I agree the NHS has already collapsed but I know that because I have current experience and repeated experiences every few months for over a decade to judge the decline.
Most people do not, but they are about to this winter. Not the exceptional, unknown, unprecedented experience of Covid-19, but now that everyone is whinging about masks and not wearing them, living with covid and normalising it, they are going to see that impact of more than 1/5 of hospital beds being taken up with covid patients, even though the number dying is much lower, has on the everyday routine other interactions they had with the nhs has dramatically changed.
The WHO recommends that the safe level a health service should operate at is 83%. Even before covid the NHS was operating at over 90%. We have one of the lowest beds per 1000 capacity in the OECD and one of the lowest doctors and nurses to patient ratio in the OECD. Already. Before covid. Before Brexit.
Twice in two days I have found my 83 year old mother lying on the floor unable to get up. My disabled, paralysed dad who she cares for, on the edge of the bed trying to see how he could help get her up, risking yet another hip break like the fall he had in September came close to giving him. They had covid about a 25 days ago, it gave my mum pneumonia and it meant I and everyone else could not visit because regulations kept carers away and I have vulnerable people at work I have to balance their health with too.
I could get no one to visit. The ambulance wait was 12 hours. Not 4 hours, not 7 hours, 12 hours. When I was in A&E in September with my dad with a suspected broken hip, I got him to A&E at 12 noon. It was 6pm before he was even looked at and 9pm by the time I got him home.
I did not call the paramedics out on Wednesday night but on the Thursday morning discovering my mum prone on the floor a second time I needed her to be checked out in case it was more than just exhaustion or dehydration. The gp seemed like the best option since they know my mothers medical history best. I ended up being passed from gp who couldn’t come out, to 999 who couldn’t come out for at least 12 hours, to 111 and back around the block. So all I could do in the end was look after them, book an appointment to see the nurse practitioner - not a doctor - this morning and hope she would be well enough. Luckily the rest, liquids, food and tlc must have helped because I was able to get her there.
This is the level of response, care and support I can get for an elderly woman with two collapses and falls in 12 hours and with an elderly disabled husband she is the prime carer for and shouldn’t be left on his own for long. He is unable to feed himself, wash himself, dress himself or go to the toilet himself.
So imagine the care and response everyone else is about to get as covid progresses to soak up headroom and the strain increases and then flu season also comes along.
10 years ago things would have been a struggle but just about doable as we managed last year, but this time again is too much for too long and people will be exposed to it and wonder why, since people aren’t dying as much so covid is over isn’t it?
Oh yeah, we have 5-7 million waiting for an operation as well.
The short termism of the Tories is going to be exposed. It needs to be.
People care about the NHS. Think about London 2012. We are proud of it. When people see it how it has been left to rot, there will be a backlash and Johnson and his Party will be blamed, but people need to see an alternative with a vision. The Labour Party must step up.