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The NHS waiting list reaches new high – politicalbetting.com
The NHS waiting list reaches new high – politicalbetting.com
The big NHS news this afternoon is that the NHS waiting list in England is now almost at 8m – the highest level yet.
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/10/2024-election-barack-obama-michelle-joe-biden-us-politics/
If I suggested to you that the NHS was throwing away 50% of it's funding in being useless would you disagree? I suspect not.
And yes, reform and reengineering can help in the medium term, but they will cost upfront.
Not fun, but the alternative pathways diverged years ago. We've had the bender, now it's time for the hangover.
And yes, it is being so cheerful that keeps me going.
Concessions on other areas of allowances, and of medical student debt etc so as to pretend that the headline figure is unchanged.
Comparisons are irrelevant when most of the staff are spending most of their time twiddling their thumbs. (I have no data on this)
Does anywhere else in the world manage that?
Comparing healthcare systems is far from easy, but anecdotes and press reports tend to veer towards poor experiences. "The NHS fixed my issue" is not a headline. "I had the wrong leg amputated!" is.
This does not mean that the NHS is efficient; just that *perceptions* of efficiency are bound to be wildly inaccurate.
The rule of thumb for elderly whiteys in Kenya is to have £250k set aside for healthcare. Also true of the UK if you happen to have it.
Indeed Drakeford indicated yesterday of an overspend of nearly 1 billion in Wales, and suggested cuts will be needed in the Wales NHS and Education, notwithstanding that Wales receives £1.20 per head from the treasury compared to £1 in England
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-65616395
William Pitt the Younger is an obvious example where this would have barred someone exceptional, but would we really have missed out on anyone else?
The Home Office has told an asylum seeker with tuberculosis they are going to be moved onto the Bibby Stockholm barge, i can reveal.
The doctor treating the migrant is trying to prevent the move and has warned of a “public health catastrophe in the making”.
Dr Dominik Metz, a GP for more than 250 asylum seekers in Oxfordshire, told i that 10 of his patients have received letters from the Home Office saying they would be moved to the barge.
https://inews.co.uk/news/home-office-asylum-seeker-tb-bibby-stockholm-health-fears-2537035
At least when the barge was being used for wworkers the folk in them had the working day mostly out of the barge.
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1689696872758210560
Of every activity, the question should be asked "Is this really worth doing?" rather than "How can we do this more efficiently?"
We would also have missed out on divers Salisburys, including the first Earl and the third, fourth and fifth marquesses.
Also Austen and Neville Chamberlain.
Perhaps I've missed the most obvious one of all - Winston Churchill.
And do you exclude MPs who are the scions of members of the Lords?
The never answered question is: What % of GDP should a nationalised health care system properly cost? We all know that so far it is never enough, but how much is enough?
Sometimes, something other than comfort attracts people to politics. Perhaps it's the enticement of power. Or perhaps the idea you might improve things in the country. Or perhaps further personal enrichment. Or any combination of the above.
From having seen her speak on YouTube, Michelle Obama would knock Trump out of the park in terms of argument and rhetoric. The question is whether good argument and rhetoric is what the US population want to hear, as opposed to simple answers and soundbites.
TL:dr; Michelle Obama would not stand. But not because she wants a comfortable life...
It's bollocks. She has no interest in politics. Like for Bushes, Kennedys, Trumps, Clintons Obamas this is a name thing.
Which really highlights ignorance of the actualite of American politics.
But where is this big news being reported? BBC? No. Guardian? No. Very strange.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDLGlvOav6M
The truth is your party has led the Government for the last thirteen years or more - apart from throwing money at it (allegedly), what have the Conservatives actually done to improve the English NHS?
As an example, in my part of London, we are constantly building new flats and increasing the population but where are the medical services to support the increased population? Where are the new Medical Centres, the new GP surgeries, the additional hospital capacity?
This is where those who argue for an unfettered planning process have it so wrong - they forget housing isn't just about four walls and a roof for someone to live but it's about all the amenities and networks supporting that new property from sewage and drainage via power to transport and medical.
All significant developments should be supported by additional infrastructure paid for and provided by the developer as a condition for granting permission - the current Section 106 arrangements are a sop, we need something with serious financial teeth.
Labour should just keep hammering them on the NHS and repeat ad nauseam that when they left office the NHS had its best satisfaction ratings with vastly lower waiting lists .
Compared to the Kennedy clan's cancerous hands on US politics. Or the Bush's. Or the attempts by Clinton.
We're meant to be more class-driven and aristocratic than the US; the reality can be quite different. Where did Sunak come from? Or Truss? Or even Blair?
WH Smiths - they don't sell books any more. They just sell (or try to sell in my case) water at daft prices.
Never had time to do it though.
Three very interesting and very different characters. All of them rose to be party leaders, but all their careers ultimately ended in eclipse. Also - interestingly - all of them were still MPs at the time of their death.
And Wales NHS is not any better under labour
We shouldn't pretend that the demographic transition isn't happening.
Their fielders and bowlers aren't that good but their batter is brilliant.
Is there anyone well in this country? Anyone at all who is not on a waiting list for something?
It appears not.
It was very striking to note how utterly scathing they were about *every* aspect of Welsh politics.
Ok, that's Carmarthenshire, where senior council officials were not so long ago actually arrested for malfeasance. But I was still taken aback at the extent of their antipathy.
There is an opening in Wales for a radical party promising radical changes. The snag is, there isn't one.
If typical, it does explain the increasing vocalism of the Welsh independence movement, which has been puzzling me somewhat. Born of disillusionment and frustration, it seems to be expressing a wish to disrupt an unacceptable status quo. But in practical terms it's as much use as a sick headache as it has no organisation and no leader.
Equally, if you hose money at it there will be an improvement in health outcomes as we saw post 1997.
That said the post 97 health spending was hugely inefficient and contributed to many of the problems we see today eg GP contracts.
The NHS meanwhile remained as useless as it always was just that there was so much money sloshing around that there was an inevitable improvement.
That said, the public is probably ready for another round of hosing.
Staying long after you've left the top job indicates to me that you may be in it for public service, not just power.
Nuked doesn’t really cover it.
It really ought to be illegal to do that to a fish. Especially in Aberdeen.
I mean FFS.
The main contributor is a mysterious residual growth rate. This might be increasing age-specific rates of chronic conditions (obesity/dementia), technological change, or something else. It might be a classic income effect with a value greater than 1, as you describe; as we become a richer country, a larger proportion of our economy is dedicated to health. This manifests as a political choice to fire more money in that direction.
A large proportion (about 50%) of current health pressure is just in line with the long term trend.
This isn't necessarlily a bad thing. We might reach 20% of GDP on health. That might mean millions of people have vastly better lives. But supply begets demand - maybe we just need to reset expectations on what you are entitled to?
/sarc
But it wasn't a given even in the past. Baldwin stayed in the Commons only a few days before being ennobled. Balfour may be a different case as he lost his seat (and later returned as an MP). Disraeli left the commons halfway through his second premiership.
How England performs does not affect us, but Wales certainly does and when I read of the failures in England's NHS I only have to look at ours and see the same and even worse issues
The wider point is no political party has the answer to the NHS either in England or the devolved nations
London is so fecking expensive.
The Mushy peas were extraordinary. The chips limp, greasy and tasteless. Truly a remarkable effort that must have required both focus and determination.
https://www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/charts-and-infographics/how-does-uk-health-spending-compare-across-europe-over-the-past-decade
I'm assuming Wales' funding works a bit likes ours in Scotland.
The French system whilst not perfect has many areas that the British could learn from and its public private model works well.
The private isn’t what many would properly class as in the true sense of the term . It’s non-profit based in the main .
We're still in small boats week.
If Labour have a trick for getting the overall waiting list figure down, so that a supposed Tory departure from office leaving a Big Number will be held against them "for elections to come", why can't the Tories perform the same trick before the election?
Or of course in the event of this (almost fantastical) predicted Tory election loss, the waiting list could then stay high or get higher with Labour in office, leaving them of course to blame it all on the Tories as you would expect, but who's to say voters would buy that? It wouldn't be much of a step to say well yes the Tories were and still are crap on health but it did us no good to vote Labour because they're crap too and things haven't improved. Also a period of 4-5 years is a long time in any family. People move home, children grow up, people move on to new stages in their lives, people die, and new people are born. People get used to having sh*t health and f*ck all treatment that makes their life any better. "Nan's back is getting worse and worse. Better switch who we vote for." That's the kind of thought process that's mostly imagined by psephologists but rarely happens in the real world.
Voters and for that matter also non-voters are simply in despair on health as a political issue. Many have given up. There's zero sign that that's going to change.
This all said, is there time to create a bunch of w*nkers similar to the Institute of Fiscal Studies but for coughs, colds, sore holes, and hip operations?
They proved very popular in Indiana, when Mitch Daniels introduced them for state workers. From what I read about them -- possibly from biased sources -- they reduced costs and, if anything, improved outcomes.
(I said "look hard", rather than "introduce", because I haven't seen any good, recent studies on them. I'm sure there are some, but they haven't got much publicity.)
The NHS showed its strengths as an organisation in the pandemic, where its top down model and highly centralised systems allowed the rapid rollout of vaccines. It's now showing its weaknesses as a whack a mole for treating symptoms of illnesses as cheaply as possible.
Undergraduates who begin their studies this autumn will be the first generation to face repaying their student loans until after they retire, analysis shows.
This year’s freshers will be the first cohort to take out the Government’s new “Plan 5” loans, meaning that their debt will not be written off until 40 years after they have graduated, as opposed to 30 years previously.
The same cohort will also have to begin paying their loans off earlier. While current graduates must start paying their debt back once they start earning £27,295 a year, students on Plan 5 loans will need to start their repayments once they are on a salary of £25,000.
These changes mean that most graduates will make repayments past the Normal Minimum Pension Age of 55, while those who leave university in their mid or late twenties could be left making repayments past the current State Pension age of 66.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/a-level-leavers-paying-student-loans-retire/
This is like your Turnbull and Asser James bond shirts. I bought a James bond watch 6 or 7 years ago for about 7 shirts equivalent, and after 7 years wear it's worth more than I paid for it. Shirts, not so much and bottled water still less. Conspicuous consumption doesn't have to involve literally pissing it away.
No 21 year old on a normal pay scale will be retiring at 61.
75 if they're very lucky.