Ipsos Mori has just issued opinion polling that includes this summary:
Please note, the fuzziness was in the original supplied to me by them to me by email (hence no link).
The key question I have to ask is a simple one and is at what cost has this confidence been bought?
A&E admissions are down by 50%.
Cancer is not being treated.
People are dying at home of heart attacks.
Chronic conditions are not being treated.
Mental health care has ceased to supply many of its normal services.
The NHS can now treat coronavirus. But the ancillary health care cost has been enormous.
And the death rate of those in ICU in the UK is still one in three, which is very high and suggests that the admission threshold for Covid-19 may also be set too high.
The NHS has 'survived' by gutting what the NHS is.
Was that the definition of survival that we thought appropriate? I would suggest not.
PS: I read this very moving article by Aditya Chakrabortty just after posting this. Please read it.
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I think a lot of this is self-exclusion.
People are (quite rightly) concerned about picking up infections in hospital. Even in normal times. If someone has a painful but not life-threatening condition is it not reasonable to stay home and take pills for the pain? Rather than risking death? Many of these conditions that people would be going in to hospital to have treated multiply the risk of death enormously (7-12 times was the figure I saw in an early analysis).
Next many people are avoiding going in out of decency. We know how hard the NHS staff have been working, how shattered they are. Normal decent people don’t want to burden them further.
As usual official messaging is very confusing. Stay home they say. Wait, people who need treatment are staying home? How did that happen?
As we move into a phase of gradual lifting of lockdown restrictions I do hope that these services are among the first opened up and that is accompanied by good positive messaging as well as an explanation of the hygiene precautions that will protect such patients from CV.
Communities are systematically being gutted of all the supporting pillars. No church, no sport, no schools, no restaurants, no pubs, no gyms/ sports centres, no cinemas, no “social” shops. Meanwhile the NHS locally has been stripped of humanity. No waiting rooms, closed enquiry desks, and if you can get a face-to-face appointment good luck to you. People will not go to A&E because of the fear of infection.
My view (for what it is worth) is when the dust settles there will be a long term decline in the esteem for the NHS. I do not see this as their fault, but yet another example of lions led by donkeys.
Don’t worry, when this all dies down a solution will be found! Yes, what the NHS will need is an injection of private sector money and ‘expertise’. As if they didn’t have enough of that treatment already.
Colour me cynical, but that will be the track in my opinion and no amount of clapping or fundraising (shouldn’t be necessary!) will change that.
Take one look at the former Secretary for Health (2012 to 2018) Jeremy Hunt’s track record to see the way the country’s going:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Hunt#Early_life_and_education
I retired in June 2017 from a city NHS hospital due to frequent spells of bronchitis-type symptoms on its wards. As part of an orthopaedic therapy team the rush to get people discharged was not just bed shortages but also an ever present risk of getting an infection. Windows barely open, there is no air conditioning and in the summer months the wards are incredibly hot.
Staff would be sanctioned for staying home if they had an illness. It was a nightmare for both staff and line managers. Human Resources are incredibly inflexible. Little or no common sense was shown. Problems were quickly escalated to senior department managers who seem terrified of exercising any humanity. eg I had a mental breakdown at work in 2010 and was severely dealt with.
This culture of fear stalks the NHS. Whistle-blowing is not for the feint hearted. Unions are hamstrung by protocol and bullied by senior managers into silence. All the time partial privatisation pressures, not fit for purpose commercial style business management practices fragmented the service. Whenever the organisation began to feel comfortable yet another government reorganisation threw every thing into flux and drained energy and moral of every body. PFI financial pressures and cuts in government now drive the organisation rather than delivering it’s core service.
How the NHS can function in this health crisis can only be due to the dedication and kindness of individual staff members. Something drastic…will need to happen if it is to survive let alone re-energise over the next few years.
I am aware that whistleblowing imposes a massive cost in the NHS
It appear that the populace at large haven’t realised a triage system has been put in place keeping most people out of hospital and moving them on quicker (to for example care homes – hence the disaster there).
The excess death figures are truly appalling.
While the long term damage to people’s health from delayed hospital treatment is immeasurable.
Every now and then I think, the only way I could feel worse at the moment is if I had voted Tory at the last election. Except most in that boat do not seem to realise their culpability.
Don’t even think about it Ken
I find the rationale of the post hard to fault.
But this is modern Toryism for you isn’t it – ordinary people are expected to make sacrifices if they want something – you can’t have something you need unless you lose something else?
And even then, it won’t be brilliant (PPE shortages, lack of testing etc., – not aimed at NHS staff).
What a wonderfully moving inspirational article from Aditya Chakrabortty 🙂
Very brave and emotional article by Mr Chakrabortti.
Progressives will have a helluva job to prevent the neolibs exacting their rents in the aftermath of the virus. They’re trying to line up their ducks already.
For Adityas mum and the NHS folk here and all who call this country home and make it better for us all.
https://youtu.be/ny2tcNlScDs
Beans On Toast – Here at Homerton Hospital
Been played a lot in recent weeks by Tom Robinson on BBC Radio 6.
The only station I can bear to listen to these lockin days.
Now going to the blog….
The question asked by the Ipsos More poll can be taken in many ways. It’s no surprise the people want ‘to get behind the NHS’ at this time, and no surprise that they are impressed by the efforts of NHS workers and struck by their sacrifices, and so it’s an expression of support rather than a belief that everything is OK, though that’s how the Tories will want to read it.
One little acknowledged issue is that the capacity of the NHS has been cut in so many ways that action designed to help runs up against blockages elsewhere.
For example , contracting capacity in the private sector for non urgent care has run up against the shortage of anesthetists. There are not enough of them to service ventilators in ICU for COV19 patients and to attend to non urgent care.
I suspect therefore most of the capacity secured for the NHS in private hospitals is not being used. We already know that the Nightingale hospital in London is hardly used (why do we not know the details?) but again it is because there are not the key staff, not that there aren’t patients infected with coronavirus.
The professional bodies do not want more specialists (apart from in Emergency medicine!) to be trained . But that has to be a key part of the new settlement.
More staff, more capacity, more resilience, more equipment, more testing,
No more rationalization, centralization, planning for shortages, blockages and restrictions on activity.
This crisis is being managed by turning patients away. The death toll will be much higher than in other countries but there will be a reluctance to say why,
and why it will be higher among those who didn’t have coronavirus.
I have never seen the evidence that professional bodies are opposed to new members being trained
It is often said but where’s the evidence?
I am curious…you may be right, but I have not seen it