Crisis in the NHS

 

The NHS has staggered on since its birthday party on 5 July 2011 but an open letter has recently appeared in the Independent addressing the escalating crisis in the NHS. Whilst governments preach the dogma of early interventions for children the reality is that those who require services will find they are 200 miles away. Some will find they are not there at all.

"The National Health Service has provided world class care, free at the point of use, to the British people for 66 years. It was recently rated as the most effective and most efficient healthcare system in the developed world, outperforming 10 of the world’s richest countries, despite the UK spending only 9.6 per cent of GDP on health – much less than most of those countries.

Under the Coalition government, the health budget has been maintained in an era of unprecedented austerity. However, historic annual increases in the health budget, designed to keep pace with a growing and ageing population, have been severely reduced – meaning that our NHS has just been through the longest, and most damaging budget squeeze in its history.

Thousands of patients are facing longer and even unacceptable waits ....

The list could go on, and the anxieties of people working at the front line of the health and care services are well-known. The NHS and our social care services are at breaking point and things cannot go on like this. An NHS deficit of £30bn is predicted by 2020 – a funding black hole that must be filled.

There is also a pressing need to invest in children and young people’s physical and mental health, not just as a moral imperative, but also to help prevent problems later in life that may need more intensive and expensive support."

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/the-nhs-timebomb-nhs-and-social-care-services-areat-breaking-point-it-cannot-go-on-9775928.html