Because of the Covid backlog, millions of British patients have been waiting months for surgeries and medical examinations – with serious consequences. The government is countering this, but many Brits are at odds with their beloved National Health Service (NHS).
Because of the Corona crisis, the National Health Service is under such strain that patients often have to wait many hours for treatment, even in emergency rooms.
The list of Verity Collins’ complaints is long: the 67-year-old Englishwoman suffers from osteoporosis, arthritis, a disease of the nervous system and skin problems as a result of cancer treatment. Waiting lists are also getting longer, making it difficult for Verity to access medical services. “I’m waiting for six appointments in all,” complains the retired journalist, who lives in the Oxford area.
Since the end of the corona restrictions, the National Health Service (NHS) has experienced an influx of patients.
Also because of the high number of Covid cases, the hospitals are currently overloaded again, which translates into hours of waiting in emergency rooms. Above all, however, the specialists have to catch up on operations and examinations that they had to postpone during the acute phase of the pandemic. The waiting period varies between several weeks and several months. Verity has been waiting for an evaluation of her arthritis for over a year.
Serious consequences for cancer patients
According to Rachel Power, the director of the association Patient’s Association, the then suspension of all plannable treatments due to Covid now reveals dramatic consequences: “In England there are six million patients on waiting lists,” she explains. For more than a third, the waiting time is 18 weeks or longer. According to Power, the situation is similarly precarious in Wales and Scotland as well as in Northern Ireland, where a quarter of the population is waiting for inpatient or outpatient hospital treatment.
“Unfortunately, there are no longer any easy ways to shorten waiting times,” says Power. Rather, the capacity problems are likely to worsen massively before the backlog can slowly be reduced: Internal Model calculations by the NHS give reason to expectthat by 2024 in England alone, almost eleven million patients, or around a fifth of the population, could find themselves on a waiting list.
The problems are particularly acute with plannable surgical interventions and examinations such as X-rays or ultrasound, but also in oncology. The delays can have serious consequences, especially for cancer patients: Less than 70 per cent of NHS patients are now able to start cancer treatment within two months of being referred by their GP – which makes treatment more difficult and reduces the chances of recovery.
Accordingly, the proportion of Britons who gain faster access to health services thanks to private insurance is increasing. As well as working for the NHS, many specialist doctors and therapists reserve part of their workload for privately insured patients who have shorter waiting times.
Verity Collins also recently decided to pay for a cancer screening out of her own pocket to shorten the waiting time. “But since everything is getting more expensive, I won’t be able to afford it much longer,” she says. “Some people are already faced with the choice between a mortgage or hip surgery.”
Diagnoses via internet and telephone
Capacity problems in the NHS are not a new phenomenon. Many Britons treat the health service with a mixture of national pride and almost religious homage. The fact that medical treatment is completely free for all residents is considered a civilizational achievement. However, the health service, which is fed directly from the state budget, has been suffering from chronic underfunding and staff shortages for years, which led to waiting times even before the pandemic.
Anthony O’Conner experienced this as well. A proud resident of Manchester, the 60-year-old worked as a freelancer in warehouses, retail and as a driver until he fell ill with cancer ten years ago. Due to delays in referral from family doctor to specialist, the tumor grew in size, necessitating more drastic therapy and slowing recovery.
Anthony’s psychological problems have increased lately, as he looks back on a history of attempted suicide. Since December he has been back on a waiting list to start psychotherapy on a referral from his GP. However, many therapists currently only offer treatments via video link or telephone. Anthony would like therapy in a face-to-face meeting, which further lengthens the waiting time.
The trend towards telemedicine has also increased in overburdened family doctor’s surgeries. Patients are processed with online questionnaires and telephone diagnoses. Anthony’s partner had to use her cell phone to take and send in photographs of a painful rash on her leg, and the doctor prescribed medication for her. “It wasn’t ideal, to say the least,” says Anthony.
Government wants to expand capacities
Boris Johnson’s government has declared that it wants to reduce the backlog. The aim is for the waiting times until the next parliamentary elections to begin to decrease noticeably by the end of 2024 at the latest. Health Minister Sajid Javid wants to achieve this with efficiency gains and a temporary increase in capacity by 30 percent – which seems very ambitious. In concrete terms, a network of smaller diagnostic centers and surgery hubs that can carry out routine interventions and examinations is to be set up away from the large hospitals.
The additional costs are financed by a controversial increase in payroll taxes by 1.25 percentage points. The £12 billion a year generated in this way is to go first to the NHS and after three years to ailing old-age care. But NHS funding, which swallowed around £190billion last fiscal year, is only part of the problem. There are also almost 100,000 unfilled positions. After the Brexit vote, many continental Europeans left the island. The end of the free movement of people makes it more difficult to recruit Europeans, whereby Great Britain is now bringing significantly more migrants from outside Europe into the country for the health service.
Historic loss of confidence
Capacity bottlenecks and waiting times are not leaving the NHS untouched. At the end of March, a survey revealed that only 36 percent of Britons were satisfied with the health service – that’s the lowest value since 1997. Rachel Power from the Patient’s Association also notes a historic slump in trust: “Two-thirds of our patients no longer believe that the British healthcare system can guarantee high-quality treatment after the pandemic.”
Verity Collins believes that many Britons believe in the superiority of their healthcare system as a myth. “We have worked miracles with the Covid vaccination program,” explains the chronically ill woman. But look at the numbersthat far more patients die from medically preventable deaths in the UK than in comparable countries. “I believe the statistics much more than our politicians and their big eulogies on the NHS.”