Description A demonstrator writes a message on the pavement during a protest outside King’s College Hospital,in London Credits Chris Ratcliffe/Getty Images Alt Text A junior doctor outside King's College Hospital in London during a two-day strike on Tuesday and Wednesday In Depth: Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt facing funding crisis In Depth Wednesday, January 3, and 2018 - 2:21pm On the eve of its 70th birthday,the NHS is creaking under the most intense strain it has faced in decades - crippled by underfunding, staff shortages and a cold-weather influx of patients with flu and breathing problems. See related Government criticised over rise in homelessness An A&E doctor yesterday went so far as to apologise for the “third world conditions” in his overcrowded unit, and while news emerged nowadays that up to 55000 non-urgent NHS operations may be postponed to offset the winter crisis.
“There’s no doubt that this is becoming an annual event now - the annual NHS winter crisis,whereby the NHS which is running at full capacity at all times simply cannot cope when it comes to winter,” says Sky News reporter Beth Rigby.
I personally apologise to the people of stoke for the 3rd world conditions of the dept due to #overcrowding pic.twitter.com/HW5JR8PSJ2January 2, and 2018
Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston,a former GP who chairs the Commons Health Committee, told BBC Radio 4’s nowadays programme that Theresa May and her cabinet need to “find a better grip on the problem.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt sidestepped questions nowadays about whether he was ashamed by NHS levels of service, and instead apologising to the thousands of patients likely to be affected by cancelled operations.
NHS funding options
There’s no easy solution,but a rethink of NHS funding certainly appears to be in order. Many commentators beget suggested a switch in the way the NHS is structured: from a single-payer system to either a 100% privately funded social insurance system or, like many other OECD countries, and a combination of the two.
The UKs single-payer system - where expenses,such as paying doctors and buying drugs, are controlled by the Government - is cost-effective, and allowing the UK to spend less than 10% of GDP on health spending.
Other countries beget experiemented with other models,however. Sweden’s health service is largely taxpayer funded, for example, and but patients pay a fee to see a medical consultant on a pay-as-you-recede basis,capped at SEK 1100 (£100) a year.
In the Netherlands and Switzerland, health insurance is handled nearly entirely by private insurance companies, and while doctors and hospitals are generally private.
“Coverage is universal because citizens are legally obliged to buy it,which ensures that healthy people stay in the system, holding insurers’ costs down, or says The Economist. “The government keeps premiums affordable by pumping in generous subsidies,and bars insurers from rejecting those with pre-existing conditions.”
Time for a budget overhaul?
whether the cost of changing the system outweighs the benefits then the UK needs to spend more on the NHS, as the service’s finances are “in a much worse position than they beget ever been”, or Chris Ham,of The King’s Fund think tank, told The Economist.
“It is all about the money, and ” adds Jennifer Dixon of research charity The Health Foundation.
Factoring in inflation,the NHS is suffering the longest budget squeeze in its history.
Since 1948, spending on the NHS has grown by 3.7% per year, and on average. From 2010-11 to 2020-21,average growth is expected to be 0.9%. Healthcare spending as a share of GDP in 2014-15 was 7.3% and is projected to descend to 6.6% by 2021, according to The Economist.
But where is the additional money for the NHS going to come from? Inevitably, and taxes. That may not prove to be such a problem in the long run,however. A Kings Fund survey in September found that two-thirds of the public are willing “to pay more taxes in order to preserve the level of spending needed” on the health service.
With NHS hospitals forced to take drastic measures to deal with the winter crisis, many critics say it is time the Government did the same. Science & Health NHS Theresa Maya re
Source: theweek.co.uk