Prime Minister Rishi Sunak does not want to raise the salaries of nurses, but wants to make use of artificial intelligence.
The National Health Service (NHS), a public healthcare system that is very important to the British but struggling in the grip of a crisis, turned 75 on Wednesday. The NHS is the first free healthcare system in the western world, but for at least the last ten years it has suffered from problems exacerbated by the Covid pandemic.
The collapse of the NHS has been blamed on the coalition government’s austerity program in the early 2010s. According to a recent study, the savings increased waiting times and lowered the standard of care, which has since declined steadily, The Guardian tells. There are currently more than seven million people in the queue.
Prime minister Rishi Sunakwhose own parents worked in the NHS, recently revealed a 15-year plan to recruit hundreds of thousands of healthcare workers.
– Millions of NHS workers have been doing their jobs every minute of every day for 75 years. I thank them on behalf of a grateful nation, Sunak said last week.
British esteem for the NHS has been described as religious, with public support for the system higher than that of, say, the royal family. The NHS has often been featured at major events such as the Queen Elizabeth’s at the funeral where NHS nurses and doctors followed the Queen’s coffin.
Sunak does not want to raise wages
Britain spends almost 12 percent of its budget on health care. It is the largest single item of expenditure in the budget. Despite this, there have been problems in detecting cancers, for example, due to the lack of the necessary equipment.
In addition, nurses and doctors, discouraged by the problems, have gone on strike for better pay.
of The Guardian according to more than 27,000 nurses and midwives left their jobs last year. Most cited the burden of the job as the reason, and some cited the level of care the patients received as the reason. Now there are approximately 40,000 nurse and 8,000 doctor positions open. Like Finland, Britain increasingly relies on nurses hired from abroad. However, Brexit has hindered the recruitment of nurses from abroad, and fewer and fewer nurses have come to the country.
Sunak has opposed demands for a salary increase. However, he is of the opinion that the NHS needs modernization with the help of technology, including artificial intelligence.
Citizens want free services
A recent report by the charity King’s Fund compared Britain’s health care system with the systems of 19 similar countries. According to the comparison, strokes killed the most people in Britain, for example, and heart attacks the second most. According to the report, the NHS has four times fewer intensive care units than, for example, Germany.
According to opinion polls, citizens do not support a model in which they would pay part of their treatment themselves through insurance. According to a survey of 3,000 people last year, 93 per cent of respondents wanted to keep NHS services free and fund them with tax money. On the other hand, 51 percent of the survey respondents were dissatisfied with the level of care they received and especially with the length of waiting times.
Minister of Health Maria Caulfield however, believes the NHS will be thriving in 25 years’ time. According to him, waiting times can still get longer before they get shorter.
Chairman of the Council of the British Medical Association Philip Banfield not convinced though.
– The government must show that it is not going to destroy the NHS. That’s the most common concern for doctors and patients, Banfield said this week of The Guardian in the interview.