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I’ll need to sit down and read this properly, but I would say there is a real stench of decline in England at the moment and pretty much everyone here would agr

I’ll need to sit down and read this properly, but I would say there is a real stench of decline in England at the moment and pretty much everyone here would agree. It’s readily apparent the new government won’t save us already. Public services in particular: 2 weeks to see a Dr, a year for an operation, unlikely for the police to attend your call out, stagnant economy, high cost of living and low wages. And all whilst we have one of the highest tax burdens in our history.

neilo40 2y ago
Same in Scotland. And our tax burden is even higher (if you’re a middle or high earner at least)
ta1243 2y ago
I've been to my GP half a dozen times in the last year, always same day. Last time I went I was sent for a chest x-ray, which wasn't done at the GP, I had to drive to the place and wait 40 minutes for that, bit of a pain. Main problem I see is housing. It drags the entire economy -- people are living in overcrowded, people in their 30s living with parents etc. Anyone living on their own sees all their income drained by landlords, who then pump it into ever increasing housing costs as they out-bid each other. Anyone else never becomes an adult and pumps their money into things like onlyfans and coke.
- dash2 2y ago
  >I've been to my GP half a dozen times in the last year, always same day. Good for you, but I think that is absolutely not the typical UK experience.
  - tonyedgecombe 2y ago
    It is for us. Our surgery has a triage system where you phone in the morning and if you need an appointment you get it the same day. I don't think it's that uncommon. The problems are mostly concentrated in the poorer areas where they struggle to attract staff.
    - benjaminwootton 2y ago
      We have to call at 8am along with the hordes. If your call isn’t answered by 8.05am then you are out of luck. If you eventually do get through then you’ll be given an appointment with a “nurse practitioner” in a weeks time. I’ve heard about these things called GPs but haven’t personally confirmed their existence.
- apwell23 2y ago
  > GP half a dozen times in the last year, you are going to GP every two months? Usually you get referred to a specialist if you are that sick.
- Nextgrid 2y ago
  > Anyone living on their own sees all their income drained by landlords The entire country's economy feels like a property-indexed Ponzi scheme, with everyone (including the government) rather keep fueling the ponzi as long as possible rather than breaking it up.
card_zero 2y ago
Quack medicine products used to be sold (and sometimes still are) by asking in adverts "do you feel vaguely unwell?" and promising to vaguely cure the condition. Similarly, it's easy to sell the public on a vague sense of national decline, and this is a long-standing key part of populist politics.
- barry-cotter 2y ago
  British GDP per capita has been flat since 2008 while the US’ has gone from $49K to $81K. The UK has declined in relative terms compared to what used to be a near peer.
  - card_zero 2y ago
    It may also be true that there's a national decline, I'm just saying to be very cautious about getting swept up in the idea. For instance, apparently America needs to be Made Great Again, facts notwithstanding.
    - regularfry 2y ago
      Certainly one should take TFA with a pinch of salt rather than at face value. It is incredibly partisan.
barry-cotter 2y ago
> real stench of decline in England at the moment Real GDP per capita has been flat since 2008 while official population figures show population has increased by 10m. Total failure to grow the economy in 14 years of Tory rule and Labour aren’t exactly showing signs of having ideas to grow either.
stef25 2y ago
It's hard to understand how people view the NHS. Some people claim it's the national treasure, but how does that work if service is as abysmal as what you describe ?
- fidotron 2y ago
  The local variation is incredible. Where I am from the village health services act as gatekeepers for the more central services. Just in my direct circles I know of several situations where the central services gave the village services an earful for failing to refer people faster, in at least one case directly leading to death. Those central services also seem to get further away every few years.
- cja 2y ago
  It's the national religion.
- whywhywhywhy 2y ago
  It's because the experience you get is completely random and heavily weighted towards the fatal. If you show up with something life threatening they're actually pretty good. But your experience of non-life threatening can be anything from good, to indifference/boredom to aggressive dismissal. This also applies to things that could be markers of something fatal, analogy would be they do little when smoke is coming out from under the door but do jump into action when the flames are coming out from under the door. Most of the interactions start on off the foot that you're assumed to be a timewaster too. Keep begging my parents to just go private because I don't like trusting their lives to the random chance they have a good doctor when I can instead have one incentivized by their continued existence.
  - otoburb 2y ago
    Your description of the NHS sounds exactly like the Canadian healthcare system. >>Keep begging my parents to just go private [...] Except for this difference as we don't have the option to choose private care except for a out-patient services (e.g. physical therapy) and certain drugs & therapies. I'm speaking primarily about Ontario and British Columbia, but I think the other provinces and territories are similar. Hospitals, diagnostic services and physicians are all funded by public taxpayer dollars at both the provincial and federal level, but it is indeed a single healthcare system.
apwell23 2y ago
> 2 weeks to see a Dr, a year for an operation Its the same in USA if you want to see a specialist. There is a worldwide shortage of qualified doctors. I waited about 1.5yrs to get a routine endoscopy at northwestern hospital in chicago. We've gone to northwestern in downtown for decades and have never seen waits this bad.
- diggan 2y ago
  > There is a worldwide shortage of qualified doctors. I'm not sure you can extrapolate that it's worldwide because things are the same in UK and US. FWIW, I had surgery in Spain recently and had to wait like two-three months tops. Probably depends a lot on the type of surgery and how urgent it is.
  - apwell23 2y ago
    yea could be my specific hospital. I've heard from indian colleagues that if you sprain your ankle you can see someone immediately but if you get cancer and need to specialist then you are competing with thousands of ppl to see that doctor.
  - gramie 2y ago
    My brother had a hip replacement in Paris this week. He booked the operation two weeks ago. His angiogram (required for the surgery) was performed 3 hours after his consultation with the surgeon. The clinic is considered the best one specializing in joint replacement surgery in all of France. Total cost for surgery, follow-up, and 3 days in hospital (he lives in a French Overseas Department so he gets reimbursed): 18,000 Euros.
    - kasey_junk 2y ago
      How are you calculating the total cost?
- ethbr1 2y ago
  Ironically, a lot of the US medical professional problem mirrors housing -- supply limited by fiat, to the advantage of existing suppliers. https://www.medicaleconomics.com/view/match-day-2023-a-reminder-of-the-real-cause-of-the-physician-shortage-not-enough-residency-positions https://www.medicaleconomics.com/view/match-day-2023-a-remin...
PaulRobinson 2y ago
I don't agree, and your data points don't match my own. How is it readily apparent the new government won't "save us" when they haven't even got to 100 days in, yet?
- tempfile 2y ago
  It's not readily apparent, it's just FUD to lay the ground for the tories to come back. They're all the same, after all :-)
kjellsbells 2y ago
> It’s readily apparent the new government won’t save us already. I dont follow this line of reasoning too well. The conservative party was in power for fourteen years, 2010 to 2024. The new Labour government has been in power for less than fourteen weeks. Isnt it too soon to make any claims about their performance fixing the structural issues identified in this report?
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  Maybe but probably not by this point. If Starmer were engaged and keen to fix these problems, he would have clearly articulated the problems outlined on the website, stated a plan to solve them and now be doing things to advance it. What he's actually done is the opposite. For example, the website makes the point that British governments often don't do enough capital investment so state-controlled infrastructure rots away. Instead spending rises get used to buy off unions. Sure enough, within just months of Labour coming into power it's already handed out around £10 billion/yr worth of pay rises: https://inews.co.uk/news/public-sector-pay-deals-cost-3230746 https://inews.co.uk/news/public-sector-pay-deals-cost-323074... This type of behavior led to pay spirals in the 60s and 70s. We see this problem elsewhere. Labour's plan to build new prisons is simply to override local councils that are blocking planning applications, but that won't yield funds for actually building them. Where's the capital going to come from in a government that capitulates immediately to union pay demands, and which is already financially over-stretched? To do this they would need to make major cutbacks in other areas, but they have no plans to do this.
thorin 2y ago
I've been able to see a Dr on the day I've called several times in the last couple of years. Operations happen reasonably quickly if they are "required", it's the non urgent ones that now have ridiculous waiting lists. The economy/wages issue, seems to be worldwide since covid and the various recent wars. The new Government has had no real time to do anything yet everywhere on twitter/fb I see hundreds of people complaining, who didn't do enough complaining in the last 14 years. What happens with the current Government is yet to be seen, but it's certainly difficult to make any meaningful change in a single term.
physicsguy 2y ago
> And all whilst we have one of the highest tax burdens in our history. It's easy to have a low tax base when you subsidise the state spending with North Sea Oil from the 80s onwards... Prior to that we had really bad balance of payments crises from the Second World War onwards as the empire fell apart. Low and middle earners in the UK pay pretty much the lowest taxes in Western Europe. We've eroded our tax base all over the place and somehow expect European services.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

neilo40 2y ago

Same in Scotland. And our tax burden is even higher (if you’re a middle or high earner at least)

ta1243 2y ago

I've been to my GP half a dozen times in the last year, always same day. Last time I went I was sent for a chest x-ray, which wasn't done at the GP, I had to drive to the place and wait 40 minutes for that, bit of a pain. Main problem I see is housing. It drags the entire economy -- people are living in overcrowded, people in their 30s living with parents etc. Anyone living on their own sees all their income drained by landlords, who then pump it into ever increasing housing costs as they out-bid each other. Anyone else never becomes an adult and pumps their money into things like onlyfans and coke.

dash2 2y ago
>I've been to my GP half a dozen times in the last year, always same day. Good for you, but I think that is absolutely not the typical UK experience.
- tonyedgecombe 2y ago
  It is for us. Our surgery has a triage system where you phone in the morning and if you need an appointment you get it the same day. I don't think it's that uncommon. The problems are mostly concentrated in the poorer areas where they struggle to attract staff.
  - benjaminwootton 2y ago
    We have to call at 8am along with the hordes. If your call isn’t answered by 8.05am then you are out of luck. If you eventually do get through then you’ll be given an appointment with a “nurse practitioner” in a weeks time. I’ve heard about these things called GPs but haven’t personally confirmed their existence.
apwell23 2y ago
> GP half a dozen times in the last year, you are going to GP every two months? Usually you get referred to a specialist if you are that sick.
Nextgrid 2y ago
> Anyone living on their own sees all their income drained by landlords The entire country's economy feels like a property-indexed Ponzi scheme, with everyone (including the government) rather keep fueling the ponzi as long as possible rather than breaking it up.

card_zero 2y ago

Quack medicine products used to be sold (and sometimes still are) by asking in adverts "do you feel vaguely unwell?" and promising to vaguely cure the condition. Similarly, it's easy to sell the public on a vague sense of national decline, and this is a long-standing key part of populist politics.

barry-cotter 2y ago
British GDP per capita has been flat since 2008 while the US’ has gone from $49K to $81K. The UK has declined in relative terms compared to what used to be a near peer.
- card_zero 2y ago
  It may also be true that there's a national decline, I'm just saying to be very cautious about getting swept up in the idea. For instance, apparently America needs to be Made Great Again, facts notwithstanding.
  - regularfry 2y ago
    Certainly one should take TFA with a pinch of salt rather than at face value. It is incredibly partisan.

barry-cotter 2y ago

> real stench of decline in England at the moment Real GDP per capita has been flat since 2008 while official population figures show population has increased by 10m. Total failure to grow the economy in 14 years of Tory rule and Labour aren’t exactly showing signs of having ideas to grow either.

stef25 2y ago

It's hard to understand how people view the NHS. Some people claim it's the national treasure, but how does that work if service is as abysmal as what you describe ?

fidotron 2y ago
The local variation is incredible. Where I am from the village health services act as gatekeepers for the more central services. Just in my direct circles I know of several situations where the central services gave the village services an earful for failing to refer people faster, in at least one case directly leading to death. Those central services also seem to get further away every few years.
cja 2y ago
It's the national religion.
whywhywhywhy 2y ago
It's because the experience you get is completely random and heavily weighted towards the fatal. If you show up with something life threatening they're actually pretty good. But your experience of non-life threatening can be anything from good, to indifference/boredom to aggressive dismissal. This also applies to things that could be markers of something fatal, analogy would be they do little when smoke is coming out from under the door but do jump into action when the flames are coming out from under the door. Most of the interactions start on off the foot that you're assumed to be a timewaster too. Keep begging my parents to just go private because I don't like trusting their lives to the random chance they have a good doctor when I can instead have one incentivized by their continued existence.
- otoburb 2y ago
  Your description of the NHS sounds exactly like the Canadian healthcare system. >>Keep begging my parents to just go private [...] Except for this difference as we don't have the option to choose private care except for a out-patient services (e.g. physical therapy) and certain drugs & therapies. I'm speaking primarily about Ontario and British Columbia, but I think the other provinces and territories are similar. Hospitals, diagnostic services and physicians are all funded by public taxpayer dollars at both the provincial and federal level, but it is indeed a single healthcare system.

apwell23 2y ago

> 2 weeks to see a Dr, a year for an operation Its the same in USA if you want to see a specialist. There is a worldwide shortage of qualified doctors. I waited about 1.5yrs to get a routine endoscopy at northwestern hospital in chicago. We've gone to northwestern in downtown for decades and have never seen waits this bad.

diggan 2y ago
> There is a worldwide shortage of qualified doctors. I'm not sure you can extrapolate that it's worldwide because things are the same in UK and US. FWIW, I had surgery in Spain recently and had to wait like two-three months tops. Probably depends a lot on the type of surgery and how urgent it is.
- apwell23 2y ago
  yea could be my specific hospital. I've heard from indian colleagues that if you sprain your ankle you can see someone immediately but if you get cancer and need to specialist then you are competing with thousands of ppl to see that doctor.
- gramie 2y ago
  My brother had a hip replacement in Paris this week. He booked the operation two weeks ago. His angiogram (required for the surgery) was performed 3 hours after his consultation with the surgeon. The clinic is considered the best one specializing in joint replacement surgery in all of France. Total cost for surgery, follow-up, and 3 days in hospital (he lives in a French Overseas Department so he gets reimbursed): 18,000 Euros.
  - kasey_junk 2y ago
    How are you calculating the total cost?
ethbr1 2y ago
Ironically, a lot of the US medical professional problem mirrors housing -- supply limited by fiat, to the advantage of existing suppliers. https://www.medicaleconomics.com/view/match-day-2023-a-reminder-of-the-real-cause-of-the-physician-shortage-not-enough-residency-positions https://www.medicaleconomics.com/view/match-day-2023-a-remin...

PaulRobinson 2y ago

I don't agree, and your data points don't match my own. How is it readily apparent the new government won't "save us" when they haven't even got to 100 days in, yet?

tempfile 2y ago
It's not readily apparent, it's just FUD to lay the ground for the tories to come back. They're all the same, after all :-)

kjellsbells 2y ago

> It’s readily apparent the new government won’t save us already. I dont follow this line of reasoning too well. The conservative party was in power for fourteen years, 2010 to 2024. The new Labour government has been in power for less than fourteen weeks. Isnt it too soon to make any claims about their performance fixing the structural issues identified in this report?

mike_hearn 2y ago
Maybe but probably not by this point. If Starmer were engaged and keen to fix these problems, he would have clearly articulated the problems outlined on the website, stated a plan to solve them and now be doing things to advance it. What he's actually done is the opposite. For example, the website makes the point that British governments often don't do enough capital investment so state-controlled infrastructure rots away. Instead spending rises get used to buy off unions. Sure enough, within just months of Labour coming into power it's already handed out around £10 billion/yr worth of pay rises: https://inews.co.uk/news/public-sector-pay-deals-cost-3230746 https://inews.co.uk/news/public-sector-pay-deals-cost-323074... This type of behavior led to pay spirals in the 60s and 70s. We see this problem elsewhere. Labour's plan to build new prisons is simply to override local councils that are blocking planning applications, but that won't yield funds for actually building them. Where's the capital going to come from in a government that capitulates immediately to union pay demands, and which is already financially over-stretched? To do this they would need to make major cutbacks in other areas, but they have no plans to do this.

thorin 2y ago

I've been able to see a Dr on the day I've called several times in the last couple of years. Operations happen reasonably quickly if they are "required", it's the non urgent ones that now have ridiculous waiting lists. The economy/wages issue, seems to be worldwide since covid and the various recent wars. The new Government has had no real time to do anything yet everywhere on twitter/fb I see hundreds of people complaining, who didn't do enough complaining in the last 14 years. What happens with the current Government is yet to be seen, but it's certainly difficult to make any meaningful change in a single term.

physicsguy 2y ago

> And all whilst we have one of the highest tax burdens in our history. It's easy to have a low tax base when you subsidise the state spending with North Sea Oil from the 80s onwards... Prior to that we had really bad balance of payments crises from the Second World War onwards as the empire fell apart. Low and middle earners in the UK pay pretty much the lowest taxes in Western Europe. We've eroded our tax base all over the place and somehow expect European services.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]