The Guardian view on the NHS: set up to fail by being underresourced to meet demand

[Northerner]

The NHS and social care systems need more money. If there is anything else that they need as much, it is honesty from the government. Post-Covid, the UK’s health systems are in a perilously fragile state. As analysis by the Guardian showed this week, logjams created by delayed discharges appear to be getting worse. An average of 13,600 hospital beds in England are occupied by patients with nowhere else to go. As well as making new admissions impossible, unnecessarily long stays can make it harder for people to regain their independence after leaving. So far, a £500m emergency fund promised by ministers to ease the pressure has failed to materialise.

It is a symptom of the social care crisis that hospitals find it so hard to discharge people who are well enough to leave. Last year, Jeremy Hunt, then chair of parliament’s health and care committee, said social care needed £7bn annually, not the £1.7bn over three years that ministers promised. Chronic workforce shortages in the sector, which are linked to funding shortfalls and inadequate pay, are one reason why social care capacity lags so far behind demand – leading to blockages throughout the health system. Currently there are an estimated 165,000 social care vacancies, after 50,000 staff quit last year.

The Guardian view on the NHS: set up to fail by being underresourced to meet demand | Editorial

Editorial: It is a symptom of the social care crisis that hospitals find it so hard to discharge people who are well enough to leave

www.theguardian.com

Hunt knows full well what needs to be done, but I don't expect him to do it in the Autumn Statement I heard someone say the other day that every £1 invested in health and social care returns £4 in growth and productivity - it's a no-brainer. The underfunding is a political choice by a party that has long wanted the markets to decide who gets healthcare and who does not

 

[42istheanswer]

There's also an element with certain parts of health and social care (particularly the preventative side) that investment now would save £20+ per £1 - but in 20 years when this lot can't guarantee to themselves that they'll be in power, and they don't want others to claim the credit so they stick with short term thinking.

If they funded childcare and youth services properly, it wouldn't only help parents to be able to work/function better - that enabling of parents to be functioning better would mean that more parents could parent "well enough" so fewer children would need to be taken into care with all the disruption to their lives that causes in the long term as well as the short term (our prisons are full of care experienced adults and prisons are a lot more expensive than parenting support!). Also if they brought back more of the youth clubs etc which have been decimated then the reduction of boredom and lack of constructive things to do for young people would contribute to reducing antisocial behaviour. Maybe not eliminate completely, as there isn't one simple solution to complex problems, but if children have difficult lives at home because of stressed, unsupported parents or carers, exposure to domestic abuse, etc and are hanging out on the streets with nowhere positive to go, and no positive interactions from youth workers engaging them in activities then they are more vulnerable to child sexual and criminal exploitation. Which then contributes to increased costs from the healthcare and social outcomes of that exploitation or antisocial behaviour.

 

[Northerner]

There's also an element with certain parts of health and social care (particularly the preventative side) that investment now would save £20+ per £1 - but in 20 years when this lot can't guarantee to themselves that they'll be in power, and they don't want others to claim the credit so they stick with short term thinking.

Which goes to illustrate that they don't 'love their country', they are just interested in retaining power