Going to France to sell rubber boats by the English channel.

@AbsolutelyFabulous All I ask is that you don't report me for tax evasion

@ironborn

It is horrible. It’s collapsing in slow motion. Over 100,000 jobs are vacant at any given time, so wards run half staffed and doctors work in survival mode. The waiting list exploded past 7.6 million now, meaning people can sit months or even years for operations while emergencies pile up.

In maternity, women are told their planned caesareans will be “pushed back” a day or two sometimes even a week!!! because there’s no theatre or midwives free. 1 midw for up to 4 patients at the same time during labor and untrained doctors have to step in! That is insane to me. Not some small inconvenience, it means women with diabetes, pre eclampsia or a previous scar or any other conditions are left in dangerous limbo. For years professionals have been warning. hundreds of babies die needlessly every year because targets to improve safety were simply abandoned, not just not met, it is completely abondoned. Litigation bills now run into the tens of billions, a price for pretty preventable tragedies

In A\&E, people over there lie on trolleys for 12 hours or more waiting for a bed. Ambulances are stuck outside for over 1.6 million wasted hours a year, crews watching their patients deteriorate. It costs hundreds of lives every single week, that’s like a major disaster happening in silence, every week of the year. Other than in seminars and workshops no one actually bothers addressing it, just descriptive talking points.

As a worker in systems like that the cruelty is the helplessness. Doctors know what their patient needs but can’t deliver it because the resources simply aren’t there. And female doctors in particular carry double the suicide risk of women outside medicine, a mix of too much sexism, blame culture, and moral injury. And of course little to no psychiatric care tending to their specific conditions.

Canada and other countries have waits and shortages too, but you don’t see caesareans routinely delayed days, or hundreds of deaths every week tied directly to waiting times. That’s what makes England stand out and that's why I wouldn't like working there. it isn’t just stretched, it’s failing people in real time. There are other sever problems but I won't get to that. It would require an entire discussion, days worth. And I don't have that kind of time nor motivation.

@Miram what do you think is the underlying problem with the NHS? Is it is just not adequately funded or is it more complicated than that? Is it adequately funded but just not enough people are applying to fill the roles, and if this is an issue, what is the root cause of that? Are not enough people choosing to even enter healthcare education, to then apply for those roles? If sole, why is it unappealing to potential medical school enrollees — because of a lack of adequate funding of the system they would later be working in, or something else?

Is 100% public healthcare, totally supplanting any private sector, for-profit alternative (and completely eliminating the concept of «health insurance»), still a viable model, if it is just funded adequately? Or is any country with a perpetually fickle electorate that just continually switches (for no rational reason, e.g., just a reflexive primal urge to always punish any incumbent no matter what, including for things beyond their control, but the electorate is just too uneducated to grasp this) back and forth between conservatives and progressives in every other election always doomed to being stuck in a status quo of never achieving and sustaining progress?

@Miram thanks for very the informative response. I think we lost a lot of NHS staff post brexit, I know the hours for staff are crazy. My recent experiences with the NHS have been very good but I haven't had an emergency so uninformed. Sad times.

@V00doo I will take notes of everyone's hands just for you.

@Miram 🙏

@wildland

Jokes aside, you guys are mostly alright people.

@Miram I know. But unfortunately our last government fucked up things so badly, that any government could not make the changes people are desperate for in the short term (and it's not like the current government has not made many, many missteps).

This is all paving the way for people to think ANY party, ANYONE other than Tories or Labour is what the UK desperately needs. So the far-right Reform (brilliant name, unfortunately a brilliant politician leading them) is ready to step in and pretend to be the answer. Boy will people be disappointed.

My only crumb of comfort is that Reform have talked loudly about reforming our voting system to proportional representation, which would benefit ALL of the smaller parties. If, in the nightmare scenario they are elected in 2029, I hope they keep their promise.

Unfortunately, it wouldn't surprise me if Farage goes strangely silent on the PR issue.

@Unquestioned There is a waiting line for investors