11101
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- Aug 26, 2014
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All of that can be said of almost all other countries though. I live between Italy and Switzerland currently, pretty much all of what you say above is true here. France can't get tests sorted out, Spain we know is in a mess, even Japan is now running into trouble, and the less said about the US the better. You are talking about some of the most developed nations in the world there. The way people talk in this thread you would think the UK is a total disaster and the virus is just a blip to everybody else. The reality is the UK is handling it about as well as everybody else - the virus took the whole world by surprise.Problem is that the UK government are treating daily updates and the removal of parliamentary debate as an opportunity to split out PR and spin on a daily basis. Glossing over the multitude of errors they are making with very little checks or balances. People are bound to get frustrated.
Promising 100,000 tests per day but only delivering 15,000 per day is political.
Not having the correct PPE for healthcare workers despite assuring parliament in January that we are fully prepared (Hancock) is also political.
Issuing badges for care workers when they dont have correct PPE is pointless.
I could go on but the UK's inept response to this virus is obviously going to draw political criticism.
I have family who are critical care nurses, working 6 x 12 hour shifts then on their days off they are making homemade protective hats because there is not enough protection provided!
None of that is because of the budget though, it's because the management keep wasting the money they do get on overpriced agency nurses, ridiculous procurement processes and ill-advised projects. That's been the point all along. The money is there but we are terrible at spending it.This has been picked apart by other posters. But I would also like to add:
This doesn't take into account the reduction in social care spending since 2011 which in turn puts more people and pressures onto the NHS. Combine this reduction in social care spending with the ageing population and the massive increased need for social care and it is gross negligence.
There was also the reduced junior doctor contracts which in turn reduces the number of junior doctors and trainees.
There was also the removed bursaries and enforced tuition fees for student nurses. Which again reduced the intake of new nurses. They have now had to reverse this policy. But we are suffering from a 4 year gap in new nurses!
Compared to all of our peer countries the government spends roughly similar, that's really not debatable (especially if you forget private add ons and co pays, which the UK has very little of). We don't stand out for overspending or underspending in any way. Again, like above, the whole point I am making is that if you listened to this thread you'd think the UK was being forced to work on a shoestring, and it's just not true.
Even if we did increase the budget, above 2500 spend per capita (we are around 3,000) there is little evidence that increases have any effect on health outcomes. 2 of the 4 'healthiest' countries spend less than us, and 2 of the 4 top spenders have worse health outcomes than us. If anything, looking at those figures it might suggest a reversal over a certain point as bloat sets in.
edit: anyway, this is all too much politics now. This will be my last post on it.