It's not just the NHS that is "broken", as I discussed here recently. Regrettably there is a corresponding lack of ANY understanding about WHY the NHS is broken, and WHAT has led to the abject failure of the NHS over the decades. The reason I put forward to answer these vital questions has been discussed regularly on this forum during the last 15 years; but (it would appear) no-where else.
Whilst most people may know that the NHS has a problem, few people seem to know, or ask about the underlying cause of that problem. Certainly no politician appears to know, not least Britain's new Labour government. And they are not alone. Every British political party is committed to "saving the NHS", and they are all are willing to throw any amount of money into propping it up. This approach is based on the assumption that there is nothing wrong with the NHS - other than underfunding. It just needs more money, more resources. This is not so.
So why don't we throw another £22 billion at the NHS, just as the government did this week - in the forlorn hope that this will be sufficient to "save" it. If, as I suspect, it proves not to be enough than more money will have to be found. This assessment of the travails of the NHS, and our knee-jerk response to them, has not changed in over 70 years!
The problem with the NHS is not resources, it is about how, and on what, they spend these resources. The NHS has long sold its soul to pharmaceutical or drug-based medicine. I have long argued this case, here and elsewhere. The drug-led approach of the NHS employs treatments that have limited, marginal effectiveness. And these limited benefits are gained only at the expense of causing serious iatrogenic harm - euphemistically called "side effects" or "adverse drug reactions" - which are really serious illnesses and diseases. The argument is not based on my personal opinion, but on the available medical literature. We only have to look at the package inserts (Patient Information Leaflets, PILs) which come with each and every pharmaceutical drug and vaccines. These drugs have been used liberally by the NHS since 1948 to treat patients. They cause disease, not least the kinds of chronic disease that is making it increasingly difficult for so many people to work, and support themselves.
In order to see how serious the problem of pharmaceutical drug-taking is, take a look at my "Iatrogenic Disease" e-book, in which I list nearly 100 serious medical conditions, and the specific drugs and vaccines that are known to cause them.
Economic Inactivity
One problem the new Labour government wants to address to get Britain working again, and to deal with the problem of long-term ill-health. The Labour party manifesto stated that after 14 years of Tory government
(2010 to 2024) large numbers of people have become economically inactive, effectively excluded from the labour market, and that nearly one million
young people were not in work, or learning, and that the economic cost of
worklessness is becoming a major issue.
Indeed, the problem is well recognised. Back in November 2023 the (then) Tory government stated there were over 1,100,000 people with long-term health problems, disabilities, or long-term unemployment. They had a plan to get them back to work, a plan focusing mainly on providing support and sanctions for anyone who were not actively looking for employment.
Now the Labour government's “Back to Work Plan” states that tackling economic inactivity is central to their number one mission: to "grow the economy". The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has stated that "rising levels of economic inactivity are unacceptable and that immediate action must be taken. 9.4 million people are now economically inactive, a record 2.8 million people are out of work due to long-term sickness, and 900,000 young people (1 in 8) are not in education, employment, and training". She continued:
“Earlier this week the Health Secretary set out how cutting NHS waiting lists will get Britain back to health and back to work, and how by taking bold action on public health we can build the healthy society needed for a healthy economy."
So the new government believes that the problem of economic inactivity is a health issue, and to deal with it they have to address the ongoing failure of the 'broken' NHS to cope with the ever-growing levels of sickness and chronic disease that are clogging up waiting lists, access to treatment, etc.
The assessment that the problem of economic inactivity is about health is undoubtedly correct; but it is the right conclusion for the wrong reason! The problem for most people who are too sick to work is not that they have been waiting too long for medical treatment. It is because the medical treatment they have received hitherto via the NHS has (i) not made them better, and (ii) caused them to be ill and/or incapacitated.
So government policy is to give the NHS more money to the NHS, so that 'economically inactive' people can be given more pharmaceutical drug treatment - in other words, more of the same. The NHS has been doing this for over 75 years, and during all this time, chronic disease, in all its many guises, have reached epidemic levels - and they continue to rise inexorably. And as our NHS has generated increasing levels of chronic disease, as its medicines have made people sicker, it is almost inevitable that more people are becoming 'economically inactive'.
Epidemic levels of chronic disease, and economic inactivity, is a secondary cost of a failed medical system. These secondary costs are not the direct cost incurred by the NHS, staff costs, premises, testing, vaccines, drug treatments, operations,and other treatments, but the unintended consequences that have arisen directly from the mal-functioning of the NHS. A few examples outlined in the above link include...
- The Arthritis epidemic that stunts people's life, makes people increasingly immobile, and prevents sufferers from working, and earning their own living.
- The Asthma epidemic that now curtails the ability of so many people to lead a full, active and independent lives.
- The Cancer epidemic that incapacitates, and cuts short the working lives of so many people, who are left requiring both increasing medical, social, and end-of-life care.
- The Diabetes explosion, alongside its many related conditions, that now incapacitates so many more people than ever before, increases their need for life-long medical and social care, and reduces their capacity for work.
The new Labour government does not understand this. Its plans for reorganising the NHS do not focus on failed medical treatment. On receiving the highly critical Darzi Report it has committed itself to three 'missions' on health:
- Moving the focus of health care from Hospital to Home: a good idea for a variety of reasons, but it does nothing to move NHS treatment away from its total commitment to pharmaceutical (drug-based) medicine.
- Moving from Analogue to a Digital record system: no doubt a positive move to ensure better communication within the NHS, but a 'mission' that has little/nothing to do with the treatment that will be offered to patients.
- Moving from a Sickness service to a Prevention service, certainly a necessary and sensible change, but not if (as I suspect) 'prevention' involves an increasing number of vaccinations, and the 'preventative' use of well-known and over-used pharmaceutical drugs like aspirin, Beta Blockers, and Statins, and many others.
So none of these three missions are designed to alter the medical treatment that is offered by the NHS. Our government will now be spending in excess of £200 billion on the NHS. And because it does not recognise the underlying problem, it will continue to be in crisis. Soon doctors will tell us yet again that they require another major increase in an "under-resourced" health care system.
It is impossible to fix anything that is "broken" unless we know how it is broken, and what has broken it. And to continue throwing resources at a "broken" system, with money being spent on the same solutions, is not just misguided it is foolish. It is the triumph of hope over experience, an abject failure to assess accurately and correctly the roots of the NHS problem.
We need an NHS that is capable of standing up to the drug companies, questioning and researching the efficacy of pharmaceutical, drug-based medicine. We need an NHS that begins to recognise (again), and focus its work on the importance of the immune system, and begins to stress (again) the importance of life-style decisions, diet and nutrition, exercise, stress management, and similar, in supporting our natural immunity. Above all, we need an NHS that is prepared to look at and compare the relative effectiveness (patient outcomes) of pharmaceutical medicine when compared to other natural medical therapies such as homeopathy, naturopathy, acupuncture, herbalism, and the like.
In fact, this has already been recognised, and recommended by a group of MP's in December 2018 when the All-Party Parliamentary group for integrated healthcare released a report which stated that changing health needs required a different approach, and recommended the greater use of complementary, traditional, and natural medical therapies "to rescue the NHS from financial crisis". Their report stated that in 70 years of the NHS there were a growing number of people suffering from long-term illnesses, and that this posed a significant threat to the future sustainability of the NHS.
The lobbying of this group was clearly, and sadly, not as powerful or effective as the Pharmaceutical lobby. Its recommendations were, however, exactly what is required to respond to the 'broken' NHS, and to address the needs of the increasing number of people who are 'economically inactive'.
Is anyone prepared to listen yet?
