A Surgeon Writes…
An NHS surgeon who’s contributed to the Daily Sceptic before has sent us an email offering us his perspective on the current NHS ‘crisis’. It’s a reminder that even though the current pressure on the NHS cannot realistically be attributed to Covid hospital admissions – which remain at around 5% of the total – that doesn’t mean that the NHS isn’t under strain.
There are various debates about whether or not the NHS is under pressure with pundits rightly pointing out that the NHS is not under pressure due to Covid-related disease. I think at this stage this is an unhelpful diversion. The fact is there is a big problem and trying to disprove it by just looking at Covid is missing the bigger picture.
The NHS is under a lot of pressure due to processes unrelated to Covid workload. While hospitals are not yet full to the brim, the overall activity levels are higher than usual for certain regions (whether this is due to the catch-up effect, neglect, the iatrogenic effect of recent non-pharmaceutical or other interventions/measures, etc.). The main crisis is related to staffing. This labour shortage has been noted in many sectors of the economy, but the staffing crisis (mainly non-doctoral) in the NHS has been chronic and worsening for years. This year tipped the balance (psychological exhaustion, physical exhaustion, sickness absence, track and trace, etc.). In our region hospitals are routinely cancelling (relatively non-essential) surgery due to lack of staff required to either run operating theatres or wards/ancillary services. Hospitals are routinely running extra activity on Saturdays to try and catch up on cancer work. This is a weekly occurrence not limited to the place I work. Factor in the very long (self-created) waiting lists and the winter (which has not even started), and the crisis could become unmanageable.
I am pessimistic. Regardless of the Covid workload, the Government may use a real crisis in the NHS to justify more pointless non-pharmaceutical interventions and vaccine passports (complete nonsense from a medical, ethical and social perspective) out of desperation, misconception, or both.
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Did I just read “the iatrogenic effect of recent non-pharmaceutical or other interventions/measures”?
That means medics making people ill with pharmaceuticals.
That’s right, that’s how it works (unless they’ve sorted out the corruption, doesn’t look that way going off the last 18 months). See here
Big Pharma lobbyists exploit patients and doctors | The Independent | The Independent
and here.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/big-pharma-lobbyists-exploit-patients-and-doctors-9120189.html
What’s a “self-created” waiting list when it’s at home? Did the author’s skill at describing causation suddenly vanish? People should remember that the BMA is a union that represents its members, and which also serves the Big Pharma and insurance interests that lie behind the “health” system that pays its members so handsomely. It certainly doesn’t represent patients or the public good, any more than that could be said about the ICAEW or the CBI. If there were a patients’ union, we might be getting somewhere.
There is the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency (who described the pharmaceutical industry as “a formidable lobbyist with unrivalled access to policy-makers and significant influence”). See the first link in my post above. I tell you, this is what we are up against, a pharmaceutical industry acting as a political party for their own profit, and probably with more power than some governments.
On a slightly satirical note, I’ve often wondered how many lives, covid mitigation measures have actually saved from not being able to receive medical attention. 😉
I don’t think the question needs to be tempered with a “satirical” label at all.
One question I’ve wondered about for the duration has been: is the absence of early diagnosis of cancer and lack of ensuing standard treatment via chemo, rad and knife yet shown statistically to have worsened survival rates for cancer by main category types? I can’t help but feel this could be an interesting subject for an article.
I’m not sure anyone here wants to acknowledge any benefits to lockdown, hence the irony of my question.
It’s claimed the 3rd biggest killer (worldwide) is medical treatment!
After foreign governments by way of war followed closely by own government by way of internal oppression which were the two biggest killers in the 20th Century?
My father, RIP, made it his lifelong policy to avoid the NHS whenever possible. When I was younger I used to think this was foolish but in recent years I’ve come round to his way of thinking. In the last sixteen years I think I have been to see a GP twice. I don’t even know the names of my local GPs any more.
I wonder how much illness and unnecessary medication I’ve avoided as a result.
Until my recent illness this year, the only time I spent overnight in hospital was, aged about 10, when they messed up my tonselelechtomy as a day patient at the local cottage hospital. The ambulance ride was exciting though.
I bet anti depressants are being prescribed less. It’s hard enough making an appointment to see a GP when you’re down, add on how difficult GPs have made it for everyone this last 18 months and hoards of slightly down people will have avoided being pushed into the eternal battle with unnecessary medication.
well just the stress of falsely telling people they are at risk (when in reality if you’re not very old or ill already) COVID is a cold.
If there is a staffing crisis in the NHS, how much worse is it going to get when staff are dismissed because they chose not to take an experimental, (possibly) highly dangerous vaccine?
Do ya think they really care?
The Establishment certainly seems to care in their collective role of Pharmaceutical / Medical Representatives! The latest sales drive:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/advertising-blitz-to-urge-public-to-get-flu-and-covid-19-vaccines
Yet another Tsunami of advertising revenue to keep the MSM on board and off the ropes.
Thank you Dr Anonymous, always good to hear from the inside.
Yesterday I had a non-clinical appointment cancelled for today because of ‘staffing problems’. This was to be at an ancillary hospital that has never had anything to do with Covid, doesn’t even have A&E.
The staffing and capacity issues are being made worse by the Government’s coercive jab policy for NHS staff and mandatory for those working in Care Homes.
They are salivating at the prospect of introducing “vaccine” apartheid in the UK ….. my money’s on them doing it 6 weeks before Christmas to punish those who have refused to follow Orders.
Not enough time… If they instructed it, they would need to allow at least 4-6 months lead time for employers to formally consult and give notice. Besides, 6 weeks before Xmas is around 11 Nov and they’ve already got a very big problem arranged for that date (wonder what other bad news they’ll use it to hide).
I seem to have missed something….?
I am still waiting, 7 months down the line, for an answer from the Health Secretary as to why neither Antigen nor T-Cell immunity testing has been offered. (Chased repeatedly through my MP, Theresa May)
Since late July I have been asking why are NHS and Care Staff not offered immunity tests as an alternative to being jabbed. Why vaccinate someone who is already immune ??
It seems those are questions that neither the previous nor current Health Secretary are prepared (or dare) answer.
goes right to the heart of the issue – same as why can’t people have a choice between a jab or prophylactic treatment which has been studied, does work and is available but in a lot of cases has been either rubbished or supressed.
Add to that the number of NHS staff who have to self isolate on a perpetual cycle and your talking thousands of hours of paid staffing shortage
It is of course self-inflicted mayhem, but this government wants more restrictions, shortages, deprivation, illness and most important of all there must be lots of deaths. This is the real new normal and it’s otherwise known as genocide. The eugenicist-in- chief Bill Gates was here only a day or two ago, likely to make sure his sock puppet eugenicist Johnson gets on with the job.
In my own mind I have resolved that the NHS does not exist
If I can’t see a GP or visit a hospital then to me it is a nothing
What is described by others as the NHS appears to have only one function and that is to pay the wages of the people who sometimes occupy it’s buildings
I’m thinking along the same lines as I don’t think it will be available to me before too long and even now, I’ve had to pay privately to get a referral to a consultant for a problem that was eventually sorted out by a herbalist. I wouldn’t say it is nothing though, at times you want to be able to see some sort of emergency medical doctor but thankfully those times are rare and I’ve started to think about what I could do/have available at home to give myself the best outcome in that event. Being proactive and also, as you imply, resigned is quite empowering rather than fretting about having no access to medical care. I’m in my fifties and only maybe two or three times have I really needed to see a doctor, mostly things resolve themselves. Having said that some things doctors do (hip replacements for example) are life changing and not having access to that type of treatment might be a more bitter pill to swallow. I’m not sure I agree with your last statement though but the NHS does need some sort of reform but there is no appetite to do it because most people… Read more »
Save heavily and diversely the only way to Get Better is to go private.
The NHS is for THEM not you.
Unfortunately, many of the people working privately are the same ones working for the NHS. In other professions it’s called ”doing foreigners”.
‘… out of desperation, misconception…..’ or cynical adventurism in pursuit of a technocratic agenda. But nevertheless, thank you for the very accurate article.
How much of the ‘pressure’ on the NHS is due to consultants (and GPs) only working part time? I was recently ‘discharged’ from a consultant at the local eye hospital – due to pressures on the service – and referred to ‘any willing provider’ through the NHS.
On looking up the details of the new private provider I found that their staff included consultants who work (part-time) in the specialist eye unit I had just been discharged from….
Interesting concept ……
Twas always thus. A Geogian building near both our main and Nuffield hospitals has several times more door nameplates than rooms available. Presumably those Drs. named rent Consutation Rooms by the hour in which to conduct their private practise.
Not unlike a brothel in fact.
“Stay Home. Save Lives. Protect the NHS” they said.
It hasn’t worked, has it?
And yet they want to continue with the medicine that didn’t work before.
But nobody wants to talk about NHS reform. The only allowable solution is just to throw more taxpayer money at the NHS with no strings attached.
Little wonder anyone who can is deserting the NHS for private healthcare.
It’s ironic that all those within the NHS lobby shouting for lockdowns and masks and more vaccines and restrictions because they want to “protect the NHS” are actually the ones bringing about the very situation they say they want to avoid.
“anyone who can is deserting the NHS for private healthcare”
That, of course has been a prime neoliberal objective in the political attack on the NHS.
Yet the NHS itself discriminates against those who seek part private treatment while waiting for them to swing into action.
‘Regardless of the Covid workload, the Government may use a real crisis in the NHS to justify more pointless non-pharmaceutical interventions and vaccine passports (complete nonsense from a medical, ethical and social perspective) out of desperation, misconception, or both.’
Or neither. Please. Let’s stop being naive and pretending that those in positions of power are acting in good faith. Senior NHS practitioners have the power to call out measures they know are not in the best interests of patients or wider society. They must stop playing along with this charade or risk being accessories to what may in the future be viewed as crimes against humanity.
I think we’re passed the point of redemption for the NHS. Two years ago I didn’t have much to complain about with the NHS other than a few grumbles. But the organisation has been completely weaponised politically and set against the people who pay for it and need its services. And now with a combination of fear, laziness and corruption, they’re aggressively pushing for another lockdown and pushing back against their basic duties to serve the public.
And every time they inject someone with the snake oil without gaining informed consent, they’re committing a crime against humanity.
>Two years ago I didn’t have much to complain about with the NHS other than a few grumbles
I think it’s just things like this that red-pilled you to what it really is.
Ands it goes right down though the system – I’ve witnessed this amongst family members who work for the NHS. Cult-like and unquestioning acceptance of the new paradigm. Not speaking out about things they know to be wrong because their profession has been given the aura of priesthood in the new ideology.
Yes. “will use a real crisis” and “has deliberately not fixed the foreseen crisis in order to use it”.
I’m very sure I read somewhere that in the lead up to lockdown, people with positive cases of covid were being shipped from smaller communities into the larger hospitals. The media would then focus entirely on those hospitals, reporting that they’re at bursting point.
Every night for the last 5 days or more I’ve witnessed an air ambulance arriving at the hospital on the other side of town. I could set my clock by it, it’s that predictable. Last time I saw this behaviour was prior to each of the other lockdowns.
As we move closer to lockdown, the helicopter starts doing its drop-offs through the day as well – as I write this, the helicopter has literally just flown by.
My smallish local university hospital is apparently quite full but not because of local need but because they have spare capacity to treat those from other areas. Basically trying to tackle the massive waiting list.
“The NHS is under a lot of pressure due to processes unrelated to Covid workload. While hospitals are not yet full to the brim, the overall activity levels are higher than usual for certain regions (whether this is due to the catch-up effect, neglect, the iatrogenic effect of recent non-pharmaceutical or other interventions/measures, etc.).”
So it is covid related – the response to it.
It’s ironic that COVID tends to kill the old because they cannot cope with the immune systems over-activity, hopefully the NHS is old enough to die from the state’s over-response.
Why doesn’t he go public with his opinion,, we need people of his stature to speak out.
Answer, because he’ll be hounded into the ground by the woke, the cancellers and other sundry government sponsored spokesmen.
He’d be fired.
“vaccine passports (complete nonsense from a medical, ethical and social perspective)”
They are indeed complete nonsense and totally unjustifiable from a medical perspective, if not harmful (if anyone still needed to be tested, it’s only the vaxxed, which would be wrong ethically and useless medically with the kinds of tests we have).
But they are just wrong and a crime against humanity from an ethical one, and they make a lot of sense from a social perspective if, as and when authoritarian governments goals are to divide the population and to educate and punish it if it doesn’t comply.
It’s refreshing to hear someone speak the truth about the NHS. We are threatened with further restrictions because of the desperation of the establishment to save the face of this benighted organization and maintain the myth that “the NHS is the greatest gift a nation has ever given itself” – quote from Hancock’s resignation letter. It’s about time that people woke up to the fact that the NHS is not that good by international comparison on many metrics. I suspect the rot goes so deep in this organization that it cannot be reformed – pity we can’t scrap it and start again with a medically-led service, which knows its limitations, does not try to achieve the impossible and is free from interference by politicians, bureaucrats, woke warriors and the rest.
I’d describe the NHS as a subsidy to employers importing low paid workers. For everyone else it’s a loss.
You pay three times over for the NHS
Once for “you”, again for the person you’re subsidising who didn’t look after their health, and ONCE again to go private so you do get some care!
Used to instinctively condemn the US privatised system and eulogise the NHS as a model for the world. Now I look at the way certain healthcare systems in the US have been able to break free of the genocidal advice coming from the top and I’m not so sure. At this point I’d probably choose to pay for healthcare and have medical freedom. I don’t ever want to visit another British hospital or GP practice. When I took my daughter to A&E recently for a sprained wrist, I felt like I was in enemy territory.
It’s interesting that the healthcare systems which have delivered better outcomes have tended to be those which are decentralised (or perhaps overseen by decentralised governments or where public health is separated from politics). Some US states, for example, Germany has done pretty well, Sweden. Even India, which you might have expected to have had a terrible pandemic, has done well because individual states are able to set their own policies (look at Uttar Pradesh trampling on the Delta outbreak by eschewing vaccines and going for early treatment with cheap generic medicine).
As often happens, Big State, Big Government solutions have turned out to be disastrous in many places.
Fascinating comments – with hardly a mention that this is mostly a political crisis that has been building since Blair’s love-affair with neoliberal ideas that looked to milk the service, then passed back to the Tories to continue and exacerbate the problems.
Whatever your views about dependence on imported labour – a problem that could not be sorted in a short time – Brexit has been the added bit of disaster on the cake. Sorry to those with a religious view on this issue – but it was forseeable.
I’ve written previously, as a frequent flier who is dependent on the excellent service that I’ve had from the NHS (a direct contradiction to the notion that it’s all bad) that I was shocked last week to see the critical shortage even of porters.
But the point is – people can bang on as much as they like about the failings of the NHS, but the key issues at present are all political at root, and shared across the political class. Address those, and then issues of organisation become relevant.
Don’t worry, Doc. The NHS will be overwhelmed next year, as it is every year and the Government will keep chucking money at it, so the Diversity Officers have even less to do as staff numbers fall.
The NHS has been going to hell in a hand basket for quite a few years now, mainly due to a ridiculous lack of any proper joined-up thinking by much of the incompetent “management”, but it just about kept going due to the dedication of many doctors and nurses and others of some years standing, who believed the patients were most important and was often the reason they chose those careers in the first place, rather than large remuneration prospects.
Many of those have now disappeared and, in the case of doctors – GPs at least – now are well overpaid for the “value” they give to the patients and service generally.
We now see the new greed based “professionals” in action enthusiastically grabbing the filthy lucre offered to GPs, pharmacists et al, to foist the “vaccines” on any and all who will succumb meekly. To hell with any dangers and to the backlog of genuinely sick people, waiting for treatment.
I think that won’t change.
R.I.P the NHS.