Problems within the National Health Service (NHS) are once again in the spotlight, especially since the Gosport War Memorial Hospital scandal where a review published a few days ago showed at least 450 patients between 1988 and 2000 were prescribed powerful opiates without medical justification and had their lives cut short.
In the meantime, more and more UK residents continuously complain about long waiting hours, lack of funding and age limits in examinations.
Long waiting hours
According to research conducted by BBC News, three million people per year wait over four hours for non emergency operation procedure, as hospitals find it hard to cope with the demand.
Sam Wells, 53, Media Manager at the Associated Press from London, says, “My mother waited almost two years to have the problem with her hearing sorted out, continuously being told that her appointments are cancelled. They kept moving it back. In the meantime she is deaf and could not hear a thing. Finally after two years they (NHS staff) saw her and got her to do the hearing test and the same thing (happened) with her eyes with the cataracts. She has had individual operations and they again kept delaying it and delaying it and kept rescheduling it.”
Lack of funding
Lack of funding poses one of the most significant NHS problems and most likely many other NHS problems stem from that, but the general underlying problem is basically money, because it is oversubscribed to people.
However, according to the NHS Confederation website, NHS net expenditure has increased from £78.881 billion in 2006/07 to £120.512 billion in 2016/17. Planned expenditure for 2017/18 is £123.817bn and for 2018/19 is £126.269bn.
So, where does all this money go? Is the budget management right?
The NHS has more than 100 Private Finance Institutions (PFI) hospitals and they were introduced by the former British Prime Minister, John Major.
“The original cost of these 100 institutions was around £11.5bn. In the end, they will cost the public purse nearly £80bn. The total UK PFI debt is over £300bn for projects worth only £55bn. This debt would cover the entire NHS budget for approximately two and a half years,” according to Youssef El-Gingihy’s article in the Independent, a GP working in Tower Hamlets at the Bromley by Bow Centre.
Moreover, as of March 2017, NHS Confederation statistics across Hospital and Community Healthcare Services (HCHS), the NHS employed (full-time equivalent): 106,430 doctors; 285,893 nurses and health visitors; 21,597 midwives; 132,673 scientific, therapeutic and technical staff; 19,772 ambulance staff; 21,139 managers; and 9,974 senior managers. In addition to this, the majority of NHS staffs agree that are underpaid compare to the long hours that they work and the services that provide to the society.
George Orfanidis, 26, a Registered Nurse at Watford General Hospital, says, “Our monthly salary is adequate, but considering the difficulties we are facing daily, especially because of the lack of staff, I believe we should be paid more.”
Age limitations in Medical Examinations
According to the NHS website in the UK, screenings for conditions such as diabetes, cervical (from 25-64 years old), breast (50-70 years old) and bowel (55-74 years old) cancer are offered to patients with age limitations.
Artemi Mattheakaki, 24, from Crete, who currently lives in Enfield as a social trainer for autistic adults, says, “I haven’t been to a hospital to know what’s happening there but I have been to my personal GP at Eagle House in Ponders End High Street and I can say that I am pretty much satisfied with the service, but there is one problem I have found; For some pretty important examinations, such as the smear test, they have an age limit (25+) which I personally think is not necessary. But in general, I would say everyone is polite and professional towards all the patients.”
Medical tests with age limits can shorten people’s lives; there have been cases where infants and elderly people above 80 have had cancer and other illnesses.
Surprisingly, the UK Health Care System was rated as ‘the best system in terms of safe care, affordability and equity’ by the Commonwealth Fund in 2017, after being compared with the healthcare systems of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the USA.
The question is how can NHS problems be addressed by the government and what solutions can be proposed for better management of the debt.
By Katerina Tiliakou
