And even worse is that Starmer’s made Brexit irreversible with his red lines. And his attitude towards foreign students. “Around one in six universities get more than a third of their total income from international students, according to Channel 4 analysis.” https://www.bigissue.com/news/international-students-home-office-asylum-claims/
This is the sort of narrative I would expect to come from Wes Streeting or Keir Starmer. It paints a clear picture of the harm that Brexit has done to our NHS.
… and Farage pushed the Brexit lies. He’s still doing it and our sovereignty is now so precious he’s been off to the US decrying how bad the UK is. Putin’s aim was to bring the UK to its knees. He’s won with the help of corrupted individuals.
Ah Bear, brilliant summation of the Bollocks of Brexit on the NHS.
I wrote a piece last week, about the effect of all this on my son's care and his visit to hospital last week. I didn't publish it, because quite frankly, I think people are sick of hearing the disabled and carer's perspective and how absolutely shit it all is.
It is so refreshing to have a view from the 'front lines' as it were. Thank you. Nailed it.
I’m less knowledgeable regarding the NHS but have been drawing the outlines for years. I’m not at the critical line of operations as you are but this was all forecasted by those ‘terrible’ experts at the time of Brexit and since, for years!!! The stealing from Paul who has a terrible health service in some countries of Africa to pay Peter here was mentioned more than once. The lack of experienced nursing staff across all areas was predicted. I’d not heard that qualified doctors would end up unemployed though and have to leave the UK to actually get a job. Medicine supply came up as well and it is no different to the issues of all chemicals generally which are not made within the UK due to economies of scale.
The UK’s membership of the EU had been ongoing for nearly half a century. The economic impact of that and the forces of competitive advantage meant that we didn’t do everything anymore, whether in the medical field, metals production, car production or chemicals. In the long run that could change though I don’t see any meaningful signs of government making a concerted effort across all industries. However we are all dead in the long run as indicated by Keynes, some sooner than others, and waiting for the market to generate this change is just not acceptable.
To solve this by rejoining the EU looks unlikely at the moment despite a majority within the UK seemingly in favour. Starmer’s step by step methodology is a slow boat and is severely limited as well. In the meantime the jewel of the UK, the NHS, is besieged. Some have suggested a method of bringing home to voters of the costs involved of losing the the NHS, as a fully functional health service free at the point of need, would require that each visit would result in a notional invoice. Thus the opportunity cost of losing the NHS would be known on an individual basis. The costs of so doing might just be so great as to be unachievable without risking the NHS as you’ve described it, but it might just allow everyone to see that the NHS is worth saving at any cost.
In any event it’s a dubious pleasure to see the troubles of the NHS outlined so clearly from someone at the cliff-face. Please keep it coming.
Starmer is desperate to 'prove' he can 'Get Brexit done' unlike the Tories. When he sucked up to Trump in April he was promised a deal with the US in return for the shiny bauble of a State Visit. When they signed the deal, what did Trump do? He dropped the papers on the floor and made Starmer pick them up. I think it was deliberate because only a few weeks later, Trump reneged and put tariffs up - and there still isn't a proper 'deal'. So when JD Vance came a-visiting in August and made all these noises about 'Free Speech' and ending abortion in the UK, instead of telling the Americans to take a long walk off a very short plank, Starmer seems to have acquiesced to it all, doubling down on the Islamaphobia, racism, ableism, misogyny and pursuing cuts to services noone wants, needs and which the country cannot sustain. It will cost him his premiership. At the very least, the next election. Meanwhile, the country spirals the drain once more, we can only look to the 'Coalition of the Willing' and Ukraine as a 'Gateway to rejoining the EU' being squandered. For shame, indeed.
I hear this truth from every medic I know. I watched it play through my mother’s terminal illness. I’ve experienced it myself in A&E with injuries. I’ve known EU nurses, radiographers, dentists and doctors who left.
This country is such a pitiful mess, kept going by the good old blitz spirit, held together by exploiting so very many people. And at the same time as your sleepness nights, Bear, desperately trying to hold the line, there are those who insist the NHS has too many managers, that they are the problem. 😤🤬🤯. The failure of government to be honest makes it the biggest travesty.
Brexit and the dreadful affect of it on the NHS is but one strand in a much longer tale of woe that started when Thatcher became PM in 1979.
Since that time the consistent dogma that has ruled the body politic in the UK is that low taxes are of themselves good, the private sector is more efficient (only at extracting money from the public purse IMHO) and becoming filthy rich through financial manipulation is a worthy, even moral, aspiration. Add in the exploitation of the working and middle classes and there is a recipe for the fault lines in our society.
So why do I start so far back when Brexit is a recent phenomenon. Because the route from there to here is pretty direct and the evidence for predicting it built many years ago.
By the late 1980s and early 1990s as a police officer I saw the affects of Thatcherite economic and social policy on the economy, peoples lives and businesses. The affects on areas of operational efficiency in my force were clear.
Come New Labour and things improved for a time.
In 2010 (after I had completed my service) austerity ripped the life out of it and in 3 or 4 years my force had fewer officers than in 1978 and seen big numbers of non-sworn staff many with operational roles given the boot.
Cameron and Osborn were the prototype for DOGE, reckless cuts on huge scale. Add in Lansley's changes to the NHS and the ground had been laid for the situation you describe.
I retired from paid work at the beginning of2018. In the 3 or 4 years prior I had been a service support manager in Adult Social care and witnessed the state things were in and the consequences of continuing government and institutionalised parsimony.
For example hen hiring I was cobbling together posts on hours extracted from elsewhere. Health didn't need one of our workers embedded. Get them back. If they left put the hours into a pot. Want and need a full time post, sorry I can only give you 32.5 hrs.
Here is the rub, the promoters of Brexit were and are the hard and heartless core of austerityphiles. The dominance of Reform in the media and the bad actors who infest their coverage and that of the right wing generally is a poison.
Back to your detailed analysis. The NHS and Social Care you describe are the function of a long march by the right for over 45 years to create just this situation and a fractured society they can manipulate on a daily basis, creating brouhaha and discord to conceal their next moves.
A harrowing read. I just get so frustrated reading this because it was so preventable. The care my husband receives for his cancer is absolutely amazing but on the entire team over 50% is not British born but on the other hand
I recently had a very nasty fall and ended up in A&E. The experience was horrible because it was extremely busy and not enough staff or rooms available so I spent all the time on a corridor.
One example I can attest to. In 2023 a close family member was admitted to an acute Cancer Care facility...all patients were seriously ill many terminal. Absolutely gobsmackingly fantastic hospital. She had to undergo what the consultants referred to once they got to know her better as the "domestos" version of chemotherapy to fight aggressive plasma cell leukaemia. Each monthly cycle was supposed to be 4 days. As a result of staffing shortages the four day cycle turned into four and a half or five days because the nurses administering this treatment began to start at different ends of the 28 patient ward in an attempt to be fair to everyone. It doesn't sound like much does it? That extra 12 or 24 hour extension to the treatment took a massive toll.
You can only do what you can. Added to all the problems getting staff and retaining them, is the current racist attitudes, no wonder those who could stay won't. Take care Bear.
This, THIS should be on the news instead of Temu Mussolini.
And the worst is - we told them.
And even worse is that Starmer’s made Brexit irreversible with his red lines. And his attitude towards foreign students. “Around one in six universities get more than a third of their total income from international students, according to Channel 4 analysis.” https://www.bigissue.com/news/international-students-home-office-asylum-claims/
We did indeed, Paola.
Hard to read, because of the viscerally indigestible truth it reveals.
A great piece.
This is the sort of narrative I would expect to come from Wes Streeting or Keir Starmer. It paints a clear picture of the harm that Brexit has done to our NHS.
So true. I just wish that the Government would stop tiptoeing around the appalling damage caused by Brexit
Excoriating indictment. I will never be able to share this enough. Thank you, dear Bear.
… and Farage pushed the Brexit lies. He’s still doing it and our sovereignty is now so precious he’s been off to the US decrying how bad the UK is. Putin’s aim was to bring the UK to its knees. He’s won with the help of corrupted individuals.
Ah Bear, brilliant summation of the Bollocks of Brexit on the NHS.
I wrote a piece last week, about the effect of all this on my son's care and his visit to hospital last week. I didn't publish it, because quite frankly, I think people are sick of hearing the disabled and carer's perspective and how absolutely shit it all is.
It is so refreshing to have a view from the 'front lines' as it were. Thank you. Nailed it.
Medicare for all in USA would save $450 billion annually - Robert Reich.
“If we really want to make America healthy again we would have Medicare for all”
https://bsky.app/profile/rbreich.bsky.social/post/3lxzofwkgyj2f
Timely. Brexit FOM (as well as a number of other fronts) is an easy issue to resolve. I’m foxed as to why we’re here.
Great piece.
I’m less knowledgeable regarding the NHS but have been drawing the outlines for years. I’m not at the critical line of operations as you are but this was all forecasted by those ‘terrible’ experts at the time of Brexit and since, for years!!! The stealing from Paul who has a terrible health service in some countries of Africa to pay Peter here was mentioned more than once. The lack of experienced nursing staff across all areas was predicted. I’d not heard that qualified doctors would end up unemployed though and have to leave the UK to actually get a job. Medicine supply came up as well and it is no different to the issues of all chemicals generally which are not made within the UK due to economies of scale.
The UK’s membership of the EU had been ongoing for nearly half a century. The economic impact of that and the forces of competitive advantage meant that we didn’t do everything anymore, whether in the medical field, metals production, car production or chemicals. In the long run that could change though I don’t see any meaningful signs of government making a concerted effort across all industries. However we are all dead in the long run as indicated by Keynes, some sooner than others, and waiting for the market to generate this change is just not acceptable.
To solve this by rejoining the EU looks unlikely at the moment despite a majority within the UK seemingly in favour. Starmer’s step by step methodology is a slow boat and is severely limited as well. In the meantime the jewel of the UK, the NHS, is besieged. Some have suggested a method of bringing home to voters of the costs involved of losing the the NHS, as a fully functional health service free at the point of need, would require that each visit would result in a notional invoice. Thus the opportunity cost of losing the NHS would be known on an individual basis. The costs of so doing might just be so great as to be unachievable without risking the NHS as you’ve described it, but it might just allow everyone to see that the NHS is worth saving at any cost.
In any event it’s a dubious pleasure to see the troubles of the NHS outlined so clearly from someone at the cliff-face. Please keep it coming.
Thanks for this, Terry Haines.
Starmer is desperate to 'prove' he can 'Get Brexit done' unlike the Tories. When he sucked up to Trump in April he was promised a deal with the US in return for the shiny bauble of a State Visit. When they signed the deal, what did Trump do? He dropped the papers on the floor and made Starmer pick them up. I think it was deliberate because only a few weeks later, Trump reneged and put tariffs up - and there still isn't a proper 'deal'. So when JD Vance came a-visiting in August and made all these noises about 'Free Speech' and ending abortion in the UK, instead of telling the Americans to take a long walk off a very short plank, Starmer seems to have acquiesced to it all, doubling down on the Islamaphobia, racism, ableism, misogyny and pursuing cuts to services noone wants, needs and which the country cannot sustain. It will cost him his premiership. At the very least, the next election. Meanwhile, the country spirals the drain once more, we can only look to the 'Coalition of the Willing' and Ukraine as a 'Gateway to rejoining the EU' being squandered. For shame, indeed.
I hear this truth from every medic I know. I watched it play through my mother’s terminal illness. I’ve experienced it myself in A&E with injuries. I’ve known EU nurses, radiographers, dentists and doctors who left.
This country is such a pitiful mess, kept going by the good old blitz spirit, held together by exploiting so very many people. And at the same time as your sleepness nights, Bear, desperately trying to hold the line, there are those who insist the NHS has too many managers, that they are the problem. 😤🤬🤯. The failure of government to be honest makes it the biggest travesty.
Good evening Bear.
Brexit and the dreadful affect of it on the NHS is but one strand in a much longer tale of woe that started when Thatcher became PM in 1979.
Since that time the consistent dogma that has ruled the body politic in the UK is that low taxes are of themselves good, the private sector is more efficient (only at extracting money from the public purse IMHO) and becoming filthy rich through financial manipulation is a worthy, even moral, aspiration. Add in the exploitation of the working and middle classes and there is a recipe for the fault lines in our society.
So why do I start so far back when Brexit is a recent phenomenon. Because the route from there to here is pretty direct and the evidence for predicting it built many years ago.
By the late 1980s and early 1990s as a police officer I saw the affects of Thatcherite economic and social policy on the economy, peoples lives and businesses. The affects on areas of operational efficiency in my force were clear.
Come New Labour and things improved for a time.
In 2010 (after I had completed my service) austerity ripped the life out of it and in 3 or 4 years my force had fewer officers than in 1978 and seen big numbers of non-sworn staff many with operational roles given the boot.
Cameron and Osborn were the prototype for DOGE, reckless cuts on huge scale. Add in Lansley's changes to the NHS and the ground had been laid for the situation you describe.
I retired from paid work at the beginning of2018. In the 3 or 4 years prior I had been a service support manager in Adult Social care and witnessed the state things were in and the consequences of continuing government and institutionalised parsimony.
For example hen hiring I was cobbling together posts on hours extracted from elsewhere. Health didn't need one of our workers embedded. Get them back. If they left put the hours into a pot. Want and need a full time post, sorry I can only give you 32.5 hrs.
Here is the rub, the promoters of Brexit were and are the hard and heartless core of austerityphiles. The dominance of Reform in the media and the bad actors who infest their coverage and that of the right wing generally is a poison.
Back to your detailed analysis. The NHS and Social Care you describe are the function of a long march by the right for over 45 years to create just this situation and a fractured society they can manipulate on a daily basis, creating brouhaha and discord to conceal their next moves.
And the swine aren't finished yet.
We need to rejoin now, FFS! 😡
A harrowing read. I just get so frustrated reading this because it was so preventable. The care my husband receives for his cancer is absolutely amazing but on the entire team over 50% is not British born but on the other hand
I recently had a very nasty fall and ended up in A&E. The experience was horrible because it was extremely busy and not enough staff or rooms available so I spent all the time on a corridor.
One example I can attest to. In 2023 a close family member was admitted to an acute Cancer Care facility...all patients were seriously ill many terminal. Absolutely gobsmackingly fantastic hospital. She had to undergo what the consultants referred to once they got to know her better as the "domestos" version of chemotherapy to fight aggressive plasma cell leukaemia. Each monthly cycle was supposed to be 4 days. As a result of staffing shortages the four day cycle turned into four and a half or five days because the nurses administering this treatment began to start at different ends of the 28 patient ward in an attempt to be fair to everyone. It doesn't sound like much does it? That extra 12 or 24 hour extension to the treatment took a massive toll.
You can only do what you can. Added to all the problems getting staff and retaining them, is the current racist attitudes, no wonder those who could stay won't. Take care Bear.