The NHS has seen significant improvement over the past 10 years. This is not because of private forces or private companies providing services, but because the required financial resources were provided so waiting time initiatives could reduce queues and doctors started to think about service improvements.
The fault is that the NHS does not work as a market, most people (medics, nurses, admin, managers, etc) work here because they believe in the system and enjoy working together helping the health of our nation. A market does not fit with it, but destroys it.
If one asks intelligent people with experience in different healthcare systems, one notes the favour they give our NHS above their healthcare system.
It is a shame that some politicians (even doctors who turned half politicians recently) are nowadays so driven by the money they (will) make by sitting on boards or as advisors that it looks like they are selling the NHS of.
Once we loose it there is no way back.
I wonder if any major party takes the opportunity to change their sell-of of the NHS? Maybe it wins them the election.
I can’t say if the NHS has improved in the last 10 years, but it’s certainly worse for medical professionals and patients than it was 20 years and more ago, in my opinion.
Twenty odd years ago, my sister had her cataracts seen to at the Moorfield. She stayed in & was well treated. I had one eye done at this prestigious hospital, about 2 years ago. The nurses were lovely. But we were treated like a production line. I got there at about 9 as requested and went down about 3p.m. The surgeon spilled water down my front and back and in my perforated ear. He never spoke to me but I heard him muttering ‘next’. The nurse who was supposed to give me eye drops to take away forgot to put them in the bag- by then it was 5.30 on a friday and I think he was just exhausted. I ‘went private’ to have the other eye done, I’ve never done that before on principal. I wrote and complained, pointing out that nobody knows how man elderly people become ill or die a few months later, just through being treated like things instead of patients.
My daughter had a kidney removed at another prestigious London hospital about 6 years ago. I was horrified.Beds about a foot apart, patients watching pay TV till all hours, nobody noticed for 2 days that she’d removed her surgical stockings, which she was eventually told she shouldn’t have done. She was in hospital for just 4 days….
I could go on. Because of my condition (partially diagnosed after 10 years, fully diagnosed after 20) I’ve seen a lot of hospitals and doctors. I am dead against giving cash to private firms for anything to do with health. Save our NHS!