been close to the bottom of the rankings for decades. Blaming Brexit is just you in denial about how badly it needs complete reform.
Ranked 10th in one survey, 13th in another. It seems the UK has to be perceived to be the best or worst at things for some reason, when we are actually typically quite middling but above average.
Its tenth in the UN survey because of what is being measured. If you are measuring things like affordability of medicines or paperwork efficiency then we rank well. But on the things that actually matter like clinical outcomes we are down close to the bottom.
Bottom of what? Globally would seem incredible? Which rankings are you referring to?
The commonly cited overview is the Commonwealth Fund report. It draws on data from the WHO and OECD and rates 11 first world countries. It has been a standard for many years and was cited very widely by both politicians and the media when its last report came out in 2017. It has now reported again and I provided a link earlier in the thread.
The reason it is useful is because it breaks down its report so you can see how organisations like the WHO are ranking. This shows that although the UK does okay in non clinical measures, it consistently performs very badly in clinical outcomes and prevention against the other 10 ranked countries.
As always, just citing stuff like the WHO numbers is no real measure unless you break them down as this report does.
That is entirely consistent with us being about 10th-13th in the world.
The countries that report is looking at are ranked 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 13th, 14th, 16th, 18th and 22nd in the world on the LPI rankings. The missing ones are small nations. So the report is saying on some specific outcome measures we are near the bottom of the top 11 big countries in the world, on other measures we are better.
Indeed but we are towards the bottom on the ones that most people would say really matter - keeping people alive and making them better. For a state religion that is a poor result.
Maybe I’m naive… but how can beds be the bottleneck in elective surgery? Is a bed in which to recover not the lowest cost element of the process? Are operating theatres and surgeons really under-utilised for lack of beds? Even if beds are the primary constraint, is the NHS so incompetent that surgery is scheduled, and the process started, without a bed being ringfenced.
Because there’s no slack in the system at all, A&E admissions can and do take beds designated for routine surgery. So a bad car crash or a couple of heart attacks, can mean dozens of operations cancelled at short notice as the facilities and staff become occupied with the emergency.
Are the numbers of emergency admissions that unpredictable? I’m sure there are aspects of managing supply and demand in hospitals that are particularly challenging but the NHS seems to do particularly poorly if people are having surgery cancelled multiple times. Is the lack of slack in the system a consequence of the NHS model? If accidents resulted in substantial invoices going to insurance companies, would capacity exist to deal with them without screwing up non-emergency procedures?
That’s a really interesting question. There’s probably a lot of analysis you can do, but if I were to guess I’d say they routinely underestimate the number of emergency admissions, in the same way that airlines routinely overbook flights. They’ve probably got the burns unit on standby next weekend, for example, and probably don’t look forward to the first weekend of the local amateur football league or the day of a large motorsport meeting. If the NHS had to give you £10k for a cancelled routine operation, they’d likely schedule fewer of them and the waiting lists would be longer, that’s just the game they play.
The one thing that’s not usually mentioned about the NHS, is that UK healthcare spending per capita is actually quite low, compared to other countries with similar standards of living and demographics.
As a percentage of GDP, Swi, Ger, Fra, Swe, Can, Nor, UK, Netherlands, Australia, NZ are all within a 9.1-11.7 range with the UK at 10.2. It is a touch lower perhaps but quite similar. US an outlier at 16.8%
Surely all pepper is non-EU? Unless it's grown in Guadeloupe or somewhere. And salt is just salt, I can't imagine it matters much where it comes from. This seems like one of the more pointless skirmishes in the Brexit culture war. Also, why buy it ready-seasoned anyway? Are people really that lazy?
Must admit I was not aware that 'Ghislaine' was a name used by anyone other than the Maxwells. Apparently it means "pledge" or "hostage" - a propos of nothing, of course...
As predicted last week, first Daily Mail article counting the private jets - 52 in Glasgow yesterday, including four that flew from Glasgow to Prestwick empty to park, as GLA was full. Four planes for Biden, landing in Edinburgh and going in a 85-vehicle convoy to Glasgow.
Yes the crazy brigade of climate activists are saying we shouldn't fly, but as far as I'm aware Biden is not amongst them.
If as I believe (and I think you do too) the future is dependant upon switching to clean technology aviation and not abandoning aviation, then what is wrong with the US President and his entourage flying to a summit designed to help us get there?
Yes, it is typical denialism-lite. To not take what is going with climate change seriously because some attendees are less than perfect. Leaders always have camp followers.
Though I do think its a valid argument to use with the crazies who do follow these events, the Gretas of this world, who are adamant we're not doing enough and that we shouldn't be travelling and this needs to all happen overnight.
Ok, you first.
Sure, Greta can be annoyingly monomaniac on the subject of climate change, but consciousness raising and getting engagement with the topic is a very useful role. No one expects a teenager to have all the answers, including herself, but she has done a sterling job of raising publicity around the world.
Yes. Less than a decade ago, we still had politicians like Boris Johnson cracking jokes about windmills and Anne-Marie Trevelyan denying the existence of climate change as well as a host of right-wing commentators making fun of "loony left" proposals to deal with global warming. Now, thanks in large part to campaigners like Greta, those who dismiss the seriousness of climate change are very much in the minority.
That minority includes China.
Perhaps Greta might like to go to China.
A country which is planning to build another 43 coal fired power stations to go with the 1000+ it already has (over half of the entire world's):
Likewise all the XR and Insulate types might like to go to the Chinese embassy for their next stunt.
I suspect they wont.
That minority doesn't include China, really. From what I've read, China thinks climate change is a very serious issue. One may think that its progress on tackling it is too slow, but I see no evidence of climate change denialism. Given its stage of economic development and its population size, it's hardly surprising that it's behind most of the West in reducing emissions (although apparently China's emissions per person are around half of those in the USA).
I wouldn't be at all surprised if, 20 or so years down the line, Chinese technology makes a significant contribution to tackling global climate change.
Richard's point was that the XR types won't protest against China, not that China doesn't take climate change seriously. As this BBC article highlights, when it raised the same question to XR types:
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Nope the system has been shit since long before Brexit was ever dreamed of. In terms of doing its actual job and both preventing people getting ill and helping them get better it has been close to the bottom of the rankings for decades. Blaming Brexit is just you in denial about how badly it needs complete reform.
Ranked 10th in one survey, 13th in another. It seems the UK has to be perceived to be the best or worst at things for some reason, when we are actually typically quite middling but above average.
Post of the day, and it's still morning. Everything else is just partisan and ideological exaggeration, or complaints about partisan and ideological exaggeration.
No sorry. It is entirely legitimate to want "our" health service to improve. I don't give a stuff about other countries, I do care that the NHS today, because of years of structural inefficiencies, and coming up for two years of Covid, is now really not fit for purpose.
I also have no problem with league tables comparing our performance health-wise with our near and comparable neighbours. That is understandable and, as a fan in 2016 of us staying in the EU, what I did for eg theories of trade, etc.
I confess I don't really think I know what "not fit for purpose" means.
Does it mean "could be better"? If so, agreed.
Does it mean "completely broken"? If so, disagree. The NHS gives many good experiences and outcomes.
Does it mean "cannot continue in its current form"? Wellll, that's a trickier question to answer. Projecting into the future, healthcare needs will change. That might require a change in emphasis or organisation, but it might not.
You might not give a stuff about other countries, but comparison helps us know what's realistic and, for some definitions of "fit for purpose", an answer.
Well I did then say that I am happy to compare it with other countries and as @Richard_Tyndall has provided, there is evidence that the NHS doesn't perform well in such a context.
"Not fit for purpose" in my own personal usage means that its failings are such that there is a too high incidence of bad outcomes. As again evidenced by the report that Richard posted here where we rank 9th out of 11 in the headline stats (edit: for Health Care Outcomes).
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Nope the system has been shit since long before Brexit was ever dreamed of. In terms of doing its actual job and both preventing people getting ill and helping them get better it has been close to the bottom of the rankings for decades. Blaming Brexit is just you in denial about how badly it needs complete reform.
Ranked 10th in one survey, 13th in another. It seems the UK has to be perceived to be the best or worst at things for some reason, when we are actually typically quite middling but above average.
Its tenth in the UN survey because of what is being measured. If you are measuring things like affordability of medicines or paperwork efficiency then we rank well. But on the things that actually matter like clinical outcomes we are down close to the bottom.
Bottom of what? Globally would seem incredible? Which rankings are you referring to?
The commonly cited overview is the Commonwealth Fund report. It draws on data from the WHO and OECD and rates 11 first world countries. It has been a standard for many years and was cited very widely by both politicians and the media when its last report came out in 2017. It has now reported again and I provided a link earlier in the thread.
The reason it is useful is because it breaks down its report so you can see how organisations like the WHO are ranking. This shows that although the UK does okay in non clinical measures, it consistently performs very badly in clinical outcomes and prevention against the other 10 ranked countries.
As always, just citing stuff like the WHO numbers is no real measure unless you break them down as this report does.
That is entirely consistent with us being about 10th-13th in the world.
The countries that report is looking at are ranked 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 13th, 14th, 16th, 18th and 22nd in the world on the LPI rankings. The missing ones are small nations. So the report is saying on some specific outcome measures we are near the bottom of the top 11 big countries in the world, on other measures we are better.
Indeed but we are towards the bottom on the ones that most people would say really matter - keeping people alive and making them better. For a state religion that is a poor result.
If we are tenth in the world on things I think that is fine. Not a complacent fine that does not seek to improve, but equally not a "what we have is dogshit", worse than "every single western nation", "underwhelming", or like "Scunthorpe town vs Chelsea" to pick a few comments from earlier posters in the thread.
We have a good but not world leading health system under massive pressure from covid, underfunding and demographics. None are quick or easy to solve.
"We look in amazement at the processes underway in the countries which have been traditionally looked at as the standard-bearers of progress. Of course, the social and cultural shocks that are taking place in the United States and Western Europe are none of our business; we are keeping out of this. Some people in the West believe that an aggressive elimination of entire pages from their own history, “reverse discrimination” against the majority in the interests of a minority, and the demand to give up the traditional notions of mother, father, family and even gender, they believe that all of these are the mileposts on the path towards social renewal."
"The advocates of so-called ‘social progress’ believe they are introducing humanity to some kind of a new and better consciousness. Godspeed, hoist the flags as we say, go right ahead. The only thing that I want to say now is that their prescriptions are not new at all. It may come as a surprise to some people, but Russia has been there already. After the 1917 revolution, the Bolsheviks, relying on the dogmas of Marx and Engels, also said that they would change existing ways and customs and not just political and economic ones, but the very notion of human morality and the foundations of a healthy society. The destruction of age-old values, religion and relations between people, up to and including the total rejection of family (we had that, too), encouragement to inform on loved ones – all this was proclaimed progress and, by the way, was widely supported around the world back then and was quite fashionable, same as today. By the way, the Bolsheviks were absolutely intolerant of opinions other than theirs."
He is right. He is absolutely right
Read it all. This is the best, smartest, most wisely wide-ranging speech I have heard from any global political leader in a decade. And this is PUTIN
He's not right, he's right-wing. No surprise you're a Putin admirer tbh.
I dislike Putin, generally. He kills his enemies. But then, so does the POTUS, with drones (and so does Boris). And sometimes your wiser enemies, or rivals, see you better then you see yourself. Putin nails this here. Wokeness is Bolshevism, right down to the determined destruction of the family unit
Putin is a fascinating character, worthy of respect, along with due wariness and preparedness. He is certainly not some mad aggressive autocrat, he is not Hitler. He actually thinks
I sense your D’Annunzio hard-on is raising its ugly head again.
You're not an idiot, TUD. You and I disagree vehemently on Scottish Nationalism, but I believe we disagree on principled grounds. I do not want to see the UK dismembered, you believe Scotland has a national destiny which demands this. But we respectfully differ
Read Putin's speech and tell me he has not correctly identified sicknesses within the West. I believe he has
I'm afraid I do disagree with you (& Vlad) about the sickness within the West. The current spasm seems to me just a version of the usual messy collision of young and old, right and left, ancient and modern, even if exacerbated by 'events'. More sinister is the retreat into nationalism, faith, family and all that good shit, and there seem to be versions of this sprouting up all over the shop.
I don't even get the family unit stuff. My parents divorced 50 years ago, each married & divorced again and both are now a-moldering in their graves. I daresay that may have had unfavourable consequences for all involved but I think a golden age of the family unit is barely within living memory if it ever existed at all.
ps, thanks for suggesting I'm not an idiot!
I’m not seeing the woke Lubyanka, where the wokeists torture and murder their victims …. or perhaps the comparison with the Bolshevism is just idiotic. Incidentally, it’s not the wokeists who still run the Lubyanka, is it Vlad ?
I wonder what @Leon makes of Josh’s take on the moral panic ?
The context differs, but problem with revolutions, social or political; is that they tend to lead to counter revolutions. So it will be with the woke, and it won’t be a good thing.
Plenty of revolutions occur with little, or no, counter-revolution.
As an example of an utterly positive revolution, look at gat marriage. from unthinkable in the 1980s, to being accepted over vast swathes of the world in the 2010s. The same can probably be said for gay rights in the 1960s to 1980s.
Or the way perceived roles of women - and of men as well - have changed considerably since the 1960s. Relatively few people in the UK are calling for women to leave the workplace.
There has been massive societal change over the last few decades, and there have been barely whimpers in reply.
You are comparing incremental social change with the revolution that I (and some others) see with regard to what, in very general terms, may be described as the 'woke'.
The error that many people make is that they see what is going on as incremental change; but it is actually a movement that tries to change the entire philosophical basis of liberal western society. Whilst I am no apologist for his regime; that is what Putin is correctly describing.
Looking at Russia; Peter Pomerantsev brilliantly decribes how the future first arrives in Russia. So it is with Putin's brilliant exploitation of conservative social values to entrench his power over the past decade. And so, I suggest, it will ultimately be in the west.
This is not desirable at all; the best possible outcome is that we get something like 'woke lite', but getting there involves a rejection of much of this agenda; the denial of history, the denial of biological differences; the obsession with grievances; and the idea that everything is socially constructed - an agenda that many people seem to embrace.
Maybe I’m naive… but how can beds be the bottleneck in elective surgery? Is a bed in which to recover not the lowest cost element of the process? Are operating theatres and surgeons really under-utilised for lack of beds? Even if beds are the primary constraint, is the NHS so incompetent that surgery is scheduled, and the process started, without a bed being ringfenced.
“Bed” is a synecdoche for all the various bits needed to support a patient coming round from a general anaesthetic: you also need a nurse, a ventilator and various other machines. My understanding is that this same mix is required by a patient with the most advanced form of Covid and that they might occupy it for weeks rather than the hours required to come round from surgery.
Thank you, a new word for me! The point stands, however, that 18 months into a Covid pandemic a lack of “beds” should not be constraining elective surgery and certainly shouldn’t mean that surgery is cancelled at minutes notice.
If you can magic up the nurses and other trained staff, then the NHS will gladly employ them. Unfortunately, we had a system which was already short-staffed and reliant on nurses taking on extra private shifts to cover the existing patient load /before/ the Covid pandemic. Then we took this group of people & worked them to the bone for 18 months & then expected them to come back for more to try and save the 10-15% of the population who refuse to get vaccinated & abuse them for even trying. It should be entirely unsurprising that a sizable portion of NHS staff are completely burnt out. They are refusing to work extra shifts, or simply quitting for less stressful jobs, for their own mental health.
And these people simply don’t grow on trees there for the plucking whenever we need them: Training takes years.
So now we have a system which has gone from chronically under-staffed to constantly on the verge of failure as the extra weight of the current covid wave hits it.
In this situation it’s impossible to “plan” - sure, you hope to have the staff available for the surgery you have booked, but this week you’ve just been hit with another 20 Covid patients, so sorry - elective surgery will have to wait. There are ultimately only so many nurses (and other staff) available.
"We look in amazement at the processes underway in the countries which have been traditionally looked at as the standard-bearers of progress. Of course, the social and cultural shocks that are taking place in the United States and Western Europe are none of our business; we are keeping out of this. Some people in the West believe that an aggressive elimination of entire pages from their own history, “reverse discrimination” against the majority in the interests of a minority, and the demand to give up the traditional notions of mother, father, family and even gender, they believe that all of these are the mileposts on the path towards social renewal."
"The advocates of so-called ‘social progress’ believe they are introducing humanity to some kind of a new and better consciousness. Godspeed, hoist the flags as we say, go right ahead. The only thing that I want to say now is that their prescriptions are not new at all. It may come as a surprise to some people, but Russia has been there already. After the 1917 revolution, the Bolsheviks, relying on the dogmas of Marx and Engels, also said that they would change existing ways and customs and not just political and economic ones, but the very notion of human morality and the foundations of a healthy society. The destruction of age-old values, religion and relations between people, up to and including the total rejection of family (we had that, too), encouragement to inform on loved ones – all this was proclaimed progress and, by the way, was widely supported around the world back then and was quite fashionable, same as today. By the way, the Bolsheviks were absolutely intolerant of opinions other than theirs."
He is right. He is absolutely right
Read it all. This is the best, smartest, most wisely wide-ranging speech I have heard from any global political leader in a decade. And this is PUTIN
He's not right, he's right-wing. No surprise you're a Putin admirer tbh.
I dislike Putin, generally. He kills his enemies. But then, so does the POTUS, with drones (and so does Boris). And sometimes your wiser enemies, or rivals, see you better then you see yourself. Putin nails this here. Wokeness is Bolshevism, right down to the determined destruction of the family unit
Putin is a fascinating character, worthy of respect, along with due wariness and preparedness. He is certainly not some mad aggressive autocrat, he is not Hitler. He actually thinks
I sense your D’Annunzio hard-on is raising its ugly head again.
You're not an idiot, TUD. You and I disagree vehemently on Scottish Nationalism, but I believe we disagree on principled grounds. I do not want to see the UK dismembered, you believe Scotland has a national destiny which demands this. But we respectfully differ
Read Putin's speech and tell me he has not correctly identified sicknesses within the West. I believe he has
I'm afraid I do disagree with you (& Vlad) about the sickness within the West. The current spasm seems to me just a version of the usual messy collision of young and old, right and left, ancient and modern, even if exacerbated by 'events'. More sinister is the retreat into nationalism, faith, family and all that good shit, and there seem to be versions of this sprouting up all over the shop.
I don't even get the family unit stuff. My parents divorced 50 years ago, each married & divorced again and both are now a-moldering in their graves. I daresay that may have had unfavourable consequences for all involved but I think a golden age of the family unit is barely within living memory if it ever existed at all.
ps, thanks for suggesting I'm not an idiot!
I’m not seeing the woke Lubyanka, where the wokeists torture and murder their victims …. or perhaps the comparison with the Bolshevism is just idiotic. Incidentally, it’s not the wokeists who still run the Lubyanka, is it Vlad ?
I wonder what @Leon makes of Josh’s take on the moral panic ?
The context differs, but problem with revolutions, social or political; is that they tend to lead to counter revolutions. So it will be with the woke, and it won’t be a good thing.
Plenty of revolutions occur with little, or no, counter-revolution.
As an example of an utterly positive revolution, look at gat marriage. from unthinkable in the 1980s, to being accepted over vast swathes of the world in the 2010s. The same can probably be said for gay rights in the 1960s to 1980s.
Or the way perceived roles of women - and of men as well - have changed considerably since the 1960s. Relatively few people in the UK are calling for women to leave the workplace.
There has been massive societal change over the last few decades, and there have been barely whimpers in reply.
You are comparing incremental social change with the revolution that I (and some others) see with regard to what, in very general terms, may be described as the 'woke'.
The error that many people make is that they see what is going on as incremental change; but it is actually a movement that tries to change the entire philosophical basis of liberal western society. Whilst I am no apologist for his regime; that is what Putin is correctly describing.
Looking at Russia; Peter Pomerantsev brilliantly decribes how the future first arrives in Russia. So it is with Putin's brilliant exploitation of conservative social values to entrench his power over the past decade. And so, I suggest, it will ultimately be in the west.
This is not desirable at all; the best possible outcome is that we get something like 'woke lite', but getting there involves a rejection of much of this agenda; the denial of history, the denial of biological differences; the obsession with grievances; and the idea that everything is socially constructed - an agenda that many people seem to embrace.
If you want a full analysis of how Putin has entrenched power, you might also want to look at the lack of democracy in Russia, and his brutal suppression of opponents in the political, business, and journalistic sphere. It's not all about being a tapped into some mythical moral majority.
As predicted last week, first Daily Mail article counting the private jets - 52 in Glasgow yesterday, including four that flew from Glasgow to Prestwick empty to park, as GLA was full. Four planes for Biden, landing in Edinburgh and going in a 85-vehicle convoy to Glasgow.
Yes the crazy brigade of climate activists are saying we shouldn't fly, but as far as I'm aware Biden is not amongst them.
If as I believe (and I think you do too) the future is dependant upon switching to clean technology aviation and not abandoning aviation, then what is wrong with the US President and his entourage flying to a summit designed to help us get there?
Yes, it is typical denialism-lite. To not take what is going with climate change seriously because some attendees are less than perfect. Leaders always have camp followers.
Though I do think its a valid argument to use with the crazies who do follow these events, the Gretas of this world, who are adamant we're not doing enough and that we shouldn't be travelling and this needs to all happen overnight.
Ok, you first.
Sure, Greta can be annoyingly monomaniac on the subject of climate change, but consciousness raising and getting engagement with the topic is a very useful role. No one expects a teenager to have all the answers, including herself, but she has done a sterling job of raising publicity around the world.
Yes. Less than a decade ago, we still had politicians like Boris Johnson cracking jokes about windmills and Anne-Marie Trevelyan denying the existence of climate change as well as a host of right-wing commentators making fun of "loony left" proposals to deal with global warming. Now, thanks in large part to campaigners like Greta, those who dismiss the seriousness of climate change are very much in the minority.
That minority includes China.
Perhaps Greta might like to go to China.
A country which is planning to build another 43 coal fired power stations to go with the 1000+ it already has (over half of the entire world's):
Likewise all the XR and Insulate types might like to go to the Chinese embassy for their next stunt.
I suspect they wont.
That minority doesn't include China, really. From what I've read, China thinks climate change is a very serious issue. One may think that its progress on tackling it is too slow, but I see no evidence of climate change denialism. Given its stage of economic development and its population size, it's hardly surprising that it's behind most of the West in reducing emissions (although apparently China's emissions per person are around half of those in the USA).
I wouldn't be at all surprised if, 20 or so years down the line, Chinese technology makes a significant contribution to tackling global climate change.
Richard's point was that the XR types won't protest against China, not that China doesn't take climate change seriously. As this BBC article highlights, when it raised the same question to XR types:
They may irritate at times but I'm not sure focusing on climate activists rather than the climate is the way to go.
Its very difficult not to. I haven't personally had a run-in with XR or Insulate Britain yet, but doing so must make you want to go and buy a massive diesel and then drive it home and put the central heating on full blast while you research flights to somewhere pointless. If you're trying to persuade people of something, pissing them off mightily is a poor way to go about it. They are actively hindering their cause.
On which subject, it seems Insulate Britain have come to Greater Manchester today to block junction 6 of the M56 - presumably so they can all get home nice and quickly afterwards to Hale and Altrincham and Wilmslow. *takes class warrior hat off*
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Nope the system has been shit since long before Brexit was ever dreamed of. In terms of doing its actual job and both preventing people getting ill and helping them get better it has been close to the bottom of the rankings for decades. Blaming Brexit is just you in denial about how badly it needs complete reform.
Ranked 10th in one survey, 13th in another. It seems the UK has to be perceived to be the best or worst at things for some reason, when we are actually typically quite middling but above average.
Its tenth in the UN survey because of what is being measured. If you are measuring things like affordability of medicines or paperwork efficiency then we rank well. But on the things that actually matter like clinical outcomes we are down close to the bottom.
Bottom of what? Globally would seem incredible? Which rankings are you referring to?
The commonly cited overview is the Commonwealth Fund report. It draws on data from the WHO and OECD and rates 11 first world countries. It has been a standard for many years and was cited very widely by both politicians and the media when its last report came out in 2017. It has now reported again and I provided a link earlier in the thread.
The reason it is useful is because it breaks down its report so you can see how organisations like the WHO are ranking. This shows that although the UK does okay in non clinical measures, it consistently performs very badly in clinical outcomes and prevention against the other 10 ranked countries.
As always, just citing stuff like the WHO numbers is no real measure unless you break them down as this report does.
That is entirely consistent with us being about 10th-13th in the world.
The countries that report is looking at are ranked 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 13th, 14th, 16th, 18th and 22nd in the world on the LPI rankings. The missing ones are small nations. So the report is saying on some specific outcome measures we are near the bottom of the top 11 big countries in the world, on other measures we are better.
Indeed but we are towards the bottom on the ones that most people would say really matter - keeping people alive and making them better. For a state religion that is a poor result.
If we are tenth in the world on things I think that is fine. Not a complacent fine that does not seek to improve, but equally not a "what we have is dogshit", worse than "every single western nation", "underwhelming", or like "Scunthorpe town vs Chelsea" to pick a few comments from earlier posters in the thread.
We have a good but not world leading health system under massive pressure from covid, underfunding and demographics. None are quick or easy to solve.
Use a cricket analogy. If we are doing worse than Namibia then that would be disastrous. But if we are consistently bottom of the rankings of the Test playing nations then most of us would agree that is pretty shit.
And we do not have a good health system. We have a system that consistently fails to provide outcomes comparable to other similar countries in spite of spending comparable amounts of money.
That is a fundamental issue and one that must be addressed rather than continually referring to our system as 'world leading'.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Nope the system has been shit since long before Brexit was ever dreamed of. In terms of doing its actual job and both preventing people getting ill and helping them get better it has been close to the bottom of the rankings for decades. Blaming Brexit is just you in denial about how badly it needs complete reform.
Ranked 10th in one survey, 13th in another. It seems the UK has to be perceived to be the best or worst at things for some reason, when we are actually typically quite middling but above average.
Its tenth in the UN survey because of what is being measured. If you are measuring things like affordability of medicines or paperwork efficiency then we rank well. But on the things that actually matter like clinical outcomes we are down close to the bottom.
Bottom of what? Globally would seem incredible? Which rankings are you referring to?
The commonly cited overview is the Commonwealth Fund report. It draws on data from the WHO and OECD and rates 11 first world countries. It has been a standard for many years and was cited very widely by both politicians and the media when its last report came out in 2017. It has now reported again and I provided a link earlier in the thread.
The reason it is useful is because it breaks down its report so you can see how organisations like the WHO are ranking. This shows that although the UK does okay in non clinical measures, it consistently performs very badly in clinical outcomes and prevention against the other 10 ranked countries.
As always, just citing stuff like the WHO numbers is no real measure unless you break them down as this report does.
That is entirely consistent with us being about 10th-13th in the world.
The countries that report is looking at are ranked 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 13th, 14th, 16th, 18th and 22nd in the world on the LPI rankings. The missing ones are small nations. So the report is saying on some specific outcome measures we are near the bottom of the top 11 big countries in the world, on other measures we are better.
Indeed but we are towards the bottom on the ones that most people would say really matter - keeping people alive and making them better. For a state religion that is a poor result.
If we are tenth in the world on things I think that is fine. Not a complacent fine that does not seek to improve, but equally not a "what we have is dogshit", worse than "every single western nation", "underwhelming", or like "Scunthorpe town vs Chelsea" to pick a few comments from earlier posters in the thread.
We have a good but not world leading health system under massive pressure from covid, underfunding and demographics. None are quick or easy to solve.
Use a cricket analogy. If we are doing worse than Namibia then that would be disastrous. But if we are consistently bottom of the rankings of the Test playing nations then most of us would agree that is pretty shit.
And we do not have a good health system. We have a system that consistently fails to provide outcomes comparable to other similar countries in spite of spending comparable amounts of money.
That is a fundamental issue and one that must be addressed rather than continually referring to our system as 'world leading'.
No, it would be more like being tenth best in the world at football or at the Olympics, both of which are respectable. Only a few countries play cricket seriously, all countries have healthcare systems.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Nope the system has been shit since long before Brexit was ever dreamed of. In terms of doing its actual job and both preventing people getting ill and helping them get better it has been close to the bottom of the rankings for decades. Blaming Brexit is just you in denial about how badly it needs complete reform.
Ranked 10th in one survey, 13th in another. It seems the UK has to be perceived to be the best or worst at things for some reason, when we are actually typically quite middling but above average.
Post of the day, and it's still morning. Everything else is just partisan and ideological exaggeration, or complaints about partisan and ideological exaggeration.
No sorry. It is entirely legitimate to want "our" health service to improve. I don't give a stuff about other countries, I do care that the NHS today, because of years of structural inefficiencies, and coming up for two years of Covid, is now really not fit for purpose.
I also have no problem with league tables comparing our performance health-wise with our near and comparable neighbours. That is understandable and, as a fan in 2016 of us staying in the EU, what I did for eg theories of trade, etc.
I confess I don't really think I know what "not fit for purpose" means.
Does it mean "could be better"? If so, agreed.
Does it mean "completely broken"? If so, disagree. The NHS gives many good experiences and outcomes.
Does it mean "cannot continue in its current form"? Wellll, that's a trickier question to answer. Projecting into the future, healthcare needs will change. That might require a change in emphasis or organisation, but it might not.
You might not give a stuff about other countries, but comparison helps us know what's realistic and, for some definitions of "fit for purpose", an answer.
The studies I've seen indicate the NHS is both mediocre and value for money. We don't pay much and we get just a teeny bit more than we pay for. I am, pleased to say and touching wood, devoid of recent personal experience to burnish with anecdote.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Nope the system has been shit since long before Brexit was ever dreamed of. In terms of doing its actual job and both preventing people getting ill and helping them get better it has been close to the bottom of the rankings for decades. Blaming Brexit is just you in denial about how badly it needs complete reform.
Ranked 10th in one survey, 13th in another. It seems the UK has to be perceived to be the best or worst at things for some reason, when we are actually typically quite middling but above average.
Post of the day, and it's still morning. Everything else is just partisan and ideological exaggeration, or complaints about partisan and ideological exaggeration.
No sorry. It is entirely legitimate to want "our" health service to improve. I don't give a stuff about other countries, I do care that the NHS today, because of years of structural inefficiencies, and coming up for two years of Covid, is now really not fit for purpose.
I also have no problem with league tables comparing our performance health-wise with our near and comparable neighbours. That is understandable and, as a fan in 2016 of us staying in the EU, what I did for eg theories of trade, etc.
I confess I don't really think I know what "not fit for purpose" means.
Does it mean "could be better"? If so, agreed.
Does it mean "completely broken"? If so, disagree. The NHS gives many good experiences and outcomes.
Does it mean "cannot continue in its current form"? Wellll, that's a trickier question to answer. Projecting into the future, healthcare needs will change. That might require a change in emphasis or organisation, but it might not.
You might not give a stuff about other countries, but comparison helps us know what's realistic and, for some definitions of "fit for purpose", an answer.
Did anyone use the phrase 'not fit for purpose' before John Reid used it to describe the home office in about 2006? I had never heard it before that; after that, suddenly, it was everywhere. On which subject, did anyone use the phrase 'playing catch-up' before Roy Walker used it on catch phrase?
As predicted last week, first Daily Mail article counting the private jets - 52 in Glasgow yesterday, including four that flew from Glasgow to Prestwick empty to park, as GLA was full. Four planes for Biden, landing in Edinburgh and going in a 85-vehicle convoy to Glasgow.
Yes the crazy brigade of climate activists are saying we shouldn't fly, but as far as I'm aware Biden is not amongst them.
If as I believe (and I think you do too) the future is dependant upon switching to clean technology aviation and not abandoning aviation, then what is wrong with the US President and his entourage flying to a summit designed to help us get there?
Yes, it is typical denialism-lite. To not take what is going with climate change seriously because some attendees are less than perfect. Leaders always have camp followers.
Though I do think its a valid argument to use with the crazies who do follow these events, the Gretas of this world, who are adamant we're not doing enough and that we shouldn't be travelling and this needs to all happen overnight.
Ok, you first.
Sure, Greta can be annoyingly monomaniac on the subject of climate change, but consciousness raising and getting engagement with the topic is a very useful role. No one expects a teenager to have all the answers, including herself, but she has done a sterling job of raising publicity around the world.
Yes. Less than a decade ago, we still had politicians like Boris Johnson cracking jokes about windmills and Anne-Marie Trevelyan denying the existence of climate change as well as a host of right-wing commentators making fun of "loony left" proposals to deal with global warming. Now, thanks in large part to campaigners like Greta, those who dismiss the seriousness of climate change are very much in the minority.
That minority includes China.
Perhaps Greta might like to go to China.
A country which is planning to build another 43 coal fired power stations to go with the 1000+ it already has (over half of the entire world's):
Likewise all the XR and Insulate types might like to go to the Chinese embassy for their next stunt.
I suspect they wont.
That minority doesn't include China, really. From what I've read, China thinks climate change is a very serious issue. One may think that its progress on tackling it is too slow, but I see no evidence of climate change denialism. Given its stage of economic development and its population size, it's hardly surprising that it's behind most of the West in reducing emissions (although apparently China's emissions per person are around half of those in the USA).
I wouldn't be at all surprised if, 20 or so years down the line, Chinese technology makes a significant contribution to tackling global climate change.
Richard's point was that the XR types won't protest against China, not that China doesn't take climate change seriously. As this BBC article highlights, when it raised the same question to XR types:
They may irritate at times but I'm not sure focusing on climate activists rather than the climate is the way to go.
Besides, progress has been made. People will now actually protest against environmental stuff done by Russia.
China has used the "it's all racism" thing a lot
The other issue here is that China isn't a monolith. Xi is a dictator. However, his power is not absolute. No dictator's power ever is - and his is not quite at the take-him-away-and-shoot-him-for-lols level.
There are various factions at various levels that need to be placated. The ASAT test thing was a very good illustration of this.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Nope the system has been shit since long before Brexit was ever dreamed of. In terms of doing its actual job and both preventing people getting ill and helping them get better it has been close to the bottom of the rankings for decades. Blaming Brexit is just you in denial about how badly it needs complete reform.
Ranked 10th in one survey, 13th in another. It seems the UK has to be perceived to be the best or worst at things for some reason, when we are actually typically quite middling but above average.
Its tenth in the UN survey because of what is being measured. If you are measuring things like affordability of medicines or paperwork efficiency then we rank well. But on the things that actually matter like clinical outcomes we are down close to the bottom.
Bottom of what? Globally would seem incredible? Which rankings are you referring to?
The commonly cited overview is the Commonwealth Fund report. It draws on data from the WHO and OECD and rates 11 first world countries. It has been a standard for many years and was cited very widely by both politicians and the media when its last report came out in 2017. It has now reported again and I provided a link earlier in the thread.
The reason it is useful is because it breaks down its report so you can see how organisations like the WHO are ranking. This shows that although the UK does okay in non clinical measures, it consistently performs very badly in clinical outcomes and prevention against the other 10 ranked countries.
As always, just citing stuff like the WHO numbers is no real measure unless you break them down as this report does.
That is entirely consistent with us being about 10th-13th in the world.
The countries that report is looking at are ranked 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 13th, 14th, 16th, 18th and 22nd in the world on the LPI rankings. The missing ones are small nations. So the report is saying on some specific outcome measures we are near the bottom of the top 11 big countries in the world, on other measures we are better.
Indeed but we are towards the bottom on the ones that most people would say really matter - keeping people alive and making them better. For a state religion that is a poor result.
If we are tenth in the world on things I think that is fine. Not a complacent fine that does not seek to improve, but equally not a "what we have is dogshit", worse than "every single western nation", "underwhelming", or like "Scunthorpe town vs Chelsea" to pick a few comments from earlier posters in the thread.
We have a good but not world leading health system under massive pressure from covid, underfunding and demographics. None are quick or easy to solve.
Use a cricket analogy. If we are doing worse than Namibia then that would be disastrous. But if we are consistently bottom of the rankings of the Test playing nations then most of us would agree that is pretty shit.
And we do not have a good health system. We have a system that consistently fails to provide outcomes comparable to other similar countries in spite of spending comparable amounts of money.
That is a fundamental issue and one that must be addressed rather than continually referring to our system as 'world leading'.
No, it would be more like being tenth best in the world at football or at the Olympics, both of which are respectable. Only a few countries play cricket seriously, all countries have healthcare systems.
And this is why our health system will remain rubbish because too many people are blind to its failings and unwilling to accept the need for fundamental reform. The religion still holds sway sadly.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Nope the system has been shit since long before Brexit was ever dreamed of. In terms of doing its actual job and both preventing people getting ill and helping them get better it has been close to the bottom of the rankings for decades. Blaming Brexit is just you in denial about how badly it needs complete reform.
The correct structure and level of funding of the NHS are a matter of opinion, but it is just ridiculous dogmatism to insist that staffing issues caused by Brexit haven't had an adverse effect of the performance of the NHS.
Also, please stop putting words in my mouth. I've never suggested that the NHS might not be in need of reform, let alone been in denial about it. As it happens, I'm an admirer of the German system in particular, and I think we could learn a thing or two from the Germans.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Nope the system has been shit since long before Brexit was ever dreamed of. In terms of doing its actual job and both preventing people getting ill and helping them get better it has been close to the bottom of the rankings for decades. Blaming Brexit is just you in denial about how badly it needs complete reform.
Ranked 10th in one survey, 13th in another. It seems the UK has to be perceived to be the best or worst at things for some reason, when we are actually typically quite middling but above average.
Post of the day, and it's still morning. Everything else is just partisan and ideological exaggeration, or complaints about partisan and ideological exaggeration.
No sorry. It is entirely legitimate to want "our" health service to improve. I don't give a stuff about other countries, I do care that the NHS today, because of years of structural inefficiencies, and coming up for two years of Covid, is now really not fit for purpose.
I also have no problem with league tables comparing our performance health-wise with our near and comparable neighbours. That is understandable and, as a fan in 2016 of us staying in the EU, what I did for eg theories of trade, etc.
I confess I don't really think I know what "not fit for purpose" means.
Does it mean "could be better"? If so, agreed.
Does it mean "completely broken"? If so, disagree. The NHS gives many good experiences and outcomes.
Does it mean "cannot continue in its current form"? Wellll, that's a trickier question to answer. Projecting into the future, healthcare needs will change. That might require a change in emphasis or organisation, but it might not.
You might not give a stuff about other countries, but comparison helps us know what's realistic and, for some definitions of "fit for purpose", an answer.
The studies I've seen indicate the NHS is both mediocre and value for money. We don't pay much and we get just a teeny bit more than we pay for. I am, pleased to say and touching wood, devoid of recent personal experience to burnish with anecdote.
I think one of the problems is that (thankfully perhaps) too few people have experienced health care systems in other parts of Europe and don't know how much better they are.
Surely all pepper is non-EU? Unless it's grown in Guadeloupe or somewhere. And salt is just salt, I can't imagine it matters much where it comes from. This seems like one of the more pointless skirmishes in the Brexit culture war. Also, why buy it ready-seasoned anyway? Are people really that lazy?
Stupid thing to put on the label (the NON EU bit), but I can't work out why it bothers FBPErs so much - people threatening lifetime boycotts of Morrisons if this is real.. I mean FFS, it's food packaging.
If Aldi were selling French Coq in EU flag packaging, would Brexit supporters threaten to boycott them?
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Nope the system has been shit since long before Brexit was ever dreamed of. In terms of doing its actual job and both preventing people getting ill and helping them get better it has been close to the bottom of the rankings for decades. Blaming Brexit is just you in denial about how badly it needs complete reform.
Ranked 10th in one survey, 13th in another. It seems the UK has to be perceived to be the best or worst at things for some reason, when we are actually typically quite middling but above average.
Its tenth in the UN survey because of what is being measured. If you are measuring things like affordability of medicines or paperwork efficiency then we rank well. But on the things that actually matter like clinical outcomes we are down close to the bottom.
Bottom of what? Globally would seem incredible? Which rankings are you referring to?
The commonly cited overview is the Commonwealth Fund report. It draws on data from the WHO and OECD and rates 11 first world countries. It has been a standard for many years and was cited very widely by both politicians and the media when its last report came out in 2017. It has now reported again and I provided a link earlier in the thread.
The reason it is useful is because it breaks down its report so you can see how organisations like the WHO are ranking. This shows that although the UK does okay in non clinical measures, it consistently performs very badly in clinical outcomes and prevention against the other 10 ranked countries.
As always, just citing stuff like the WHO numbers is no real measure unless you break them down as this report does.
That is entirely consistent with us being about 10th-13th in the world.
The countries that report is looking at are ranked 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 13th, 14th, 16th, 18th and 22nd in the world on the LPI rankings. The missing ones are small nations. So the report is saying on some specific outcome measures we are near the bottom of the top 11 big countries in the world, on other measures we are better.
Indeed but we are towards the bottom on the ones that most people would say really matter - keeping people alive and making them better. For a state religion that is a poor result.
If we are tenth in the world on things I think that is fine. Not a complacent fine that does not seek to improve, but equally not a "what we have is dogshit", worse than "every single western nation", "underwhelming", or like "Scunthorpe town vs Chelsea" to pick a few comments from earlier posters in the thread.
We have a good but not world leading health system under massive pressure from covid, underfunding and demographics. None are quick or easy to solve.
Use a cricket analogy. If we are doing worse than Namibia then that would be disastrous. But if we are consistently bottom of the rankings of the Test playing nations then most of us would agree that is pretty shit.
And we do not have a good health system. We have a system that consistently fails to provide outcomes comparable to other similar countries in spite of spending comparable amounts of money.
That is a fundamental issue and one that must be addressed rather than continually referring to our system as 'world leading'.
No, it would be more like being tenth best in the world at football or at the Olympics, both of which are respectable. Only a few countries play cricket seriously, all countries have healthcare systems.
Except that we are third in the all-time medal table at the Olympics.
In the last few Olympics we've placed: "2020" Tokyo 4th 2016 Rio 2nd 2012 London 3rd 2008 Beijing 4th
So yes tenth would be a disappointment compared to what we are capable of achieving.
Surgery cancelled for a 3rd time, as I was about to head down to theatre. No beds.
Sigh.
Brexit? Covid? or just too long with a Tory government?
It feels like an inappropriate time to tell you of my experience with the French health service but to say it's comparing Chelsea with Scunthorpe Town is an understatement.
With the notable exception of the USA, every single Western nation has a better healthcare system than the NHS.
That's why we had to Brexit. People were starting to notice. A friend of mine has just had wait of 12 hours at A&E and there's nothing he could do. He even has medical insurance so it wasn't a question that money could have solved. You'll know from Dubai but strangely people here think what we have is the best in the world!
What we have is dogshit
Starved of funds and staff (thanks, Brexit), and hammered by Covid. So not surprising that service is underwhelming.
Nope the system has been shit since long before Brexit was ever dreamed of. In terms of doing its actual job and both preventing people getting ill and helping them get better it has been close to the bottom of the rankings for decades. Blaming Brexit is just you in denial about how badly it needs complete reform.
Ranked 10th in one survey, 13th in another. It seems the UK has to be perceived to be the best or worst at things for some reason, when we are actually typically quite middling but above average.
Its tenth in the UN survey because of what is being measured. If you are measuring things like affordability of medicines or paperwork efficiency then we rank well. But on the things that actually matter like clinical outcomes we are down close to the bottom.
Bottom of what? Globally would seem incredible? Which rankings are you referring to?
The commonly cited overview is the Commonwealth Fund report. It draws on data from the WHO and OECD and rates 11 first world countries. It has been a standard for many years and was cited very widely by both politicians and the media when its last report came out in 2017. It has now reported again and I provided a link earlier in the thread.
The reason it is useful is because it breaks down its report so you can see how organisations like the WHO are ranking. This shows that although the UK does okay in non clinical measures, it consistently performs very badly in clinical outcomes and prevention against the other 10 ranked countries.
As always, just citing stuff like the WHO numbers is no real measure unless you break them down as this report does.
That is entirely consistent with us being about 10th-13th in the world.
The countries that report is looking at are ranked 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 13th, 14th, 16th, 18th and 22nd in the world on the LPI rankings. The missing ones are small nations. So the report is saying on some specific outcome measures we are near the bottom of the top 11 big countries in the world, on other measures we are better.
Indeed but we are towards the bottom on the ones that most people would say really matter - keeping people alive and making them better. For a state religion that is a poor result.
If we are tenth in the world on things I think that is fine. Not a complacent fine that does not seek to improve, but equally not a "what we have is dogshit", worse than "every single western nation", "underwhelming", or like "Scunthorpe town vs Chelsea" to pick a few comments from earlier posters in the thread.
We have a good but not world leading health system under massive pressure from covid, underfunding and demographics. None are quick or easy to solve.
Use a cricket analogy. If we are doing worse than Namibia then that would be disastrous. But if we are consistently bottom of the rankings of the Test playing nations then most of us would agree that is pretty shit.
And we do not have a good health system. We have a system that consistently fails to provide outcomes comparable to other similar countries in spite of spending comparable amounts of money.
That is a fundamental issue and one that must be addressed rather than continually referring to our system as 'world leading'.
No, it would be more like being tenth best in the world at football or at the Olympics, both of which are respectable. Only a few countries play cricket seriously, all countries have healthcare systems.
And this is why our health system will remain rubbish because too many people are blind to its failings and unwilling to accept the need for fundamental reform. The religion still holds sway sadly.
I am quite happy with fundamental reforms (depending on what they are of course, but agree change will be needed). I don't like the constant hyperbole of the UK being either world leading or dog shit. Such hyperbole actually stops proper discussion about how we can be better.
Comments
Anyone who had been in an NHS hospital and observed the number of EU staff on whom they rely should have worked that out for themselves.
"China burns half the world’s coal and is still building new coal power plants, though they are increasingly uneconomic and unnecessary. It also burns coal directly in factories that produce half the world’s steel and cement. One notable aspect of my smog-filled days in Beijing was the virtual absence of private cars – the streets were mostly filled with bicycles. China has since become the largest global automobile market, as well as the world’s largest importer of crude oil.
But here’s the paradox: it also leads the world in the very clean technologies that make Xi’s plans feasible. China is by far the largest investor, producer and consumer of renewable energy. One out of every three solar panels and wind turbines in the world are in China. It is also home to nearly half the world’s electric passenger vehicles, 98% of its electric buses and 99% of its electric two-wheelers. The country leads in the production of batteries to power electric vehicles and store renewable energy on power grids. By 2025, its battery facilities will be almost double the capacity of the rest of the world combined.
China’s clean energy drive and economies of scale have driven down the once-exorbitant cost of these technologies to the point where they are threatening their fossil fuel competitors everywhere. Large-scale solar photovoltaics and onshore wind projects are now the cheapest form of new power generation for at least two-thirds of the world’s population. It will soon be cheaper to build new solar and wind plants than to continue to operate existing coal plants. The cost of electric cars and buses continues to plunge, and they will be as cheap as their polluting alternatives within the next five years."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/05/china-plan-net-zero-emissions-2060-clean-technology
Why do you think they would develop this technology if they did not intend to use it?
I am sorry you thought fit to out me as a gullible fool, I was hoping to keep that to myself.
I'm inclined to agree with your theory about the East of Britain; Tacitus (IIRC) says something about the people in the area of Britain first reached by the Romans spoke a language similar to that in the North West of the mainland. AIUI, later historians rather pooh-poohed this, relying rather on such writers as Bede, but it's odd that one has to go quite a long way West before one gets any trace of Celtic names for places. The various River Avon's are about the most easterly. Of course, too, the British had had 300+ years of a Latin speaking ruling class, and the British language(s) of AD400 were probably very different from those spoken by Boudicca or (if he existed) King Coel of Camulodunum.
And you are of course right in that the seas and rivers were easier for travel than the forested and wild animal inhabited land.
Genetics suggest that many of the people now living in England today have ancestry going back to pre-Saxon times.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58584976
But what do we do? Any hint that we might reform it is howled down; exponents of reform painted as baby eaters.
Especially on the UK.
Not forgetting on the USA or Australia and if somehow possible on Israel.
There are a lot of things that need / could be done to fix the capacity issue and we need to start looking at them.
Social care and an increase in convalescence (say in a premier inn type place with limited onsite medical care) are essential starting points.
I am guessing that like everyone else you buy enough Chinese junk to account for as much Chinese emissions as a Chinese person does. What you gonna do bout dat?
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2021/aug/mirror-mirror-2021-reflecting-poorly
When I lived downunder the Liberal-led (their Conservative) Coalition came to power in 1996 with a major budget deficit to resolve.
One of the first things they did was to cut across the board almost every department's budget, but they also passed a tax cut/credit against private healthcare provisions.
They made the argument was that Medicare (their universal healthcare provider) cost much more to treat someone than if someone paid privately for treatment. That it was cheaper to give a tax credit against private insurance or private healthcare, than it was to treat that same person on Medicare and it got them out of any Medicare waiting lists thus allowing Medicare to give better treatment for those who universally need it.
Even if you have private healthcare, you still need to pay for universal healthcare via Medicare.
In reality France, which has been mentioned most, has similar issues, lack of staffing, low morale, and overstretched hospitals.
https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/Hospital-beds-closed-in-France-due-to-lack-of-workers
Anything more complicated, involving MDTs, complex diagnoses, dependencies on other units, is absolutely useless.
And that is now failing. Before Covid and Brexit I broke my hand. Went to A&E and they gave me an appointment to see a consultant six weeks later. Six weeks for a broken bone. Went private had it seen to the following Wednesday.
One of countless anecdata points with friends and family. Just ask around yours and the stories will be forthcoming I guarantee.
Whatever is wrong with the NHS it has been wrong for a long time.
Medium-high density development can be good quality and popular. European cities develop this way and are popular places to live. Some places in Britain too - residents of Edinburgh, for example, emit relatively little carbon in their travel habits because their city is such that fewer trips need to be made by car. (This is to some extent counterbalanced by them having to use more carbon to heat their homes because it is cold!) Few would claim Edinburgh is not a pleasant urban environment.
It won't suit anyone, but done well it could suit many, many people.
Maybe one day someone will be brave enough to advocate an Australian-style healthcare system?
As someone who works on branding, you would appreciate more than most how well they have brainwashed the population into treating it like a religion managed to cement the NHS into the national phyche.
In the UK we are about maxed-out on hydro. Solar has a similar 'problem' to wind in that there are pesky things like winter and clouds.
The complementary nature of wind and solar is important.
Gas will go for emissions reasons - I'm with the group that says get rid of combustion processes in the grid.
Modular Nuclear is promising (I predict this in large measure for India).
Tidal - maybe, but we aren't far ahead with that yet.
I think the thing about 'minor impact of UK' is a bit of a red herring imo; the large emitters are signing up. For us that is an opportunity. I'm not with apocalyptics on UK, and things like the strategic need for reduced oil / coal can be accommodated within Net Zero.
I personally have no idea.
You only have to look around right now to see that.
Despite Cummings undoubtedly being right with most of his critique of the PM, it remains appropriate that the architect of such nonsense (and the even more egregious lie that ranking election candidates in order would have led to babies dying in maternity units) is now consigned to oblivion.
Let's see if they remain police officers after pleading guilty to such a charge.
Ranked 10th in one survey, 13th in another. It seems the UK has to be perceived to be the best or worst at things for some reason, when we are actually typically quite middling but above average.
I’m actually quite surprised that no-one has yet set up full private district general hospital in one of the leafier bits of London, although the are plenty of private GP surgeries, dozens of small surgery units and hundreds of clinics. There must be a fair few people willing to throw £100 or two, at not waiting in the A&E queue for a few stitches or a plaster cast.
It wasn't a case of 'stop spending money on Europe and have more money for yourself' or 'invest for the future' or even 'stop spending money for Europe and spend more on public services' - the default thing to do with state money is to spend it on the NHS.
On the assumption that people who frame these questions know what they're doing, we do see ourselves as a health service with a country attached.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_steel_production
To put Chinese steel production into historical perspective from 2019:
in the past two years (to be precise, the past 22 months) China has manufactured more steel than Britain has since the height of the Industrial Revolution in 1870.
Try, if you can, to get your head round that.
In the months since the last general election China has produced more steel than Britain - the country where modern steel manufacturing was invented - has produced. Ever.
https://news.sky.com/story/the-surprising-facts-behind-the-declining-steel-industry-11725482
And in the last two years Chinese steel output has increased by another 20%.
Just imagine how much steel has ever been produced in the UK - not just for use in this country but for things such as railways in Africa and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
All of that historic UK steel amounts to a few months of current Chinese production.
They retire sick, due to stress. Then, when the disciplinary matter is dropped - immediately they leave the job - they can apply to another police force. Not wait 6 months!
Though I presume they can sue their former force for the "stress" induced by investigated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synecdoche,_New_York
It's fun, but doesn't make much sense.
I get that it takes seven years to train a doctor, etc but we are now two years in and things are worse than before.
There is a tsunami of very bad health outcomes that is going to play out (most likely silently because what's a cancer death here or delayed treatment there) over the next few months and years.
I also have no problem with league tables comparing our performance health-wise with our near and comparable neighbours. That is understandable and, as a fan in 2016 of us staying in the EU, what I did for eg theories of trade, etc.
The reason it is useful is because it breaks down its report so you can see how organisations like the WHO are ranking. This shows that although the UK does okay in non clinical measures, it consistently performs very badly in clinical outcomes and prevention against the other 10 ranked countries.
Here is the link again:
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2021/aug/mirror-mirror-2021-reflecting-poorly
As always, just citing stuff like the WHO numbers is no real measure unless you break them down as this report does.
The one thing that’s not usually mentioned about the NHS, is that UK healthcare spending per capita is actually quite low, compared to other countries with similar standards of living and demographics.
Does it mean "could be better"? If so, agreed.
Does it mean "completely broken"? If so, disagree. The NHS gives many good experiences and outcomes.
Does it mean "cannot continue in its current form"? Wellll, that's a trickier question to answer. Projecting into the future, healthcare needs will change. That might require a change in emphasis or organisation, but it might not.
You might not give a stuff about other countries, but comparison helps us know what's realistic and, for some definitions of "fit for purpose", an answer.
The countries that report is looking at are ranked 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 13th, 14th, 16th, 18th and 22nd in the world on the LPI rankings. The missing ones are small nations. So the report is saying on some specific outcome measures we are near the bottom of the top 11 big countries in the world, on other measures we are better.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/02/morrisons-apologises-for-non-eu-salt-and-pepper-chicken-label
Must admit I was not aware that 'Ghislaine' was a name used by anyone other than the Maxwells. Apparently it means "pledge" or "hostage" - a propos of nothing, of course...
"Not fit for purpose" in my own personal usage means that its failings are such that there is a too high incidence of bad outcomes. As again evidenced by the report that Richard posted here where we rank 9th out of 11 in the headline stats (edit: for Health Care Outcomes).
We have a good but not world leading health system under massive pressure from covid, underfunding and demographics. None are quick or easy to solve.
The error that many people make is that they see what is going on as incremental change; but it is actually a movement that tries to change the entire philosophical basis of liberal western society. Whilst I am no apologist for his regime; that is what Putin is correctly describing.
Looking at Russia; Peter Pomerantsev brilliantly decribes how the future first arrives in Russia. So it is with Putin's brilliant exploitation of conservative social values to entrench his power over the past decade. And so, I suggest, it will ultimately be in the west.
This is not desirable at all; the best possible outcome is that we get something like 'woke lite', but getting there involves a rejection of much of this agenda; the denial of history, the denial of biological differences; the obsession with grievances; and the idea that everything is socially constructed - an agenda that many people seem to embrace.
And these people simply don’t grow on trees there for the plucking whenever we need them: Training takes years.
So now we have a system which has gone from chronically under-staffed to constantly on the verge of failure as the extra weight of the current covid wave hits it.
In this situation it’s impossible to “plan” - sure, you hope to have the staff available for the surgery you have booked, but this week you’ve just been hit with another 20 Covid patients, so sorry - elective surgery will have to wait. There are ultimately only so many nurses (and other staff) available.
I guess some people might not want to touch/handle raw meat at all. Seems silly though
I haven't personally had a run-in with XR or Insulate Britain yet, but doing so must make you want to go and buy a massive diesel and then drive it home and put the central heating on full blast while you research flights to somewhere pointless.
If you're trying to persuade people of something, pissing them off mightily is a poor way to go about it.
They are actively hindering their cause.
On which subject, it seems Insulate Britain have come to Greater Manchester today to block junction 6 of the M56 - presumably so they can all get home nice and quickly afterwards to Hale and Altrincham and Wilmslow. *takes class warrior hat off*
And we do not have a good health system. We have a system that consistently fails to provide outcomes comparable to other similar countries in spite of spending comparable amounts of money.
That is a fundamental issue and one that must be addressed rather than continually referring to our system as 'world leading'.
On which subject, did anyone use the phrase 'playing catch-up' before Roy Walker used it on catch phrase?
China has used the "it's all racism" thing a lot
The other issue here is that China isn't a monolith. Xi is a dictator. However, his power is not absolute. No dictator's power ever is - and his is not quite at the take-him-away-and-shoot-him-for-lols level.
There are various factions at various levels that need to be placated. The ASAT test thing was a very good illustration of this.
And this is why our health system will remain rubbish because too many people are blind to its failings and unwilling to accept the need for fundamental reform. The religion still holds sway sadly.
Also, please stop putting words in my mouth. I've never suggested that the NHS might not be in need of reform, let alone been in denial about it. As it happens, I'm an admirer of the German system in particular, and I think we could learn a thing or two from the Germans.
I jest - of course I join the sympathy for your cancelled op.
If Aldi were selling French Coq in EU flag packaging, would Brexit supporters threaten to boycott them?
In the last few Olympics we've placed:
"2020" Tokyo 4th
2016 Rio 2nd
2012 London 3rd
2008 Beijing 4th
So yes tenth would be a disappointment compared to what we are capable of achieving.