There’s been much talk of an NHS crisis in recent months, and you can understand why. Waiting times are up across the board – as the charts below indicate.
There are more than seven million people waiting for hospital treatment. The proportion of cancer patients waiting less than 62 days for treatment after a GP referral is less than 55%. The ambulance response time for category 2 calls exceeded 1 hour 30 minutes last December. And the number of patients waiting more than 12 hours in A&E is over 30,000 – compared to zero just a few years ago.
This is despite the fact that staff numbers have been rising consistently for the past decade. Compared to 2010, there are now 17% more nurses and almost 40% more doctors working in the NHS.
Interestingly, mortality itself has not risen. We can see this by plotting the monthly age-standardised mortality rate in England as a percentage of the pre-pandemic average – that is, the average from 2015–2019.
Since the summer of 2021, the line has been pretty much flat. Mortality in England is neither worsening nor improving. The ASMR in the first five months of the year was about the same as in 2017 – which is higher than in 2014 but lower than in 2015. (If mortality were improving, the line would be trending downwards.)
This is both good news and bad. It’s good news because it means that rising waiting times and declining patient satisfaction aren’t yet translating into higher death rates. It’s bad news because it means we’ve made essentially no progress in lowering death rates for the last decade.
British living standards tell a similar story. Real GDP per capita in 2021 was barely higher than in 2007 – just before the Great Recession. So Britons are living no longer than they were in 2014 and are no richer than they were in 2007.
In the grand sweep of history, 10–15 years of stagnation isn’t particularly remarkable. But it is the longest period of stagnation since the Second World War. And one political party has been in power for most of it. While I doubt that Labour would have done a better job, the Conservatives have little to be proud of.
With death rates and living standards stagnating, the NHS in crisis and net migration running at over 600,000, you could almost say they’re doing a lousy job in Government. So as little faith as I have in Labour, I’m not surprised they’re ahead in the polls. “You’ve never had it so good”, Harold MacMillan told voters in 1957. “You’ve never had it so mediocre,” Rishi Sunak might tell them today.
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Sadly the parents of school-age children that I know recognise that terrible damage has been done but have not joined the dots and seem to “blame the Tories” without realising Labour would have been worse and that the folly and evil were global. I don’t have the energy most of the time to try and wake people up. I have very few friends left as it is.
I’ve noticed a marked tendency to mollycoddle them even more, potentially leading to even more issues as they get older. It’s only the few sparky kids (like our Jack Watson) with parents willing to stretch them who will be able to fully face the challenges of the future.
My advice to my friend was to get informed, get angry and educate her teenagers regarding the wicked ways of the world
I don’t think I convinced her
You can’t save everyone ToF; we’re focusing on what we can control, leaving the rest to it.
If you’re going to promote free speech, you need people to find the courage to speak up, but I’m not sure schools have ever been that keen on encouraging public speaking.
The UK Speechwriters’ Guild is organising a special conference for people who want to improve their public speaking and knowledge of speechwriting on Saturday 18 November in London. Students only have to pay £25 to attend.
It will include a presentation on the genius of Donald Trump, the history fo protest banners and how Shakespeare can improve your public speaking. Lockdown sceptics very welcome!
https://ukspeechwritersguild.co.uk/events/the-london-brilliant-communicators-conference/
“genius of Donald Trump”
I am surprised it hasn’t been no-platformed”
Thank you for supplying this info – (not sure why your comment would attract five downticks, particularly at this early hour … I’m assuming any mention of Donald Trump is to be punished?)
Thx for link
”I am not sure schools have ever been that keen on promoting public speaking ”
I can say from 18 years working in high schools, and lockdown made it worse; they haven’t encouraged this unless it is promotion of political or cultural bias.
However more worryingly is that the debate questions that are part of your event would never be posed in the predominant left leaning Uk education system !!!
Therefore any positive suggestion about alternative political ideology is on purpose suppressed and omitted from student discourse.
In addition I work along side 22 to 24 year old TAs and on the contrary they will speak confidently in public and post frequently with great enthusiasm about all the lefts pet virtue signalling global policies.
gender ideology TAs love speaking publicly about it!
man made climate change .. TAs they love speaking publicly about it!
misogyny TAs they love speaking publicly about it!
being vegetarian they TAs love speaking about it !
Colonialism TAs love speaking about it !
white privilege they love speaking about it!
poor George Floyd they love him!
saving lives by mask and jab action TAs they love speaking about it!
and more speech but especially in the staff room
so don’t underestimate gen Z as TAs and future teachers and teachers to not be confident to speak and especially educate the next generation in the ideological mantra.
They can and they do.
Gen Z can speak publicly about left wing ideology just fine but don’t know any alternative.