I think a lot of people do care, but others maybe aren’t aware just how bad the problem is right now. This stuff is so widespread, but until it directly affects you, you might not be aware of it.
– Many people have had to start doing their own DIY dentistry at home. 90% of NHS dentists cannot accept new NHS patients. In Leeds, and many other areas, there are no NHS dentists at all. Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-62253893
– Thousands of disabled people are being locked up in unpleasant secure hospitals for years after being deemed fit for discharge. Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47965894
– It can take 9 minutes for your 999 call to be answered, and you might have to wait around 2 full days for an ambulance to arrive. Even if you’re having a heart attack, you will probably be waiting for almost an hour. Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-62601863?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA
– Nursing homes are leaving residents in their rooms for 24 hours and only letting them have a shower once per week. The average hourly pay for care home workers is £1 less than Starbucks baristas and Amazon warehouse workers. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/aug/21/staffing-crisis-leaves-many-english-care-home-residents-basic-needs-unmet
– There’s a 4,200 shortfall of GPs, just in England. Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61986441
– GPs and receptionists are giving 110% and working long exhausting hours, while receiving death threats from scared and angry patients. Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-61653526
– Over 40% of children and young people wait over a month for mental health services, and more than a quarter have tried to take their own lives while waiting. Source: https://www.youngminds.org.uk/support-us/join-the-movement/end-the-wait/
– Eating disorder clinics have had to start telling people that they cannot treat them because they are not skinny enough yet. No, really. They told people with eating disorders they weren’t skinny enough. Source: https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/news/eating-disorders-news/nice-new-guideline-eating-disorders/
I’ve worked in social care and I don’t understand why this isn’t a full on national emergency and headline news daily. This isn’t what a functioning society is supposed to look like! We’re suffering from preventable pain and illness more and more, being left to suffer and fend for ourselves, and effectively punishing the people who dedicate their lives to helping.
EDIT: As the first sentence of this post says, obviously I know a lot of people care. And for multiple reasons they don’t talk about it, like fatigue or just not knowing what to do. But what I mean is that this should be further up the national agenda. It’s a national emergency. It should make up at least a third of what politicians and the media talk about. It’s going to take a gargantuan effort to fix this mess, but I fear that won’t happen while other topics like wokeness and lorry queues at Dover repeatedly get more attention.
EDIT 2: For those saying you do care but there’s nothing more you can do, I appreciate you and am glad you exist. This post isn’t targeted at you. It’s targeted at people who go to the voting booth not thinking about this. People who aren’t aware that they are one random health problem away from experiencing any of the above. People who think the NHS and social care are “at risk” rather than already fully broken and nonfunctioning.
There are some things you can do, if you are able.
– Write to your local MP to ask them why we are in this mess, which started well before the pandemic.
– Support health and social care workers who are doing their best in impossible conditions. Show your support for strikes. Be nice to them when they are trying to help you.
– Volunteer. A few hours a week at a hospice, care home, telephone support line, anywhere can make a huge difference. This country owes an enormous debt of gratitude to volunteers.
– Fundraise or donate to NHS Charities. https://nhscharitiestogether.co.uk/
26 comments
Honestly mate, I don’t think it’s that people don’t care, I just think it’s mental fatigue.
I don’t think it’s physically possible to care about something for that long without becoming numb to it.
I can 100% assure you that it concerns many people. However, it doesn’t concern the people that can fix the issue. Those in charge are not giving even the slightest of fucks about its collapse and are more interested in blaming the woke, immigrants, trans people or lefty lawyers for the issues they make up in their heads.
This is what nearly 15 years of unwarranted Tory austerity does to a country. And still they get votes. It must be Stockholm syndrome or just plain old stupidity.
People are concerned but I don’t think, generally people know what they can do about it. I remember back in the 90s, people were mad with the government after years of under-investment. It felt like everything was falling apart but this time there’s been so many distractions like Brexit and people going on about wokeness and cancel culture, as if any of that is going to help with anything. The only thing that will help is more investment in services and it will take a long time to turn things around but I’m not sure people understand that right now.
i can answer the question, the Tories massive propaganda machine always frames it as NHS failings, NHS shortages, NHS mistakes, NHS waiting lists, whats NEVER EVER mentioned is the causality, the massive underfunding, failing to recruit and pay healthcare staff properly, selling off of crucial aspects to private companies who are chronically incapable of providing the service they bid for. The NHS isn’t perfect and could be run a lot better but not with the obstacles constantly put in the way by the Tories.
I’ll be gobsmacked if Labour don’t win the next election.
Had to spend £700 quid on my teeth last month. That’s the cost of living payments wiped out I guess lol. Don’t think people realise how expensive private dentistry is. That was just the initial consultation, 1 * hygienist, 1 * filling and 1 * root canal (why I went in the first place).
Mate this country is just circling the drain at this point. Many economists are saying we’re on our way to being an emerging economy. People are so entitled, we all think our society just manifests out of nothing and it can’t possibly go down the toilet. Well, it can.
Nah, this is what we voted for. We’re getting exactly what we deserve. Simple as.
Lots of people care, it’s just there is nothing we can do about it. For some reason the majority keep voting the Tories in and until that changes nothing will happen. Even then I’m not so sure.
If people cared, the Tories would’ve been voted out years ago.
I work in a residential home and can confirm the following:
Police have taken up to two hours to answer the phone
Ambulances have taken several hours to arrive
Hospital waits for emergencies are 8+hours
All the staff earn around minimum wage despite working 15+ hour shifts
It’s not a collapse. Its a deliberate 40 year plan to sell off our last national asset by stealth. If not for the pandemic, its acute state would not have been noticed. Additionally financial burden is deliberately piled upon the nhs until it fails. One example is they privatised the land registry. All the land under the NHS hospitals was sold out from under them and bought by an investment arm, to be leased back. Legalised robbery.
A paramedic friend of mine, crazy busy, responding to a 999 call, eventually arrived as fast as they could to an address to find the patient had already been removed by an undertaker. So sad.
This whole country is falling apart. I’m not one for conspiracy theories but the Government are literally doing nothing to help, it is almost like it has all been planned by who knows who or where. It is weird.
Full time copper and full time carer for a loved one with Alzheimer’s.
Am I f*ck going to let them go into a home?
No chance because from *knowing both sides of this coin…my loved one is much better off at home with me; despite the stupid hours I do. I just about manage to get a wonderful carer for them to come *in once a day.
I don’t want to pile on and moan but this country is so f*cked it’s laughable to me now.
I completely disagree with volunteering and fundraising to keep NHS and social care operational… the literal national service for people’s health and social welfare should not be dependable on volunteers and donations, come on. This is summer time when the service should be at its smoothest, how many fucking volunteers and donations do you want to provide come winter with next flu session and with backlogs ongoing? Support our strikes, co operate with us on the service user end, don’t shout abuse and spit at our reception staff or bitch about GPs during clinic, vote smarter and clap less.
Everything’s collapsing: health and social care, infrastructure, democracy, social bonds, the ecosystem, it’s all fucked, I don’t know what percentage of the population even really see what’s happening, those of us who do obviously care but it’s hard to even think about and not fall into despair (heh accidental rhyme)
It’s a full on national emergencies but right wing politicians do as they’re told by the billionaire media barons and if the BBC report it they get a nasty call from No.10. Things are desperate.
I’m a junior doctor and the fucking irony is that the age group that access the system the most as well as those almost on the cusp of accessing it (55-64) are the ones that have been voting Tory!
Jesus this sub is a broken record. Comment about the failing NHS and then inevitably the top comment is somewhere along the lines of “12+X years of Tories for you.” Because somehow I wasn’t fucking aware?
Add our Policing and Legal system to that as well it’s fucking shocking, it’s all a thinly veiled illusion which only keeps going because the uninformed member of the public think it works, untill they enter it..
Never vote Tory. Not even once. Never in your whole life. No matter what.
I work in hospitals, and for various reasons I’ve travelled around the country working in different areas, everything within the infrastructure is privatised.
Porters – Serco
Car parking – indigo
Cleaning services – Serco
Reporting on imaging – medica/everlight
Staff – agency staff who get better rates than nhs staff whilst the agency itself gets a cut
The cafes for food and drink – private
Not to mention the inclusion of private ambulances
In my home town two of the three hospitals have been closed, one mysteriously burnt down but both now are housing estates. I worked down in Cornwall, saw a contractor take 2 months to paint a hallway, when i asked what took so long he said he got paid by the day… Can’t blame the man.
To cap it off the GMC, (who scalp the nhs doctors for fees) offers their staff private healthcare as an incentive to work for them.. go figure.
Sorry for the rant but the NHS got privatised a long time ago and no one batted an eyelid.
I hate to say this, but as a canadian. I am moving to the UK b/c of this. Only waiting 9 miniutes for 999, childrens mental health within one month! GPs within one month – i would kill for this!
children’s mental health here takes 6-12 months
GP Visits take 2-3 months
999 can take hours to anwser
I would love to be able to access care
I’ve waited almost 3 months for a referral. I got a letter telling me to ring if I hadn’t got an appt after 3 months. I rang to be told the waiting list was 12 months + the 3 months I’ve waited (plus the 6 months prior when I first saw my GP and had to take 6 months of medication that didn’t work.) That’s a 23 month wait. For an appt that has a breach time of 24 weeks. And there’s absolutely nothing I can do. My GP said they can ask for advice from the same clinic but thats all they can do.
The tories want people to think a publicly funded system can’t handle the needs of everyone, don’t let them get away with it, the NHS was great some years ago, it just needs more funding, better orginisation and the parts that have been privatised remade public.