Massive recruitment announcements, investment of three billion euros… Despite these advances, a very detailed report warns of the overall poor health of the health sector in the United Kingdom.
This is one of the current priorities of the British government: to restore the health services. The government has just announced a plan which it describes as “historic”, which includes the recruitment of 300,000 people over the next 15 years to deal with chronic understaffing. This represents an investment of nearly three billion euros also to try to solve the serious difficulties of the sector.
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So many announcements made while a disturbing report has just been published: people die earlier from cancer and heart disease in the United Kingdom than in other rich countries, according to this very detailed investigation by the King’s Fund. The health services of 19 countries are thus compared in this document and the result is very bad for the British. This results in avoidable deaths: people who have an accident and who do not survive their injuries because of faulty care, or who suffer from illnesses that we know how to treat, but who do not receive not the right treatment in time or who is diagnosed too late.
In these 118 pages, we learn that the United Kingdom appears at the back of the pack, far from France for example, on the effectiveness of its health services, in particular when it comes to prevention. In the event of a stroke or heart attack, the risk of dying is higher here than in Portugal, Denmark or the Netherlands. Only the United States does less well. Another element: the proportion of doctors in relation to the general population is lower in the United Kingdom than in New Zealand, Belgium, Sweden or Germany. And on investments in public health, the country is among the bottom of the class, far from Austria for example.
Anger and despair
A survey that causes concern for patients, of whom more than seven and a half million are waiting for an appointment, but also for the nursing staff who oscillate between despair and anger, such as that of the interns, who will put themselves in strike for five days this month. Never seen. They want salary increases and they will be imitated by the doctors a few days later for 48 hours of action with the same demand. Strikes that will deeply disrupt an already difficult service.
And then the nursing staff suffers. The latest absenteeism figures prove it: in 2022, it is the equivalent of 75,000 employees lost in sick leave. Main causes: psychological problems (overwork, depression in particular), flu, infectious diseases, breathing difficulties. Never had there been so many work stoppages for these reasons.
The nursing staff does not digest the post-pandemic. The waves of Covid have overwhelmed him several times. There have been many political promises for better working conditions and more jobs. So far without effect. On the contrary, it is a real haemorrhage in public health. Many departures, difficult to replace. This is a sector that no longer attracts, and all this news obviously does not help.