|
Post by Admin on May 29, 2022 20:45:29 GMT
Terrifying poll reveals 3 MILLION Brits forced to go private amid NHS crisis www.msn.com/en-gb/health/medical/terrifying-poll-reveals-3-million-brits-forced-to-go-private-amid-nhs-crisis/ar-AAXR7qAThe NHS has faced increasing pressure to provide general practice services as the ageing population of Britain has grown. As NHS delays increased during the pandemic, YouGov has revealed an estimated 3.7 million Brits were forced to turn to private healthcare services to access GP appointments. General practitioner Dr Richard Vautrey discussed his concerns surrounding inaccessible healthcare with GB News host Alastair Stewart. Mr Stewart said: "It is an extraordinary bit of research from YouGov that an incredible number, over three million people said well, I'm not waiting anymore, I'll go private." Dr Vautrey replied: "It's a reflection of the huge pressure that general practice in this country continues to be under. "Let's not forget though that over one million consultations in general practice take place every day, so a large number of people are seeing their GP, their practice nurse, members of the practice team on a day to day basis. "The bottom line is there is simply not enough GPs and practice nurses and pharmacists in general practice to cope with the record numbers of people wanting an appointment with their GP. "We're doing our level best but we understand the frustrations and share the frustrations at the sort of problems people have in getting an appointment." Dr Vautrey suggested the continued reliance on private healthcare to supplement the pressure on GP services could enforce a two-tiered system of healthcare in the UK, with some patients unable to access essential medical treatments. He said: "What we don't want in this country is for some people to get access to a GP service that others are unable to access. "What we need is a comprehensive, easily-accessible and good quality NHS general practice service and that is what the vast majority of GPs and their teams want to be able to provide, it's what the vast majority of our patients want. "What we need is long term investment in recruiting and retaining more GPs."
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jun 7, 2022 11:18:06 GMT
A Demoralised NHS Workforce in Crisis Sian Norris 7 June 2022 bylinetimes.com/2022/06/07/a-demoralised-nhs-workforce-in-crisis/The ongoing crisis in the NHS was exposed in a recent viral Twitter thread by a nurse quitting the service – detailing a combination of cuts, the pandemic and staff shortages. It focused on the real-term cuts to the NHS under 12 years of Conservative rule, how Brexit has weakened the workforce, and the prioritisation of crony contracts during the Coronavirus crisis – an issue much reported on by Byline Times. The thread came ahead of a survey by the Royal College of Nursing which found that only a quarter of nursing shifts have the planned number of registered nurses on duty. Nurses are feeling increasingly demoralised, as low staffing levels mean that they struggle to meet the demands of patients. The NHS has been in a workforce crisis since before the pandemic, but the situation has worsened after the pressures of working in extreme conditions and the impact of Brexit means that more and more people are leaving the profession, from nurses to consultants. There are currently 94,000 full-time employment vacancies in the NHS, of which 39,000 posts are for nurses and 8,158 vacancies are for doctors. But there are reasons for hope. The latest data for March 2022 shows that there are now more than 30,000 more nurses working across the NHS and general practice compared to September 2019 and applicants to nursing courses has increased by 34% in 2022 compared to 2019. A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson told Byline Times: “Because of the action this Government has taken, there are record numbers of doctors, nurses and healthcare staff working in the NHS. We are over halfway towards meeting our commitment to recruiting 50,000 extra nurses by 2024, and have commissioned NHS England to develop a long-term workforce strategy to provide certainty for the future.”
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jun 14, 2022 9:52:50 GMT
Here are the GP Practices taken over by US health insurance giant Centene weownit.org.uk/blog/here-are-gp-practices-taken-over-us-health-insurance-giant-centene23 February 2021 US health insurance giant, Centene, through its UK subsidiary, Operose Health, has been taking over GP surgeries and practices in London and across the country for many years. Centene has recently taken over AT Medics, a primary care provider responsible for 49 GP surgeries and over 370,000 patients in the Greater London area. With a total of 70 GP surgeries and practices, Centene is almost certainly the largest single provider of NHS primary care in England. This is shocking. Even the Daily Mail has called Centene a “profit greedy” company. Below is a full list of the GP surgeries and practices currently owned by Centene, through its subsidiary Operose Health UK. Your GP’s surgery might be next - wherever you live.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jun 27, 2022 11:26:58 GMT
The Collapse Of NHS Dentistry recoveryinthebin.org/2022/06/27/the-collapse-of-nhs-dentistry/The suffering is horrific. NHS dentistry, community physio, podiatry, are effectively gone now. What’s left is hard to access and limited in what they offer. NHS dentistry has become an emergency antibiotic and extraction service (after weeks or longer). Patients are often pushed into paying privately. There’s a link between oral health and cardiac health, right up to sepsis. The cost of not having access to routine dental care (fillings, crowns, root canal) is high. Patients are in serious debt for emergency treatment, root canal & crowns. NHS dentists don’t always refer patients on for gum disease treatment and let it progress to extraction and dentures. In the US it’s said you can tell poverty by looking at people’s mouths, the same will be true here. I will never forget a film I watched a few years ago of Americans queuing up all night (including wheelchair users) outside a warehouse for free medical treatment and dentistry. No privacy, exam chairs, beds all set out. People shaking violently having entire mouth tooth extractions under local anaesthetic. There’s also no appreciation of the impact of antidepressant and antipsychotic medications on dental health which can cause dry mouth increasing the risk of decay, but mental health services nor NHS dentists inform patients of products to help with this. Acute patients might have periods of sugar laden liquid meds. Dentistry should not be a luxury.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jul 5, 2022 18:36:13 GMT
MY NHS & how the Tories Broke It Penny Pepper 5 July 2022 bylinetimes.com/2022/07/05/my-nhs-and-how-the-tories-broke-it/I’m an NHS baby. My earliest memories would play out like an episode of Call the Midwife, perhaps less sweet. By the time I was five, the NHS hospital was part of my life. It was very different back in the 60s and 70s. Even the food was different – the big kitchens with cheeky foreign porters lined up to push the massive trolleys. In some ways, it was like boarding school, with long days of education and physiotherapy. I felt I belonged in a community. Some of the nursing staff were most likely of the Windrush generation. It was a time of discovery, to know and love people from so far away while in childhood. Everyone knew my name and it was the medical staff that dragged most of us through adolescence. They had an astonishing dedication to our treatment. Service was never perfect but we were fed well, attended to and received what we needed. Provisions offered by GPs and smaller local hospitals were connected to communities and I felt genuinely cared for by my own doctor, who would go out of his way to bend the rules and talk to people to ensure I received the best treatment I could. He would visit if I had an urgent need. Calling an ambulance was unthinkable and unnecessary for most of the time. A few weeks ago, an injured hip began my painful modern drag through the current NHS. The cracks are clear to see. I needed an x-ray to eliminate a break or dislocation. Once, I could have rung my GP and received advice with an x-ray ordered immediately. A GP appointment now can’t be made for three weeks and, even then, it’s a phone consultation. As an obedient citizen, I tried 111 – although I knew the outcome before I dialled. The only sobering option was to go to A&E, which I did with a close friend and an experienced personal assistant. We arrived into complete crowded chaos. A friendly and harassed nurse attempted to organise the waiting area by injury and I was corralled into limbs. This was at 3.30pm. I didn’t want to be there, mostly because it felt unnecessary – but there was no other option. Around 7pm, I saw the triage nurse as the waiting area continued to heave and ambulances continued to queue. A woman had a seizure in the waiting room. Kids were vomiting. An old man was coughing. There was no aggression, more a weary resignation and almost stoic companionship. The nurse gave me oral morphine which helped more than just my hip. The wait went on. And on. My tired friend left at 11.30pm. I finally saw a very elderly doctor at 12.20am who, despite a significant language barrier, announced that I needed an x-ray. A different nurse, apologising for my very long wait, said staff shortages were acute. By 1am, I was put on a trolley for my x-ray. I’d only had water to drink and no food since 1pm. A nursing assistant attempted to find me some sandwiches but they never arrived as no one was available to answer the call to the kitchens… My experience with this interminable wait reflects a recent report in the Guardian, highlighting how there are “greater numbers of people calling an ambulance because they cannot get through to a more appropriate service such as their GP”. As reported, the Government naturally blames the pandemic. Yet, we now live in a Coronavirus-present world, and the fault lies firmly with the Government’s policies and outright attacks on health services and social care in general. We also know that the Government can rely on the rampant right-wing media to blame anyone but Boris Johnson’s administration. As noted in a powerful and scathing BMJ piece, “headlines have included the Telegraph’s ‘GPs Still Ignoring Orders to Allow Patients Face-to-Face Appointments” and the Spectator’s ‘Why Are Doctors Still Hiding Behind Zoom Screens?’. A Times headline claimed that ‘Virtual GP Visits Are “Costing Lives”’. A GP also comments that ‘the current [media criticism] onslaught is the worst I can remember in over 30 years.’” I know it, and most of us know it: the Tories actively work to turn the NHS away from its glorious founding principles – to meet the needs of everyone, to be free at the point of delivery, and be based on clinical need not on the ability to pay. The Conservative view is one of profit-making. Investment for the boys with their hedge funds and capital ventures. We know why we can’t see our GP, why ambulances queue, and why harassed nurses are at breaking point. And why people die unnecessarily. The BMJ piece quotes a doctor who puts it plainly: “The real issue is that we are now seeing the fall-out of over a decade of under-investment in our service.” This is not the NHS I know and love. Next time in that ambulance queue, if it’s not you, it may be someone you love. Let’s all yell together to call out the Government and keep this most precious, shared resource.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jul 19, 2022 15:37:56 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jul 20, 2022 15:26:40 GMT
Britain’s leading health journals the BMJ and HSJ warn: “The NHS is not living with Covid, it’s dying from it.” Chris Marsden 21 hours ago www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/07/19/oaku-j19.htmlThe National Health Service (NHS) is closer to collapse than at any time in half a century. This is the warning sounded by Kamran Abbasi, editor in chief of the BMJ, and Alastair McLellan of the Health Service Journal (HSJ) in a joint editorial. The editorial was published prior to the July 19 anniversary of Prime Minister Boris Johnson proclaiming “Freedom Day”, when all remaining protections against the spread of COVID-19 were removed. It details the disaster this murderous decision has led to. The authors warn against the Conservative government’s “failure to recognise that the pandemic is far from over and that a return to some of the measures taken in the last two years is needed”. Noting the difficulties posed to the NHS by the heatwave, the BMJ and HSJ note that “this brutal situation is the culmination of many factors,” including decades of underfunding of the NHS and social care. But “now is the time to face the fact that the nation’s attempt to ‘live with covid’ is the straw that is breaking the NHS’s back.”
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jul 20, 2022 21:54:36 GMT
NHS workforce projections 2022 www.health.org.uk/publications/nhs-workforce-projections-2022Key points This report provides the REAL Centre’s projections of future NHS workforce supply and demand in England, up to 2030/31. At an overarching level, our supply and demand projections cover the NHS Hospital and Community Health Service (HCHS) and general practice workforce in England. Our in-depth analysis focuses on two staff groups: registered nurses (across all sectors but focusing on the HCHS), and general practice patient care staff (including GPs and general practice nurses). Together these groups account for nearly 3 in 10 of the 1.4 million full-time equivalent (FTE) NHS staff in England. Our high-level analysis points to an overall workforce supply-demand gap of around 103,000 FTE across the NHS HCHS and general practice in 2021/22 (around 7% of estimated FTE workforce demand). This gap is projected to increase to around 180,000 FTE by 2024/25 before declining gradually to a still substantial 160,000 FTE in 2030/31 (around 9% of projected demand). This report raises significant questions about general practice workforce supply. In all scenarios, we project a persistent shortfall of FTE GPs and general practice nurses. In the pessimistic case, the GP supply-demand gap grows to around 20,400 FTE by 2030/31 – effectively 1 in 2 GP posts based on projected demand. While the government appears to be on track to meet its 50,000 nurses target by 2023/24, this would still leave the NHS short of around 38,000 FTE HCHS and general practice nurses relative to projected demand in 2023/24. In the longer term, in the current policy scenario the NHS is projected to have a persisting shortfall of around 36,700 FTE nurses in 2030/31. Workforce shortages were the single biggest challenge facing the NHS well before COVID-19. But the pandemic has driven increased demand for health care, growing waiting lists and a substantial elective care backlog, while impacting negatively on staff wellbeing and absence. This makes workforce planning all the more urgent, particularly in light of ongoing cost-of-living pressures, and in terms of patient safety and satisfaction. This report provides the REAL Centre’s projections of future NHS workforce supply – the number of staff likely to be in post – and demand, the number of staff likely to be required. It focuses on registered nurses across the NHS HCHS and general practice, GPs and other patient care staff in general practice. In our analysis, a gap between projected workforce supply and demand indicates that the NHS is unlikely to be able to deliver 2018/19 standards of health care using existing care models. Our analysis underscores five key workforce planning themes before drawing out the wider systemic implications for the NHS. Overall, our report lays bare the scale of the challenge facing policymakers in addressing endemic NHS workforce shortages. Although there is no ‘silver bullet’ solution to England’s workforce shortages, this report adds to a growing body of evidence signalling the need for a comprehensive, fully funded and long-term workforce strategy. Please note: We are aware of an error affecting projections of the GP shortfall across all three scenarios for 2023/24 and 2030/31. We are working to rectify this as quickly as possible.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jul 23, 2022 19:38:26 GMT
What on Earth are we paying for? UK’s ‘runaway’ health spending costs £10k per household – but produces some of the worst results Laura Donnelly, Alex Clark www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/uk-s-runaway-health-spending-costs-10k-per-household-but-produces-some-of-the-worst-results/ar-AAZSAMvUK health spending is costing around £10,000 per household, with the third highest share of GDP in Europe, a major report has found. It shows that Britain has one of the most costly health systems – and some of the worst outcomes. The study by think tank Civitas suggested almost 50,000 people a year are dying in the UK for want of effective medical intervention. The research tracking 19 wealthy countries found that only the United States fared worse. Britain also came second worst for life expectancy, having seen a fall in the last decade while the average lifespan rose across the rest of the developed world. The findings examine funding levels even before the Government raised National Insurance by 1.25 percentage points in April, raising billions more from the taxpayer. The report’s authors said the trends were evidence of “runaway” spending, and called for reforms to ensure resources were used wisely. On Saturday, The Telegraph launches a data tracker, allowing readers to compare the performance of all hospitals and see how their local service compares. It shows where patients are most likely to face a long wait in A&E, suffer long delays awaiting cancer diagnosis or wait months for crucial tests. The analysis also discloses the NHS trusts which have consistently had higher death rates than would be expected. Politicians should ‘face up to the reality’ Tim Knox, the report author, said: “These new figures should challenge politicians to face up to the reality of runaway health spending. We need a proper debate in this country. “Our national income fell significantly during the pandemic and the economy still looks weak. Yet our health spending has risen faster than any other country.” He added: “It is time for politicians from all parties to catch up. They must accept that the NHS is not delivering the results that we should expect. Minor reforms to the system and slogans about how much they love the NHS do nothing to address far deeper, structural problems.” A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “The pandemic put unprecedented pressure on health and care services and so record investment is necessary to deliver the biggest catch up programme in the NHS’s history. “We’ve set out a plan to bust the Covid backlogs and this is already delivering results – two-year wait times for NHS treatments have fallen by more than 80 per cent since February, and one million extra scans have been delivered through over 90 new community diagnostic centres. “We will continue to work with the NHS to boost productivity and efficiency, and to ensure every penny is spent wisely. The NHS has agreed to double its annual efficiency target from 1.1 per cent to 2.2 per cent - freeing up £4.75 billion to fund NHS priority areas over the next three years.”
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jul 25, 2022 15:44:01 GMT
NHS faces 'greatest workforce crisis' in history - putting safety at 'serious risk', MPs say www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/nhs-faces-greatest-workforce-crisis-in-history-putting-safety-at-serious-risk-mps-say/ar-AAZVr50"The greatest workforce crisis" in the history of the NHS is putting patients and staff at "serious risk", MPs have said in a damning new report. The study says there is a shortage of 12,000 hospital doctors, and more than 50,000 nurses and midwives - and that the government has "no credible plan" for making the situation any better. It warns maternity services are "under unsustainable pressure" - 552 midwives left in the past year alone - and there are 700 less full-time equivalent GPs than there were three years ago. Put together by MPs from the cross-party Health and Social Care Committee, the report pulls no punches when addressing the government over the growing crisis. Projections suggest an extra 475,000 jobs will be needed in health and an extra 490,000 jobs in social care by the early part of the next decade in order to ease the strain. But the report said: "In the face of this, the government has shown a marked reluctance to act decisively. "The workforce plan promised in the spring has not yet been published and will be a 'framework' with no numbers, which we are told could potentially follow in yet another report later this year." MPs said while some progress had been made towards a target of recruiting 50,000 nurses, the government was set to miss its target to recruit 6,000 more GPs, as promised in the Conservative Party manifesto. "The persistent understaffing of the NHS now poses a serious risk to staff and patient safety both for routine and emergency care," the report said. "It also costs more, as patients present later with more serious illness. "But most depressing for many on the frontline is the absence of any credible strategy to address it." It went on to say as a result of staff being under pressure, the NHS was losing millions of full-time equivalent days to staff sickness caused by anxiety, stress and depression. "The result is that many in an exhausted workforce are considering leaving - and if they do, pressure will increase still further on their colleagues," the study said, adding that some simple things are not in place, such as access to hot food and drink on shifts and flexible working. MPs said the government's "refusal" to make workforce planning data public "means that the basic question which every health and care worker is asking: are we training enough staff to meet patient need? will remain unanswered". Government progress rating? 'Inadequate' More needs to be done on social care worker pay to stop people leaving, it added. A separate report by the committee's panel of independent experts rates the government's progress overall to meet key commitments it has made on workforce as "inadequate". Steven McIntosh, executive director of advocacy and communications at Macmillan, the cancer support charity, told Sky News chronic staffing issues had serious implications for cancer diagnosis and treatment too. He said: "Currently three million people are living with cancer. By 2030 that will rise to four million. "We don't have the NHS staff needed to even treat and diagnose people now. "Unless government grapples with this long-term staffing shortage, none of us are going to be able to access the timely cancer care and treatment that we need to, when we need it." Health and Social Care Committee chairman and Tory MP Jeremy Hunt said the country was facing "the greatest workforce crisis in history in the NHS and in social care". He added: "NHS professionals know there is no silver bullet to solve this problem but we should at least be giving them comfort that a plan is in place. This must be a top priority for the new prime minister." Danny Mortimer, chief executive of NHS Employers, which is part of the NHS Confederation, said tens of thousands of staff vacancies "at the last count" and "an exhausted workforce, present one of the greatest challenges to the recovery of the economy and the return of safe, high-quality health services for all". He said health leaders were "beyond worried" about the government's "sustained reluctance to act decisively on NHS and social care staffing" which he said posed a "serious risk to both staff and patient safety". Ministers should be 'shocked into action' Patricia Marquis, the Royal College of Nursing's director for England, said the report's findings of serious risk to staff and patient safety "should shock ministers into action". She added the committee had also said with regards to pay, it was "unacceptable that some NHS nurses are struggling to feed their families, pay their rent, and travel to work". A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson insisted it was "growing" the workforce with "over 4,000 more doctors, and 9,600 more nurses compared to last year, and over 1,400 more doctors in general practice compared to March 2019". The statement added a £95m recruitment drive was in place for maternity services and £500m was being provided to "develop our valued social care workforce, including through training opportunities and new career pathways". A long-term workforce plan to recruit and support NHS staff had, it said, been commissioned.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Aug 8, 2022 10:02:05 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Aug 10, 2022 13:03:23 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Aug 10, 2022 13:10:42 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Aug 11, 2022 9:36:28 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Aug 16, 2022 17:40:36 GMT
Booming private healthcare companies race to benefit from chaos in the NHS www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news/booming-private-healthcare-companies-race-to-benefit-from-chaos-in-the-nhs/ar-AA10HmNvWith almost 200 beds, a small army of medics, state-of-the-art equipment and views of Buckingham Palace, almost no expense has been spared at London’s newest hospital. But the eight-storey Cleveland Clinic London is a private, not public, medical centre – and just one of several that have opened across Britain as yawning NHS waiting lists create an opportunity for independent healthcare providers. “The opening of our London hospital was an eventful moment,” says Brian Donley, chief executive of the new facility. “We are excited to be bringing our unique model of care to the UK and since the hospital opened, we’ve seen strong demand for our services.” Cleveland is one of several independent healthcare organisations launching new services just as demand is beginning to boom. Private providers say they have seen a huge influx of business as delays to procedures such as cataract surgeries, hip replacements and knee replacements become more common across the country. According to NHS figures released last week, the number of people in England waiting for routine hospital treatments rose to a record 6.7m in July, with ministers admitting that the figures will become even worse before they get better. This is driving an ever-larger number of patients towards private providers, who are opting to pay from their own pocket for operations and diagnostics rather than sit in the queue. The number of self-paying procedures has increased to around 70,000 per quarter from an average of 50,000 per quarter before the coronavirus pandemic, according to the latest available data from the Private Healthcare Information Network. Overall, the number of self-funding patients last year rose to 258,445, an increase of 58,770 compared to 2019. David Furness, policy director at the Independent Healthcare Providers Network, says this is driving “dramatic growth” at private hospitals and clinics. “In particular, people are looking to self-fund their own care and that's happening across the country, in all different specialties,” he says. “Our members are reporting that there's considerable growth, in some cases 40pc above pre-pandemic levels, and they are expecting that to continue in the context of very long waits for NHS care. “There’s absolutely the capacity to offer that to people - so we think there's every sign that this upward trend will continue.” Spire, the UK’s second largest private healthcare provider, says it is currently experiencing record demand from self-funding patients. The company’s income from these customers increased by 63pc during 2021 when compared to two years earlier. That amounted to a total of £292m - the first time self-funding patients have represented more than one quarter of revenues. Justin Ash, Spire’s chief executive, says: “With the impact of Covid-19 and rising NHS waiting lists, we are seeing more people eager to have a consultation and access high-quality care as quickly as possible.” Meanwhile, in fortuitous timing for businesses, several new private healthcare facilities have opened just as backlogs at the NHS have been turbocharged by the pandemic. These sites were already in train before Covid struck and typically take three to four years to complete, says Henry Elphick, a senior adviser at property giant Savills, but they are now poised to do a roaring trade. He estimates that Cleveland Clinic’s new London hospital could have set the US non-profit provider back by around £1bn. Yet with 184 beds, it increased the capital’s private capacity by around one fifth when it opened – and NHS delays will generate plenty of demand for its services. “The guys who started building three or four years ago have hit a sweet spot,” Elphick says, “and those with the existing capacity are finding they are full up for the first time in years. “But we think there is probably enough structural demand from waiting lists to last for the next seven years, so it is a very good time to be building extra private capacity.” Alongside the Cleveland Clinic, other sites to open this year include a purpose-built eye hospital opened by private equity-owned SpaMedica in Doncaster. HCA, another American non-profit, is set to open the brand new £100m Harborne Hospital in Birmingham later this year. Elsewhere, Spire recently completed a £3.7m modernisation of Bushey Hospital in north London and Circle Health, the UK’s biggest private hospitals provider, has invested in a multi-million pound expansion of several hospitals including Werndale, near Camarthen in Wales, and Albyn Hospital in Aberdeen. Many of these upgrades tend to focus on ramping up the number of operating theatres available via simple extensions, says Elphick, rather than seeking to add beds. This is because, unlike their NHS equivalents, private hospitals do not have A&E departments and relatively few procedures require overnight stays. Instead, the main limiting factors on operations are the number of doctors and theatre capacity. “People are building on capacity to existing hospitals rather than entirely new ones because it is faster and cheaper,” he says. “At the moment, they are looking for anywhere where they can expand patient throughput – and with high demand, they will make good money.” And it is not just British firms on the hunt for space, he adds. “The Americans, the Germans, the Turkish - they are all looking.” With waiting lists still climbing, it means the Cleveland Clinic is unlikely to be the last foreign healthcare provider to make a big bet on Britain.
|
|