Scrutable

Millennie Al wrote: Tue Jul 26, 2022 11:03 pm

Stephanie wrote: Tue Jul 26, 2022 8:42 pm Did you mean to continue the NHS discussion here?

No. Sorry. I intended to post that in the "NHS breaking point?" thread. Could any kind mod chop that bit off and graft it over there?

Martin_B wrote: Tue Jul 26, 2022 12:14 am

Millennie Al wrote: Mon Jul 25, 2022 11:39 pm One of the ways to get more money per person for the NHS is to have it treat fewer people. If we could encourage those rich enough to pay for private treatment, it would leave the NHS with the money that would have been spent on them. This would require a major change in attitude in society - rich people would have to think that they shouldn't be getting free treatment if they could pay, or that private treatment was in some way superior.

That's spectacularly naïve.

a) You are essentially advocating for the NHS to deliberately provide inferior treatment to force rich people (who have already paid taxes to keep the NHS going) to go private.

b) You don't think that the Tories, as soon as significant numbers of people start having private treatment, won't reduce the NHS funding on the basis that "The NHS funding is X per patient and if they have fewer patients then they need less funding which can go towards my new car/wallpaper/duck island"?

Little waster wrote: Mon Jul 25, 2022 5:14 pm What the f.ck is £8 a person per day going to fund? Just picking the massive UCLH as an example that has 665 beds. Assuming 100% occupancy that’s a whopping £5320 per day versus on an annual budget of £1.4bn (or nearly £4m per day).

I imagine that extra 0.00125% funding will make an earth-shattering difference to the NHS.

Among adults aged 50 to 65 years that left work since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and not returned, just under one-fifth (18%) said they were currently on an NHS waiting list for medical treatment. Slightly lower proportions were reported for those that had returned to work, having left either before the pandemic (11%) or since the start of the pandemic (15%) and those that remained active in the workplace (12%).

[...]

Among those who left their previous job due to a health-related condition (stress, mental health, illness, or disability), the proportion on an NHS waiting list increased to 35%. A similar proportion (36%) reporting a health condition as a reason for not returning to work said they were on an NHS waiting list.

Across England, A&E departments are overwhelmed with patients, which leads to paramedics being delayed for hours in handing them over.

In August alone, 208,000 patients were delayed longer than 15 minutes outside A&E across England, and the equivalent of 110,000 ambulance responses were lost due to handover delays — meaning 148 patients could not be attended to every hour of every day that month.

These delays are dangerous. The Association of Ambulance Chief Executives estimates 3,800 patients suffered severe harm such as a lost limb, permanent disability or death as a result of long handover delays in August.

In London, Elkeles says he has agreed a plan with hospitals to ensure ambulances can leave A&E when high-risk 999 calls are waiting. “I think the penny has dropped about what is the greatest risk in the healthcare system. It is a huge risk if you have phoned 999 and you’re at home by yourself, without care,” he said.

“If you end up in the scenario where you have hundreds of patients waiting for an ambulance and you do not have the ambulances to respond, you’re in a place where you’re causing potential harm. The bigger the mismatch between your staff and the number of patients, the more harm you’re likely to cause.”

[…]

Trusts in Nottinghamshire, Liverpool and Grimsby last week declared critical incidents or cancelled operations due to overwhelming demand and struggles with discharging patients into the stretched care system. NHS England has identified ten areas, including city regions such as Leicester, Birmingham, Plymouth and Stoke-on-Trent, that could experience “system failure” this winter.

This would mean a collapse in social care capacity that leaves hospitals unable to discharge or admit patients, leading to A&Es being overwhelmed and even being forced to close temporarily.

Woodchopper wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 10:29 am

In August alone, 208,000 patients were delayed longer than 15 minutes outside A&E across England, and the equivalent of 110,000 ambulance responses were lost due to handover delays — meaning 148 patients could not be attended to every hour of every day that month.

These delays are dangerous. The Association of Ambulance Chief Executives estimates 3,800 patients suffered severe harm such as a lost limb, permanent disability or death as a result of long handover delays in August.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/para ... -drzmxtbvq

Cardinal Fang wrote: Wed Oct 12, 2022 1:10 pm That was one of the purposes of community hospitals

A lot of them went due to funding cuts...

CF

[…] NHS figures showed that the number of empty posts in nursing across hospitals, mental health, community care and other services had reached 46,828 – the largest number ever. That means that more than one in 10 nursing roles (11.8%) are unfilled across the service overall.

While the NHS is short of almost every type of staff, service chiefs say the acute lack of nurses is a key reason why so many patients are waiting so long for A&E, cancer treatment and other care.

[…]

Patricia Marquis, the Royal College of Nursing’s director for England, welcomed the campaign highlighting of the nursing shortage. But, she added: “It is all futile until nursing staff are paid a fair salary. The only way to solve the workforce crisis and recruit and retain nursing staff is to pay them fairly.”

It is pressing ministers to award nurses a pay rise that is 5% above inflation, which would mean a 15.1% uplift.

The union said last week that members in its ballot about potential industrial action in the next few months were voting to strike. Voting closes on Wednesday. “There is anger and motivation like never before,” she added.

[…]

The Health Service Journal recently reported that a record number of NHS staff – almost 35,000 – voluntarily resigned from their posts between April and June this year, with “work-life balance” the most common reason for doing so.

Almost 40,000 nurses quit the NHS over the last year – again, the most ever – recent analysis by the Nuffield Trust found.

[...]
the UK is now roughly three years into a steady march of chronic illness that is scything through the most vulnerable and marginalised in our population.

Beginning shortly before the pandemic but then accelerating, there has been a steep climb in rates of chronic ill health among the long-term workless. Today there are half a million more working-age people in the UK with impairing health conditions than if pre-pandemic trends had continued, and 90 per cent of them are people who have not worked in several years.

And the damage is by no means limited to the older cohort. Rates of chronic back and neck pain have risen among the over-50s, but there has also been a clear increase in mental health difficulties among the under-35s.

Economic activity rates are lower for Britons with mental health problems than for any other condition. Seventy per cent are outside the workforce, and only half of those say they will probably or definitely work again.

The data, while not conclusive, suggest a dynamic in which those whose position on the periphery of society had already exposed them to greater health risks suddenly found themselves high and dry when access to healthcare was curtailed, and are now some way down ballooning waiting lists.

[...]

The international perspective is striking. Over the past year, one in six UK adults has had a pressing need for medical examination or treatment and been unable to get access, with almost half of these cases due to the length of waiting lists. This is the highest figure out of 36 European countries and almost triple the EU average.

raven wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 11:24 pm

Woodchopper wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 10:29 am

In August alone, 208,000 patients were delayed longer than 15 minutes outside A&E across England, and the equivalent of 110,000 ambulance responses were lost due to handover delays — meaning 148 patients could not be attended to every hour of every day that month.

These delays are dangerous. The Association of Ambulance Chief Executives estimates 3,800 patients suffered severe harm such as a lost limb, permanent disability or death as a result of long handover delays in August.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/para ... -drzmxtbvq

We brought the army in to help out with various things during Covid, didn't we. Is 4,000 patients a month suffering severe harm enough to bring them in now?

I'm thinking have them staff triage tents outside A&E, so ambulances can at least drop off and go to the next call out within something approaching normal turn around times. Of course, you'd still have the problem of getting patients either treated in A&E or through to wards that are bed-blocked, but at least anyone unlucky enough to have a heart attack or stroke might have more chance of getting to hospital during that first critical hour.

The NHS in England needs a massive injection of homegrown doctors, nurses, GPs and dentists to avert a recruitment crisis that could leave it short of 571,000 staff, according to an internal document seen by the Guardian.

A long-awaited workforce plan produced by NHS England says the health service is already operating with 154,000 fewer full-time staff than it needs, and that number could balloon to 571,000 staff by 2036 on current trends.

The 107-page blueprint, which is being examined by ministers, sets out detailed proposals to end the understaffing that has plagued the health service for years. It says that without radical action, the NHS in England will have 28,000 fewer GPs, 44,000 fewer community nurses and an even greater lack of paramedics within 15 years.

bjn wrote: Sun Mar 26, 2023 10:41 pm That boosts a pipeline that will only start delivering in several years, and it’s predicated on people still wanting to work in the NHS. So short term supply needs fixing (ie immigration) as well as making the profession sufficiently attractive for people to invest in the training to take such a job (ie wages and conditions). Both have political implications.

Woodchopper wrote: Sun Mar 26, 2023 7:44 pm

The NHS in England needs a massive injection of homegrown doctors, nurses, GPs and dentists to avert a recruitment crisis that could leave it short of 571,000 staff, according to an internal document seen by the Guardian.

A long-awaited workforce plan produced by NHS England says the health service is already operating with 154,000 fewer full-time staff than it needs, and that number could balloon to 571,000 staff by 2036 on current trends.

The 107-page blueprint, which is being examined by ministers, sets out detailed proposals to end the understaffing that has plagued the health service for years. It says that without radical action, the NHS in England will have 28,000 fewer GPs, 44,000 fewer community nurses and an even greater lack of paramedics within 15 years.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... tudy-finds

Assuming that Labour is to gain power next year this problem will need to be their priority. They will need start building teaching capacity first and then try to recruit far more people.

bjn wrote: Mon Mar 27, 2023 7:14 am By that I meant Britain need to stop being dickheads towards immigrants, otherwise they’ll be out competed on being a desirable country as well as pay. Reversing the ‘hostile environment’ b.llsh.t is part of that.