The fall of the NHS. It seems to be the only (almost) daily occurrence in the news that is reported as a rarity. Quite dramatic, no? The one thing that the UK unified population owe their lives to, if not that then at least the way they live their lives now . I for one wouldn’t be able to be in full time higher education without the NHS paying for my various ailments and perhaps the odd hospital trip. I say with full confidence that without the NHS, life would not exist as I know it. However, even this is from a position of extreme privilege. Since the 2012 Health and Social Care Act[1], the NHS has been forced into a position of picking and choosing it’s saviours and victims. Those with the rarest conditions have been forced to fend for themselves in an oddly dystopian, capitalist pit whilst others with easily diagnosable and completely treatable (if not curable!) conditions have been left to rot in the corner during the pandemic. Our tory governments’ half-arsed and completely corrupt attempt at treating the ‘obesity crisis’[2] has only made matters worse with the icing on the cake being their previous and exponentially ongoing financial cuts to mental health services always affecting young people and those with severe learning difficulties the worst. One only has to watch one of the many 20-minute episodes of BBC’s ‘Panorama’[3] to see the damage the government does on their unfortunately all-too successful attempts to paint themselves in a good light.
So, what is it that will cause the final fall of the NHS? If a global pandemic, which at it’s peak reached death counts of over 1000 per diem is not it, then what will it be? Furthermore, what will happen when it does? Young girls stopping birth control, the vulnerable without Winter’s Flu jabs, and those without the capacity to look after themselves…what will this UK look like?
It is argued through and through (mainly by the far-right wing and their sympathisers) that the NHS is only put forward to seem as though it is on a ‘knife’s edge’, when in fact it has been performing it’s role and fulfilling the needs of the nation in this sharp state for years and years. Although, as you might guess from my introduction this is not an opinion I share, I feel it requires entertaining. Often thrown around are statistics that student suicide rates
are lower than previous numbers from the 1990s, and even lower than that of the national rate.[4] Therefore, as it is commonly inferred, the support services the NHS provides are adequate. They are gratifying their function. To that I would say that suicide rates are a poor indicator of low mental health, and actually no one has truly been able to accurately assess the horrendous damage that the various lockdowns have caused. Not to mention the systematic blaming of students and young people, stemming from Johnson’s various Daily COVID Briefing graphs[5]. So, although the pandemic caused an (at least) 18 month long exorcise in NHS energy and resources, what’s to come seems a lot worse. A never ending mental health crisis, one we have not equipped our healthcare workers nor the ‘average Joe’ for in the slightest.
Hopefully then, if you began this article with the view the NHS can continue as it is already, you have dumped this naiveté for something a little more realistic. If not, let’s add a more human aspect to the debate.
The NHS was created by a Labour government on the back end of WW2, promising to provide universal healthcare to each and every citizen. This promise of non-discriminatory healthcare was broken the moment anyone was denied protection, and has been politically, systemically and (most recently) socially broken from 2013, the moment the 2012 Health and Social Care act was instigated.
The problem is rather our framework for what it is that constitutes a failing, how it looks when a health and care system collapses[6]. This will not be the same as when a business collapses, the NHS cannot and will not just ‘stop’. The reason that health care workers get into the profession is to help. No matter how much of a break we should give these workers, they will continue throughout. In the words of Charlotte Augst,
‘Because of its incredible workforce, of the steely determination of everyone working in patient care to not give up, the NHS will never close.’
Being associated with a student pharmacy, there are countless issues that are associated with the NHS. Hearing from friends that when they have tried to seek out treatment for depression and anxiety they are met with self-help websites, and refusal for appointment bookings completely. This is the world we are looking at permanently. Wait lines getting longer, surgeries and practices closing in smaller villages, towns, and eventually cities. Generally, the medical attention being passed will disintegrate, the quality of medical attention citizens are given will degrade until deaths are caused from even more curable diseases than ever before. Simple signs are already being missed, what next?
Until we do something, this is what we are looking at. Like previously written, the fall of the NHS will not look like what we have seen before, it has already sunk. Just not everyone has drowned yet.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7su59Ds4tQ
[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-calorie-labelling-rules-come-into-force-to-improve-nations-health
[3] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-48367071
[4] https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/publications/mental-health-are-all-students-being-properly-supported/
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZBfiJ_wXJc&t=945s (15m, 45s)
[6] https://www.hsj.co.uk/quality-and-performance/the-pandemic-has-broken-the-promise-of-universal-healthcare/7029293.article