3 ms·

Why is this happening? In the USA, folks with no insurance go to the ER because they're obliged to treat everyone whereas an "urgent care" can claim you issue i

Why is this happening? In the USA, folks with no insurance go to the ER because they're obliged to treat everyone whereas an "urgent care" can claim you issue isn't life threatening. (Then someone down on their luck can get ill and die from lack of antibiotic or a small wound infection.) Does something similar happen in England, or are they just extremely short staffed?

oriettaxx 4y ago
I think people working in Health Service have had just enough: you can fool them for some time, but you cannot fool them all the time: now that is not covid emergency anymore, they are just taking more care for themselves
gmac 4y ago
Almost all healthcare is free, so this is not the main mechanism. If people can't get a GP appointment soon enough, they might turn up at A&E (ER). But mainly, the problem is long-term underfunding and understaffing (exacerbated by Brexit). Check this excellent thread: https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1606223922474627073 https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1606223922474627073
DanBC 4y ago
Hospitals should run at something like an 80% capacity. This allows safety and flexibility in the system. UK politicians have spent the past ten years talking about "efficiency savings" (meaning real term cuts), and so now the system is running normally at 90-95% capacity. And then you have something like COVID, combined with a bad flu season, combined with a bad respiratory illness season for young people, combined with a cold snap where councils didn't de-ice pavements, combined with Brexit meaning many staff have left, combined with years of defending of social care: All of these mean we have older, iller people in hospital, we can't get them out of acute hospital and into care / nursing homes because those don't exist anymore, we can't get them back to their own home with paid carers because all those staff left in Brexit. That means when someone is in ED and needs a bed there isn't one, and when someone is in an ambo and needs to get into ED they can't because there's no space, and when they're on the floor at home after a fall and need an ambo there are no ambos because they're all queueing at the ED. For years in England we've pushed risk onto ambo staff, and this year we've finally said acute hospitals have to share that risk, so we're seeing the inevitable results of over-crowding and over-full hospitals. And this is all entirely predictable and preventable - people have been describing FOR YEARS exactly what would happen and how it would happen and even when it would happen, and now it's happening. The blame lies squarely with a Conservative government that doesn't believe in tax funded public services and which has decided to cut as much as it can.

oriettaxx 4y ago

I think people working in Health Service have had just enough: you can fool them for some time, but you cannot fool them all the time: now that is not covid emergency anymore, they are just taking more care for themselves

gmac 4y ago

Almost all healthcare is free, so this is not the main mechanism. If people can't get a GP appointment soon enough, they might turn up at A&E (ER). But mainly, the problem is long-term underfunding and understaffing (exacerbated by Brexit). Check this excellent thread: https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1606223922474627073 https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1606223922474627073

DanBC 4y ago

Hospitals should run at something like an 80% capacity. This allows safety and flexibility in the system. UK politicians have spent the past ten years talking about "efficiency savings" (meaning real term cuts), and so now the system is running normally at 90-95% capacity. And then you have something like COVID, combined with a bad flu season, combined with a bad respiratory illness season for young people, combined with a cold snap where councils didn't de-ice pavements, combined with Brexit meaning many staff have left, combined with years of defending of social care: All of these mean we have older, iller people in hospital, we can't get them out of acute hospital and into care / nursing homes because those don't exist anymore, we can't get them back to their own home with paid carers because all those staff left in Brexit. That means when someone is in ED and needs a bed there isn't one, and when someone is in an ambo and needs to get into ED they can't because there's no space, and when they're on the floor at home after a fall and need an ambo there are no ambos because they're all queueing at the ED. For years in England we've pushed risk onto ambo staff, and this year we've finally said acute hospitals have to share that risk, so we're seeing the inevitable results of over-crowding and over-full hospitals. And this is all entirely predictable and preventable - people have been describing FOR YEARS exactly what would happen and how it would happen and even when it would happen, and now it's happening. The blame lies squarely with a Conservative government that doesn't believe in tax funded public services and which has decided to cut as much as it can.