IS the NHS under Too Much Strain?
Ask a Question
Nearly 1 in 5 people in England have seen NHS care given in corridors or waiting rooms— is the NHS struggling too much?


Yes it is. My yearly appointment is 9 months overdue. Same as 3 other referrals I've been waiting for over a year. The waiting time to get a Dr or dentist appointment is ridiculous

We are a bankrupt nation with interest payments on our debts becoming unmanageable. Every service is being cutback. Of course the NHS is getting worse and will likely get even worse in the future. It's the results of mismanaging the economy for over 40 years, giving away money and joining a single market we couldn't compete in. You have to tackle the issues in the economy and start paying back our debts but instead we are just getting deeper and deeper into debt. We are not the only country in this situation though, a huge number of nations have lived off debt for decades. Many people are stating the US has no chance of paying back its near $40 trillion of debt either and public services over there are collapsing too.
I watched a video on France the other day, another country with huge debts, public services collapsing and practically anarchy on the streets in Paris.
Instead of real solutions to problems we keep politicising everything and pretending we are a rich nation.

I worked for the NHS and saw so much time wasted by management that no one needed. Get rid of so many levels of management and employ more nurses.

Totally is, need to stop NHS tourists which cost the uk millions, told by their consultants surgery too expensive told to get a flight to London, then when close to landing they are taken ill rushed in mega surgery takes place then before can get insurance/payment they discharge themselves. Do we have to go more like other countries?? All I know is that the uk is close if not already at breaking point

mrsm2b2013 I am shock that the NHS doctors haven't cottoned to the behaviour of (NHS) tourists who have no intention of paying for their surgery in this country. America and Canada wouldn't even examine these tourist without proof of insurance.

Of course the NHS is under immense strain, to start with the country is over populated , add to that the aging population and people living longer, we need much more investment into health care . I do often wonder if turning back the clock would solve some of the issues. Matrons running the hospitals, GPs who actually work weekends and evenings , and less outsourcing of important facilities to private contractors.

It is. Unfortunately we’ve got Kier signing deals with Ukraine to keep sending them money instead of sorting our own problems

xKJG93 Both Tories and labour are about show politics and being part of a club of incompetent international politicians. Ultimately we have to face up to the fact we are a much, much poorer country, we can all see we aren't manufacturing like we used to and imports are everywhere. A trading deficit creates huge problems of debt and destroys public services but we have both politicians and a general population who are focused it seems on destroying their own economy.
We need to take proper control of our own economy and return to a trading surplus, there is no easy way to do this although it can be gradually phased in.

Yes it is, again my appointment has been cancelled, Nwe on its 5th cancellation, sick of this....

I think we can all agree that it is, I'm not sure what the solutions are. Thankfully that's not my job. We only ever seem to hear & complain about the negatives tho. I think it's important to tell and remember the positives of the service too. My son had a very nasty absess a couple weeks ago. He ended up feeling very poorly & was in severe pain and so was sent to A&E. We expected to wait several hours. He was seen almost immediately by a nurse. 30 minutes later by a doctor. Was given morphine and sent home with more for through the night. He was at the hospital less than 2 hours.They then rang him a few hours later to tell him his op was 7am the next day. He was home by dinnertime. Everyone was amazing and he's now pretty much healed.

Glitterandgold Yes there are still many areas of the NHS delivering great service but the reports of poor service or complete failure to provide service are increasing I would say.

As someone who works in the NHS i would say yes it is struggling, so much money is wasted by the NHS it really is shocking.
Nhs paid agencies £3.5bn from 2022-2023, the agencies charged the nhs £92 per hour for nurses and then paid the nurses around £42 per hour. As usual this is all because people in high places are allowing their friends to bankrupt this country by giving them these sorts of contracts.

I’m guessing this is a rhetorical question? Overall, it’s reported as such. But my local hospital has luckily not been in such a bad way and they’ve been able to provide treatment for patients adequately in wards

As what has been said before in a reply to many Managers!. And to many people in the county the system wasn't built for the numbers it has to deal with

I have to say I have been receiving the very best care now for just over 2 years first with an eye problem still ongoing and then lung cancer, but yes I do believe that I've been lucky, and see that there could be some cost saving, and if people live abroad, they should get their hospital treatments etc done where they live and let's stop all tourist medical treatments unless they show they can pay, they shouldn't be jumping the waiting lists, also if people go abroad for cosmetic surgery and things go wrong, they should pay at least 50% towards their costs to put it right
People have got to stop abusing the NHS, it's not a one stop shop and maybe a lot of Gps need to get back to how they were running their surgeries, ours has more Drs and nurses and admin staff in the building than they do patients, but people can't get appointments !! ? and we do need to get rid of the excess management in each and every department of the hospitals etc

maggie1979 i agree with you there. The fat cats at the top on ridiculous wages plus ludicrous bonuses- what do they actually do cos they certainly aren’t ‘balancing’ the books. They have probably never met a patient in their whole career. How can you manage such a massive business when you have no clue about what is actually going on in the real world!!!
Join for free to get genuine deals, money saving advice and help from our friendly community
Chief Bargain Hunter
