Years-long waitlists, rising illnesses, and a lack of healthcare professionals are just a fraction of the issues the UK’s NHS faces.
After the pressure of Covid–19, National Healthcare has struggled to do its job efficiently. Through several different Prime Ministers in the past few years, it still hasn’t managed to overcome these problems.
It has people asking, can we save our NHS?
A wave of critical incidents
More than 10 major hospitals in the UK had declared a state of critical incident after the winter saw an influx of flu patients.
Without enough beds and ambulances to sustain them, hospitals across the country had no choice but to admit that the rise in flu cases had overwhelmed them.
Particularly, the NHS was battling the ‘quad-demic’, a term that counts the levels of illnesses that peak through winter.
These include the Flu, Covid-19, RSV (respiratory syntactical virus), and norovirus.
Though the hospitals stood down their state of emergency, it’s ‘vital’ for staff and the community to work together.
“I think that the new ways of working have been absolutely vital in turning this critical incident around sooner this year,” said Lucy Clement, the associate director for community nursing at the Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.
“We’ve still got a long way to go, but I do believe that we’ve made some headway here.
“As soon as people come through the front door, we’re assessing their needs and trying to turn them around, back into the community services much sooner.”
The beginning of the fall
The Social Market Foundation said: “The NHS is in serious decline, plagued by extensive and deep-seated issues and facing immense pressures from the pandemic and Brexit.”
In the 2016 national referendum, the UK voted to leave the European Union (EU).
With a close vote of 51.9% wanting to leave and 48.1% wanting to remain, the UK eventually officially left the EU in 2020.
What followed can only be described as a huge shift into the unknown.
In almost all aspects of UK society — economically, politically, and socially — there was some loss and uncertainty.
We lost access to the EU’s single market, and trade routes had new barriers. Skilled workers were less able to move to the UK and work, and tensions with Northern Ireland, which disagreed with the vote, rose.
After Brexit, the NHS was impacted notably by both immediate changes and long-term ones.
Impact on recruitment
The staffing crisis was exacerbated by the fact that many EU residents weren’t willing to undergo the now longer and tougher visa process.
For existing EU staff, the political change posed uncertainty for their future.
Straining the budget
Attempting to fill the staff gaps has pushed the NHS to the limit and beyond.
Sponsoring visas and applications is one cost, as is having to rely heavily on temporary staff.
Public Health
Collaboration with health initiatives in the EU has been affected. The European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) was replaced by the UK Global Health Insurance Card (GHIC).
This new system did not offer the same level of coverage, particularly for those needing urgent medical care in the EU.
Nurses and doctors on strike
In 2022 to 2023, a series of national strikes dominated headlines, with critical staff campaigning for better working conditions.
Led by the Royal College of Nurses (RCN), who claimed that the lack of support from the government leaves wards in the hospital unsafe and understaffed.
Speaking to some of the nurses at the demonstration, they spoke about their main concerns.
“We’ve got nurses that are overworked, and we cannot safely and effectively look after relatives in the wards. We need investment in nursing,” said Roy Fletcher, a nurse on strike outside of a Dorset Hospital.
Like many other nurses, he called for support from the public, asking them to be “sensible” about calling for ambulances and going to A&E.
According to data by the British Medical Association (BMA), as of September 2024, there were 107,865 vacancies in secondary care in England.
“You need to pay nurses properly to keep them leaving the profession. In the future, it will be even worse than it is at the moment,” Mr Fletcher said.
The NHS strike action is one of the biggest in healthcare in the UK, with tens of thousands of nurses, ambulance drivers, and others having been on strike since December 2022.
Nurse Sue Miller said: “We save lives and people don’t seem to understand that. The country is more ill than it used to be.”
Solutions to save it
The UK Government, led by Labour’s Keir Starmer, has said it will invest £1.57 billion in a bid to increase appointment slots, as reported in October 2024.
This is through new buildings and new equipment and follows the years-long wait lists for people seeking treatment.
Last year, the NHS Confederation surveyed how many NHS leaders believed they were close to their targets for 2024/25.
The survey went on to detail that while long-term plans are being made, the institution is having to “make short-term cuts that will have a negative impact on their ability to improve productivity in the long term.”
In a statement, PM Keir Starmer said: “My mum worked for the NHS, my sister worked for the NHS, and my wife still works for the NHS—so I know first-hand how difficult it has been for staff and for patients battling against a broken system for over a decade.
“But it’s time to roll up our sleeves and fix it.”
The Labour Government has implemented plans to revitalise healthcare in the UK by delivering all their schemes in the New Hospital Programme.
Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said: “When I walked into the Department of Health and Social Care, I was told that the funding for the New Hospital Programme runs out in March.
“We were determined to put the programme on a firm footing, so we can build the new hospitals our NHS needs.
“Today [January 20th], we are setting out an honest, funded, and deliverable program to rebuild our NHS.”
