England's health system raises concerns

A new report reveals that England's National Health Service (NHS) is a cause for 'serious concern', as it lags far behind other comparable countries in terms of key health metrics.The 118-page report released by the King's Fund charity to mark the 75th anniversary of the NHS, compares Britain's leading healthcare provider with the healthcare systems of 19 similar countries.

The National Health Service is facing a personnel and capacity crisis closely linked to a crisis in social assistance. New maxi strike in England by the so-called junior doctors, already qualified young doctors who practice while doing postgraduate practice in exchange for modest average salaries in the structures of the British National Health Service (NHS), who have reached the fourth tranche of a dispute that has been going on for months.

England's National Health Service has turned 75 and is not in good health. Patients with a suspected heart attack wait five times longer for an ambulance than the target wait of 18 minutes. In 2022, 347,707 patients spent more than 12 hours in emergency departments waiting for a bed, four times more than in the previous 10 years combined. Excess deaths in 2022 were the highest in 50 years. A record number of NHS employees leave.

This is certified by an editorial published in The Lancet. "Unfortunately, things are likely to get worse before they get better. For the first time in NHS history, both nurses and ambulance staff will go on strike on 6 February unless an agreement is reached on wages. Even junior doctors will vote whether to go on strike or not. This is undoubtedly the most dangerous moment for the nas since its inception".

It then explains how, although the symptoms have been present since at least 2015, "they have been misdiagnosed and not treated". These include "underinvestment, understaffing and running the system at full capacity have been exacerbated by profound demoralization and staff burnout, increased demand for services and the winter surge in Covid and flu. The health of the population has been neglected, as have slowing life expectancy and a struggling social care system.

In the debate on possible solutions to the situation that has arisen, the Lancet underlines, there are several "useless distractions". Firstly, "the government's inclination is to believe that the current NHS model is unsustainable and needs radical change, with copayments and increased user subsidies. This view is deeply wrong. With the right approach, the NHS is sustainable and must maintain the principle of providing free care when needed, which is the foundation of a just society Secondly, that the NHS has a productivity problem; that it is not doing enough with what it gets This is tantamount to misunderstanding the purpose of healthcare, which is not a factory for the sick, judged by crude metrics of efficiency, but a service based on care, compassion, and quality. more for comparatively less is dangerous and obviously harmful".

Thirdly, the challenges facing the NHS can be solved by tapping into a stronger private health sector. The UK private sector workforce is mostly drawn from the same workforce that makes up the public sector. Stealing from one to prop up the other and, at the same time, fatally fragmenting the health service makes no sense. Fourth, the proposal of a Royal Commission or a cross-party consensus is unlikely to be helpful. is facing a personnel and capacity crisis closely linked to a crisis in social care. We have a diagnosis; the Government must now move to address these conditions. Not doing so should be seen as an ideological choice, rather than because of a fundamental and innate intractability".