What has gone wrong with the NHS!
Why are we getting sicker individually, and as a nation?
Why are we suffering from increased levels of chronic disease?
And why do we face a continual resource and funding crisis?
Regular readers of my blog will know my answer to this question. The NHS is dominated by conventional medicine, itself dominated by the pharmaceutical industry, its drugs and vaccines, which are not only ineffective, but cause more sickness and disease through their side effects, adverse drug reactions. In other words, conventional medical treatment is actually causing chronic disease at epidemic levels.
However, throughout the world the conventional medical establishment goes out of its way to deny this. Actually they do not have to 'deny' anything because their is a deafening silence from doctors, governments, and our 'free' press about this possibility. Everyone comes up with other reasons, inadequate reasons that do not, and cannot explain medical failure. The failure of the medical system that dominates health care is never spoken!
The NHS was established in 1948, its aim to provide the best healthcare for everyone in Britain. The same can be said for many other national health systems set up in other countries, most of them dominated by conventional medicine in much the same way.
Everywhere, not just Britain, the excuses for the bankruptingly high costs of medical treatment, the minimal effectiveness of the treatment provided, and the failure to cope with the ever-increased healthcare demands, is the same. Recently I found these eight explanations for the ongoing failure of the NHS in Britain, although I regret to say that I have lost the original source. None of them, singly or taken together, are adequate to explain what is going wrong with our drug-dominated health services.
- People’s expectations of the service has changed. Growth in demand for healthcare services and treatments overall as people’s expectations of the healthcare services changes
The implication of this explanation is that patient expectations have risen. Yet the expectations in 1948 were high. It was thought then that if people were provided with "the best healthcare available" the cost of the service would actually reduce over time. High expectations indeed!
So is this an adequate explanation? If it is the fault lies with conventional medical establishment, at least in part. Barely a week goes by without some declaration being made about a new 'wonder' drug, a new 'miracle' cure, a treatment that will 'transform' our experience of one disease or another. Yet all that has happened over the 70 history of the NHS is that almost every chronic disease you wish to mention has grown to unprecedented, epidemic levels!
And the treatments offered have become ever more extreme. Conventional treatment, based on pharmaceutical drugs, cannot deal effectively with joint pain, the drugs used are toxic, so instead of treating a condition, the limb itself ultimately has to be replaced. Limb replacements operations are wonderful technical achievements, but they are necessary only because of medical failure. Similarly, conventional medicine cannot deal with progressive organ failure, so ultimately we now rely on surgeons to get rid of our diseased organs, and replace them with another. Again, brilliant technical achievements, each and every one, but based on medical failure.
So yes, expectations have risen. There are many more examples. Patients are offered, and then demand more of these kind of treatments, at enormous cost to the NHS. But is it good health care, based on an effective medical system?
- The population of the UK has grown by 5.7 million since 2004.
In 1948, the population of the UK was just over 50 million. In 2004 it was just over 59 million. In 2016 it was about 63.5 million. So, does a 30% rise in population over 70 years explain the exponential growth in NHS expenditure? This growth, averaging about 4% annually, can be seen in this Nuffield Trust webpage, both in terms of expenditure, and proportion of national income. Yet despite large annual increased spending on the NHS, it continually fails to cope with the increased levels of sickness and disease it faces.
- An ageing population is placing additional demands on services.
This reason is regularly cited by conventional medical spokespersons to explain the reason for NHS failures. I have blogged before about the NHS trying to place the blame for its constant state of crisis on older people. Increased levels of sickness are not confined to older people. And diseases that were once associated with old age, like cancer and dementia, are now affecting much younger people, including children.
- As the population of the UK has grown, demand for GP services has increased. Often resulting in long waiting times for patients to see their GP, despite GP numbers increasing by 33% since 2004.
This is a description of the crisis, not an explanation for the crisis!
- Lack of patient engagement.
I am not sure why this should be an explanation for the continual crisis in NHS funding and performance. I suspect that conventional medicine gains the level of patient engagement that it asks for. Certainly, most alternative medical therapies ask for much more because treatment is considered to be a joint enterprise. Conventional doctors routinely rely on medical testing to diagnose and treat illness, tests that do not require patient engagement.
- More and more people have become reliant on prescription drugs for a 'quick fix'.
This is certainly true, not least because for decades the conventional medical establishment has implied that good health emanates from a bottle of pills, 'wonder' drugs, and 'miracle' cures.
- Too many people are relying on the NHS for self-treatable conditions. We no longer believe or understand that often simple changes to diet and lifestyle can have a positive impact on our health and help us take control of our own health.
Good health has always been largely in our own hands, and this is recognised by all alternative medical therapies. It has been the arrogance of conventional medicine alone that has taught people to believe that doctors can cure ill-health. Now, when most of the pills are not working, and/or they are known to be harmful to our health, this understanding is returning - and the medical establishment wants to blame patients!
- Rising levels of complex chronic diseases and conditions that require long-term management of chronic disease
The rising levels of chronic disease and conditions is the main symptom of conventional medical failure. At least this reason recognises that there has been a significant rise in chronic disease throughout the years of conventional medicine's domination of health care services.
The tragedy of presenting this as one of the reasons for the continuous failure of the NHS is its failure to recognise that the rise of chronic disease has been caused by conventional medicine, and in particular by the pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, it has championed. By denying this association the conventional medical establishment abandons any hope, and chance of putting the situation right.
Making these lame excuses for medical failure prevents the conventional medical establishment from investigating and understanding the real reason for medical failure.
So conventional medicine can, and will never learn!
Ultimately, conventional medicine is doomed to failure, its only option to continue making demands for more resources, more money, more of everything - for more of the same treatments that have been making us sicker for over 70 years.
