NHS Issues

 The challenges faced by the NHS are Large !

With over 105,000 staff vacancies at the last count, as well as crumbling buildings and an NHS estate ill-equipped to deal with 21st-century healthcare demands.

Due to austerity and underinvestment over the past decade there is also now a huge gulf between the levels of patients’ healthcare needs and the capacity to efficiently provide for those, plus as a social care system in desperate need of repair and far from being fixed..

Government must be honest about the public scale of the challenge facing the NHS and social care, and stop telling myths and political rhetoric.

We need a proper acknowledgement of where the NHS has been left due to lack of investment during the 2010s  - and the huge gulf between levels of demand and capacity.

Also if the health and social care levy, allocated to the NHS to support its recovery, is facing the axe -  then this also means informing the public of the resulting consequences.  We need to be sure of how to reduce the waiting lists, and of improving social care and generally making sure patients get the standard of care they have every right to expect.

To properly navigate our way through these challenges - we need a clear road map – both long-term and a short term vision. -   which spells out how the future government will support the NHS and social services to ensure patients get the care they need.

What the NHS and the public really must have and truly deserve from politicians right now - is realism and honesty from now on.

We need the Government to admit that many new promised hospitals will not have been built by the next election  - and that our colleagues in social care are in desperate need of extra support -  which has not been sorted out.

We our politicians to be candid and state that the NHS is not wash with money, as they would continually have us believe.

The health service is this year facing a real-terms cut in funding of anywhere between £4 billion and £9.4 billion, depending on which measure of inflation is used – because of soaring inflation and additional costs. These are figures confirmed by new NHS Confederation.

This is a long way from the planned 3.8 per cent annual real terms increase in NHS funding up to 2024-25, as confirmed in the government’s spending review last October.

Together with the ongoing Covid costs, which are unlikely to subside any time soon, this means the NHS will have much less money to spend than the government has claimed..

All of these figures really mean is that we have very little spare capacity left to deal with emergencies and the increasing patient needs and public expectations.

The NHS can be part of a vast improvement in our nation’s health with the promised vast innovation.

However we can only achieve that future  if we are realistic about where we are now  - and what we must do ASAP to get back on track !.

NHS leaders stand ready to work with a new prime minister to address our immediate challenges.

But we cannot build a bridge on delusions and lies !