Can Keir Starmer save the NHS??????????

JVM2020

Can he do it?

NHS are under so much pressure and everything takes an eternity. i had appointments cancelled due to the strikes, now I'm still waiting after urgent referral from my GP.

Can he save the NHS? Kick that idiot Sunak out I hope.

Reply 1

hotpud

Original post by JVM2020

Can he do it?
NHS are under so much pressure and everything takes an eternity. i had appointments cancelled due to the strikes, now I'm still waiting after urgent referral from my GP.
Can he save the NHS? Kick that idiot Sunak out I hope.

When you say save the NHS what do you mean. Lots of new about the NHS but often focus on specific parts in a moment of time.

The key solution would be to invest in social care so that people have somewhere to go. I also think we need to reassess the mission to always protect life which is not necessarily in people's best interests, especially at the end of their lives.

Reply 2

Talkative Toad

Volunteer Team, Clearing and Applications Advisor

He won’t destroy/let it get worse I hope

Reply 3

JVM2020

I vote Keir Starmer. To hell with Conservatives. I want a Labour ruled government.

Reply 4

Gazpacho.

Labour could certainly make improvements doe to the simple fact that the Conservative have made no serious effort at modernisation over the last 14 years. The NHS is still using some banking/IT systems developed in the 90s.

They also need to do something about the state of dentistry. The NHS system has effective collapsed and the Conservatives have just ignored it.

More long term, we face the health costs associated with an aging and increasingly sicker population. Politicians will continue to kick that into the long grass in the same way the Conservatives have avoided social care reform.

Reply 5

michaelhw

Original post by JVM2020

Can he do it?
NHS are under so much pressure and everything takes an eternity. i had appointments cancelled due to the strikes, now I'm still waiting after urgent referral from my GP.
Can he save the NHS? Kick that idiot Sunak out I hope.

What about this AI revolution. I study literature, I use it all the time to ask about things. Surely, it may be able to take some pressure of GPs and others in the health service, simply by communicating with hypochondriacs. They are not talking about this, but it may be a significant change.

Reply 6

michaelhw

Original post by JVM2020

Can he do it?
NHS are under so much pressure and everything takes an eternity. i had appointments cancelled due to the strikes, now I'm still waiting after urgent referral from my GP.
Can he save the NHS? Kick that idiot Sunak out I hope.

What would you point out as the most critical flaws in the system? In my experience doctors are themselves to blame for assuming too much responsibility. In fact, I would argue that they needlessly monopolize treatments that could have been carried out by nurses. In some tests, a blood test is either positive or negative, and a positive test is always followed by fixed treatment. B follows A almost without exception. And this applies to many treatments. In addition, the doctor cannot interpret beyond what a blood test will show. What can he then add? This in my view is a place in which responsibility can both be delegated downward, to AI or in some cases even be automated. So, doctors are in part overworked because they have monopolized functions in which their special skills are not needed.
I also think that AI could be accessed behind login in government health portals, and provide health advice, dietary advice based on your stored medical data. This will be of great value to those of us who are hypochondriacs. We can chat all day about our own health and not even burden the tax payer.

Reply 7

Rakas21

Original post by JVM2020

Can he do it?
NHS are under so much pressure and everything takes an eternity. i had appointments cancelled due to the strikes, now I'm still waiting after urgent referral from my GP.
Can he save the NHS? Kick that idiot Sunak out I hope.

The answer is probably not.

The fundamental issue with the NHS is that for it not to burden the taxpayer further it needs to be able to cope with budget rises of about 2.5% per annum but it provides too many services to do this and has an aging 'customer' base in addition to an obese one.

The later two factors basically take 20bn out of the budget that it doesn't need to if government tackles these properly. In terms of services, the NHS is providing hymen replacements, gastric bypasses, second abortions, IVF, transgender surgeries and a host of outpatient services that could be provided by the private sector cheaply.

Since no senior politician is prepared to tackle the issues like obesity causing higher spending (and telling people being fat is bad is not enough) or tell the full time employed they should purchase outpatient insurance, it seems unlikely that more than surface level change will occur unless Starmer papers over the cracks but crushing us with additional taxation, ignoring that without the meaningful changes I discuss, those spending pressures will just increase over time.

Reply 8

Rincewind_Bored

Original post by JVM2020

Can he do it?
NHS are under so much pressure and everything takes an eternity. i had appointments cancelled due to the strikes, now I'm still waiting after urgent referral from my GP.
Can he save the NHS? Kick that idiot Sunak out I hope.

I actually think it is unlikely Starmer will have the will, or the capability to save the NHS.

The thing most Lefties say about the NHS is it just needs money. Just throw money at it and it'll all be solved. But that just isn't true.

I've worked as a consultant within an NHS trust, and as a private sector consultant (Famous for our brutal efficiency and "Get **** done" attitude), it was a proper horrorshow experience. The thing was, I love the NHS, and I couldn't rip them off no matter how easy they made it for me. So when they had nothing for me today and they literally told me to go sit in a room and amuse myself until they knew what to do next, I just said "Give me all of your problems within my wheelhouse and I'll just start working on those" and I did. No direction, no plan, I just started hacking and smashing my way through the problems in a list and resolved a todo list that had sat largely unactioned for months or maybe years at that point.

I noticed inefficiencies almost anywhere I went in the NHS. It wasn't just within the department I was in; it was everywhere and everywhere. And yet, despite there being these inefficiencies, there were so many people struggling and being allowed to struggle while others watched on because of the siloed nature of the organisation.

I'm sure the NHS is in a far worse state now than it was back then. Honestly, I think it needs an absolute revolutionary reworking from the ground up if it is to be saved. I think the scale of the changes are such that it wont just take money, you'd need to be willing to engage on a nationwide, once in a generation action that would be similar in scale to a wartime mobilisation operation.

I also think the organisation that would best be able to take on the NHS and reform it, isn't the private sector. It isn't the public sector either. I actually think it is the army. I think if we used the army and it's organisation capabilities to completely rework the NHS, at all organisational levels, and form it like a military operation, then it would stand a hope of surviving. But I cannot see that ever happening.

The NHS IS NOT a business. And we should stop using metrics to measure the success or failure of the NHS by private sector corporate metrics. It also should not be governed as it currently is, like a public sector organisation. There needs to be more urgency, more efficiency, more stream lining, and a clearly understanding of responsibilities to minimise issues slipping through the cracks.

You may not like the armed forces, you may not respect the military, but you have to accept when it comes to organisation and mobilisation at a national level of achieving goals, the army is actually quite good at that. If we look at the Covid response with the NHS, it was the Army that were behind the organisation of the temporary hospitals to deal with the influx of patients. The NHS Nightingale hospitals were set up to increase capacity for treating COVID-19 patients. The first of these hospitals, NHS Nightingale London, was established at the ExCeL Centre in London. The military, specifically the British Army’s Royal Engineers, were heavily involved in the planning, logistics, and construction of these hospitals, working in partnership with the NHS and private sector contractors.

The rapid deployment and construction of these facilities showcased the military’s logistical capabilities and ability to respond quickly in times of national emergency. The Nightingale hospitals were designed to handle large numbers of patients in case existing hospitals were overwhelmed, although the full capacity of these hospitals was not fully utilised as the pandemic progressed.

Obviously the solution to the NHS issue is unlikely to be as simple as "Send in the army" but I think the Army could be a central hub on which the spokes of other elements of the solution to the NHS could be constructed around.

Do I think Starmer would ever do anything this dramatic or revolutionary? No. Anyway, in his own words... Labour are the part of wealth creation innit? And as we know from America... there is money to be made in the misery of sick people.

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