The hope that health could serve as a useful shield was a strange maneuver, as the NHS is the bad news that will save the Tories in the next election. But where else can No. 10, which disabled department, turn for some good news to distract from all the other bad news? The white denial, which subverts the truth, is the way of Boris Johnson: in the questions of the Prime Minister on Wednesday, he boasted about the “fiscal firepower” of his government, just when the OECD told the world that the United Kingdom was heading towards zero growth, down league (bar Russia). When the NHS came along, he used an incredible blizzard of numbers, without expecting to be believed. Inspect its numerology for staff recruitment and reveal failure after failure. Until July, no one will wait two years for an operation! But is this a success? The Labor Party left the office with a maximum waiting period of 18 weeks. No, Covid is just one of the reasons: 4.43 million people in England were on waiting lists shortly before the pandemic struck. Johnson’s bluff infects his cabinet. Javid on Today was neither bankrupt nor prosecuted, claiming that its 48 “new” hospitals are ready by 2030. Listen carefully and there have been “hospital projects”, mainly wards and units, as only 7 3.7 billion has been recorded when a new medium-sized hospital costs εκατο 500 million. How are they doing? The government oversight body, the Infrastructure and Works Authority, downgraded the program to “orange / red”, meaning that the tradition “is in doubt with significant risks or problems evident in many key areas”, calling it seemingly “impossible”. Meanwhile, the collapsing hospitals are not hearing any news about their reconstruction. The roof of the crumbling intensive care unit at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, is collapsing for 1,500 scenes. This one hospital needs £ 862 million, but the delay costs more as construction prices rise by 24%. Anita Charlesworth, a health economist and director of research at the Health Foundation, explains the size of the NHS deficit. “Running to not stand still”, maintaining the same inadequate level of activity as in the previous decade, “would cost an extra 2 2 billion a year”, even before wage increases. Paying to keep pace with inflation would cost 7 7 billion from the current NHS budget: there is no chance. After the deepest funding in its history, with 110,000 vacancies in England, she says: “We are spending less on the NHS than their counterparts, and by the end of the decade we will be missing a quarter of our staff. the number of people over the age of 85 increases by one third “. MPs scoff as Johnson confronts Starmer for first time since censure vote – video The danger now, he says, is the bleeding of highly skilled and overworked staff at the top of their paychecks, who are drawn into easier occupations. The government has ruled out any labor force strategy, a senior Conservative official tells me, because the Treasury Department could not let people see the real state of future spending needs. The Royal NHS College of Emergency Medicine’s recent report is another grenade dropped in Health Week, showing that 25,000 beds have been lost across the UK over the past decade, causing “unsafe” bed occupancy levels with fewer beds per person in Europe. NHS beds are blocked due to lack of social care, resulting in cancellations and ambulances being stuck out of overflowing A&E. During the prime minister’s questioning, Keir Starmer hammered out the 135,000 patients who were left waiting for late cancer tests, the lack of doctors and these 48 Potemkin hospitals. The commentary wanted him to rub salt in the wounds of Johnson’s leadership, but it is the NHS delays that are causing real alarm in most households. Here’s the danger if Labor does not win the next election: years of acute underfunding in the 1990s have led to feverish debates that the 1948 system had broken down, with a crescendo of calls for insurance and renewals. In power, Labor could demonstrate how strong funding the NHS restores to health. As the prospect of power approaches, the scale of the NHS collapse may be a good pre-election issue for Wes Streeting, the shadow Labor secretary of labor, but what a nightmare to inherit. “It’s a two-year project,” he warns me. “We must start with the most urgent priorities.” And that’s the workforce, with a huge training program that promises a lot of future staff. “And wages must rise. “They give food parcels to nurses at a Colchester food bank.” For GP services, he says, “The NHS front door is broken. “The young doctors do not want to work as sole traders in a house at the bottom of the roof.” Thus, based on doctors’ networks, Labor revives the plan for local polyclinics with multiple services, including diagnostics – abandoned by the Tories. “Our National Care Service is the only way to unblock NHS beds and with good pay, training and career advancement we can attract people into care.” But last time it took many years for the Workers to repair the damage. As Health Week failed, Johnson turned to housing. But that only underlines an almost equally bad story, with equally empty promises. The Downing Street grid will continue to move from one issue to another. A crime, with the courts now closing criminal cases three years ago? Climate, with the Tory MPs tearing down the pure zero policy? Johnson will be driven back to the likes of the front page of the Tories, so expect strong and fake cultural wars that will try to fill the big gap.
