Endless cash is bad for the NHS’S health
E’VE ALL heard it so many times; one set of politicians screaming the NHS needs more money pouring into it while the other resolutely declares no one has ever spent more on it than them. However, last week the stark truth was laid bare: the NHS doesn’t need more money spent on it, in truth it needs less!
Before you decide to set about me and leave me in dire need of immediate help from the National Health Service, just consider this. We already spend around £3billion a week on it without seeming ever to address the grotesque misspending and gargantuan waste of money that is allowed to occur every single day.
Chances are, you last saw your doctor in person before Covid, and there appears little chance of that changing any time soon. We’re stuck with telephone consultations or some over the computer, despite the fact this has now been proven to have led to some diagnoses being fatally incompetent. Some doctors say this is because there is too much pressure and not enough cash to pay staff, and there we go again.
This insane notion is that any problem in healthcare can be solved by simply chucking more taxpayers’ loot at it.
But a review ordered by the Government published last week showed a tenth of prescription medicines doled out by GPS are unnecessary and have pushed the cost of drugs on the NHS to more than £9billion.
That means drugs, treatments and items that are neither needed nor ever used are costing us almost one billion pounds a year! And that’s only the figure for the doctors’ surgeries – factor in the medications handed out from hospitals and the figure is sure to rise even higher.
The report also revealed that on average, each of us gets 20 prescriptions a year and that figure has doubled in two decades.
Funny, I thought the idea of the NHS was to make us all fitter and healthier. Instead, we are creating a nation of pillpopping zombies hooked on getting any drug they can for any ill.
In fairness, some doctors point to the fact that when they try to reduce the addiction to the “pill for every ill” culture they are frequently met with refusal, or sometimes even anger, from patients.
If someone has the option of just taking a pill instead of going for long walks and cutting down on the chips, it seems they’ll nearly always opt for the easy way out.
But this cannot be allowed to continue. Aside from this ludicrous waste of our cash, the issue of the supply of NHS equipment is just as prescient.
A couple of years ago, a report estimated around 10 to 15 per cent of that spending
was unnecessary, and when you learn that walking frames, crutches, walking sticks and other items are routinely thrown away rather than being deep-cleaned and thoroughly sanitised prior to re-use, that percentage seems rather low. I’ve no doubt many of you can point to many, many
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more examples. The amount for equipment is about £20billion, so that means we’re quite literally in this instance throwing away at least another three billion pounds.
So without even trying that hard, we’ve just found the best part of £4billion in savings. Imagine how much could be wrung out if we turned the books over to successful business folk who don’t expect to be able to shake the old money tree whenever they fancy.
There is no need for more cash.the NHS finances are a suitable case for treatment – and savings that people won’t even notice would free up money to improve the pay of nurses and other key staff.
Doesn’t that make you feel better?