The NHS is in trouble. It needs our help and support now.

Time to make some noise. The NHS and healthcare staff need our help and we must all fight for them. Demand your right to have your money spent directly to secure access to basic healthcare.

To those that use the NHS, you will have no doubt heard about the pressures on the NHS just now. It is true, we are worried. We have begun this Winter under considerable strain – more than usual. And, I won’t lie, we expect things to get worse.

We always decide based on clinical need, not on who can afford it or who knows who. It is the simplest part of my job in that way: the medicine decides, not the managers. But, how unwell someone has to be to gain entry to the current, rationed service is getting too grave.

No doubt you will also have heard about the NHS being sold off to private companies. That there is a concerted effort to defund the NHS and reduce the quality of care provided... to make you unhappy with the service and embrace a newer, profitable service.

I do agree with the choice: private versus public. There are arguments for each. But at the moment, the NHS is all we have. Private healthcare could not cope with one-tenth of the demands just now. And, in my opinion, failing to invest in our health service now, is unforgivable.

Today, the budget will announce a nearly £6bn investment in the NHS. Please, look at the details. It is not to benefit those sicker patients, who need more nurses, more beds, more GPs, more access. I am quite sure it won’t even help reduce the waiting lists.

Over half the money will go to industry for new technologies and new diagnostic machines, which while potentially useful, will not make our health service safer or actual treatments more accessible. I fear we may be heading toward a repeat of the Test and Trace failure... £37billion spent outside the NHS, to provide a service that failed to provide any significant benefit for the public. A lot of public money, your money, spent without a coherent, clinically justified plan. The entire primary care budget for England is £12bn.

Our focus must be on the national crisis. Bed capacity is lower than before the pandemic started, there are less frontline staff, less GPs and diminishing investment. The private sector isn’t ready and we need a functioning health service.

So, what to do?

Make some noise! On any platform.

Demand your right to have your money spent directly to secure access to basic healthcare. Demand better focus from our representatives.

This is my noise.

Simply put, WE NEED YOUR HELP... so we can keep helping you.

Sources

• Text: This piece was first published as a Twitter thread and turned into the above article on 27 October 2021 with the purpose of reaching a larger audience. It has been minorly edited and corrected, and published with the author’s consent. | The author of the tweets writes in a personal capacity.
• Cover: © Gary Hider | Dreamstime.com