I love the NHS but is it broken?

Or you could just have the right number of gps for the population they are expected to see.

But there’s a crisis in recruiting GP’s and more leaving the country / taking early retirement than are being replaced.

which is back to pay & conditions and lack of investment in primary care instead of secondary services as mentioned above…

they have the magic money tree

Don’t they just.  Apparently even though we are now the 6th biggest economy in the world, we can’t afford to fund a decent level of healthcare for our population, or decent social care for those who need it most.  Or train sufficient numbers of doctors or nurses or ambulance drivers.

But there is always plenty enough money to bail out the bankers, fight or fund wars in foreign countries, give it to our mates for dodgy PPE, fritter it away on a useless HS2 vanity project, or in Wales case, change all the 30mph road signs to 20mph at a cost of £32 million.

Did you know our response to Covid cost somewhere between £310 and £410 billion pounds.  That is nearly three times the entire annual budget of the NHS!

Public spending during the Covid-19 pandemic

And what exactly did we get for that money and where has it all gone?  Ask yourself are we healthier now as a nation after all of that spending?  Have our NHS waiting lists gone down?  Did we save loads of lives and was it all worth it?  Or have peoples lives got worse?

It is our hard earned money that the Tories have pissed up the wall (and given to their mates).  Money that we will all be paying back for years and at the expense of the vital services we rely on.  During the last financial year, the government spent £111 billion on debt interest alone.  That’s more than the entire annual spend on education!  Practically criminal levels of mis-management from our government.

Cost of national debt

And what have Labour done to oppose any of the above?  What have they done to hold the Tories feet to the fire?

**** all, that’s what!

Meanwhile, just another £1.1 billion of taxpayers money down the drain by June.

Expired C-19 drugs in the UK

No biggie though, eh?

Yeah but
Lifting the lifetime cap on pension payments so alot of GPs who were effectively working for free due to punitive tax regulations might be return or not leave reducing natural wastage over time

@singletrackmind that’s definitely going to help a small amount with hospital consultants but it’s not a big factor for GP’s using medics I know as a guide.

seems to be more about volume of workload / stress and General practice (especially in rural areas ) seeming less glamorous to the type of person now qualifying.

others can perhaps comment more learnedly

EDIT: As i understand it, the pension thing is about making it more attractive to do “extra” hours – not everyone is going to be willing or able to do “overtime” longterm

fwiw, i know quite a few GP’s. They all work very hard, have lots of work stress. One just moved himself and his Dr wife to New Zwealand for a better work / life balance. Another has been telling me about the looming recruitment crisis for the whole time i’ve known him ( 10 years).

The fundamental problem with NHS is the lack of understanding or acceptance of just how expensive running a comprehensive health system is.

Small real terms increases doesn’t come close to meeting the growth in demand, or the rate of growth in cost of drug/treatment/technology advances.

The same for all public services.  The fundamental problem is not starting with the question about how much does it cost to have a service at the level we really want (staff, drugs, equipment, estate) and then deciding how to shape society to afford it.  Honesty about the trade off between tax and public services.

The £1.5billion that Labour have promised above whatever’s the Tories have said – to address waiting times – I reckon is maybe 10% of what is needed as a starter – and I do have a lot of experience in this area at a national level.

It’s depressing really, and the NHS is in a better position than most public services.  Many local Authorities are on the verge of collapse, justice/prison service is dysfunctional, care services problems are so difficult nobody even talks about it etc etc

Meanwhile, just another £1.1 billion of taxpayers money down the drain by June.

“Paxlovid – an antiviral developed by Pfizer and designed to be used shortly after people test positive for Covid-19 – was approved across Britain in 2021 after trial results found it reduced the risk of severe illness by almost 90 per cent.”

Presumably there are at risk people with access to this, who are also testing to catch things early enough to then be given the drug if needed? Is this a success (those people aren’t testing positive, so don’t need the drug) or a failure (not enough people who could benefit have been given access to testing and the drug)?

The same for all public services. The fundamental problem is not starting with the question about how much does it cost to have a service at the level we really want (staff, drugs, equipment, estate) and then deciding how to shape society to afford it. Honesty about the trade off between tax and public services.

The problem currently is that you can’t fix the NHS without fixing the care system and council budgets. Everything along the pathway, from pre-hospital prevention/education, through to primary care, diagnostics, acute treatment and post-discharge care is dysfunctional, creaking, or virtually non-existent.

Labour in the late 90s was the last government to attempt the semblance of a plan on how to start improving things, starting with stuff like SureStart to help set a foundation of better health in infancy, and then investing to reduce waiting times for diagnosis and treatment, and moves towards a National Care Service. But the scale of the problem was vast, and even the substantial funding provided then was not able to achieve all these aims. And obviously, the government which followed ended up reversing much of this or just starved it of resources.

I have not seen anything from the current Labour Party with the same level of ambition, but then economically we are hamstrung.

And what exactly did we get for that money and where has it all gone? Ask yourself are we healthier now as a nation after all of that spending? Have our NHS waiting lists gone down? Did we save loads of lives and was it all worth it? Or have peoples lives got worse?

It is our hard earned money that the Tories have pissed up the wall (and given to their mates). Money that we will all be paying back for years and at the expense of the vital services we rely on. During the last financial year, the government spent £111 billion on debt interest alone. That’s more than the entire annual spend on education! Practically criminal levels of mis-management from our government.

I’m a bit confused. Are you complaining because labour are not challenging the tory’s narrative that there is not enough money for public services, or are you complaining because our govt borrows too much? You’re right that the current govt gives public money to their mates for very little return. That’s what the tories always do, it’s their raison d’etre. You’re wrong though that borrowing or the national debt is a problem. We should be ‘borrowing’* and spending much, much more than we currently are to fund public services. Where labour are getting it wrong is accepting the tory narrative that the country doesn’t have the money to fund public services. It does many times over, but it needs politicians willing to speak the truth and challenge the myth of austerity.

*It doesn’t need borrowing or taxes, the govt can just spend what it wants.

but then economically we are hamstrung.

Are we? Please explain.

It’s all linked (as has been said)..NHS health care…social care..schooling etc etc

In our area (West-ish Sussex) there’s been reviews done (by teams that sort of transcend social/health care) on the impact that stopping food economics in school will have.

Not today, not tomorrow, but in a generation’s time. Yes, money will be saved today, but the impact on the health of a nation will be huge. Mainly from poorer diet education leading to worse health leading to needing more health input.

The main issues really are managing the frail and ageing population properly (I’m sure i’ve raised this before..).
We’ve more 85+ years olds than ever. And the average age will continue to grow. And we simply can’t treat them the same as the ‘average 55 year old’ – not because of the desire to discriminate, or save money by “not treating old people”, but because they don’t respond the same.

Peopls simply don’t live forever, and EVERYONE dies. Unfortunately, death is still seen as a failure..as if something has gone wrong.
The mindset of the natin needs to be changed, so that accepting that a 96 year old, bed bound patient needing 100% of their care to be met by carers, SHOULD be allowed to die in their nursning home.. and NOT ring 999 when they “become a bit more drowsy”..

because 999 will take them to hospital, and hospital will “think they need to do something”… when really they jsut need care and family around them.

I feel massively that we (i’ll say it) mistreat our frail and elderly, by forcing them to endure medical treatments and such, purely because we’re (family, doctors, nursing homes) too stubborn to let people die nicely..

DrP

too stubborn to let people die nicely..

Oh absolutely. It is human nature to ‘fight against the dying of the light’, but we need to embrace the concept of a ‘good death’ – and devote our efforts to improving the quality of those last weeks or months, rather than just desperately trying to add a couple more to the tally.

But again, this is partly due to failures across the NHS and care systems. I have a relative who may be approaching this shortly, and the absence of any communication between the various clinical and care teams, when they should be moving to set a decent palliative plan in place, is very frustrating.

A member of our family recently popped off at 96. He’d had a week in a care home for respite but in doing so he lost his ability to walk around the house. He had a ‘good death’ though and aged disgracefully, regular trips to the pub and surprising stuff on his computer, the old dog.

The mindset of the natin needs to be changed,

And not just with attitudes to dying, but with their attitudes to taking responsibility about their own health. Generation X is getting on to being wildly unhealthy. They may not smoke as much as their parents did, but their diets and lifestyles are way poorer, and their children are now leaving school obese. Its GPs who’re shouldering the burden of that.

Now I get that its a wider societal issue and as a nation we have to have a proper conversation about the “food” that we have surrounded ourselves with, but we have a major political party who think that any sort of intervention is “The Nanny State” and a current health minister (Victoria Atkins) who’s married to a CEO of one of the worlds largest sugar manufacturer [apparently that’s not a conflict of interest] , and her solution is diet advice, which we know doesn’t work.

Quite agree about intervention when someone is at end of life. Really should have stopped intervention at least twice on MIL – final time this ended up with her ‘hanging on’ for another week because a relative and staff decided to intervene as she arrived in hospital, rather than accepting the inevitable (which family decided 24 hours later).

Prior to that was probably a year before – again at death’s door, too much intervention and she was ‘around’ another year. She didn’t want to be.

The system is broken with the bed blocking – we do need more care units for elderly, rather than them filling A&E and high intensity wards, just because we can’t get them out without a decent care package’.

I literally heard someone in the office mention an elderly relative wouldn’t take paracetamol to manage a high temperature, because this person preferred to be in hospital being looked after !

The issues with the NHS is certainly making me think about going for a routine check up – I’m fine, but going in for blood tests etc (supposed to be every year), taking up the practice’s time (when it’s next to impossible to get an urgent appointment) means I just don’t bother.  I had a nasty cut from a bike crash a year ago – really should have gone in for it to be stitched, but I just patched it up and carried on – thankfully it didn’t get infected, but I have a nasty scar.

The problem currently is that you can’t fix the NHS without fixing the care system and council budgets.

As I see it, you can’t fix the NHS and the care system without fixing society in general.

People need to take some responsibility for their own personal health and help unwell family members. All of the things that point to poor health outcomes and higher mortality like poor education, poverty and lack of opportunity all need fixed.

As someone alluded to earlier in the thread, it’s like the current shit roads we have, you can patch them up all you want but it’s only a temporary fix as they actually need resurfaced or to be built properly in the first place. The health and care system feels like this, lots of sticking plasters being applied without addressing the underlying injury.

My mrs pal has been suffering with sciatica for the past few months. Over the past few years she’s also been treated for breast cancer. All on the NHS

The sciatica has been causing huge problems for her to the point she’s on the verge of a mental breakdown. Her parents paid for a private consultation for her yesterday at a dedicated private hospital. The consultant there was absolutely horrified by the lack of care from the NHS consultant. Essentially it was “you’ve got sciatica, here are some painkillers, go away”. No MRI, no tie in with her previous cancer diagnosis, no treatment plan other than the painkillers.

Years ago my mother experienced some migraines. She went to the NHS, they did a scan, told her she had lesions on her brain and she likely had MS and sent her on her way. Nothing further offered. Naturally my mother was devastated so she went for a private consultation and a battery of diagnostic tests and a fully in depth discussion with the consultant. The result of which was reassurance that those lesions were perfectly normal for someone of her age, she didnt have MS and advice and guidance on what to do going forward.

Yes, it’s broken.

Perhaps the government needs to look at fixing the demand side issue.  Chronic conditions such as obesity and type 2 diabetes (and all the associated health problems) are due to skyrocket due to poor lifestyle choices and lack of education.  Diets full of processed crap are now the norm.  And, if you follow the latest scientific research, the NHS’s heavy focus on cholesterol and low fat is now woefully outdated as a predictor of heart disease, dietary health etc.

We have been told for years that a low fat, high carb, low cholestrol diet is healthy by the NHS etc.  But just look at what has happened during that time.  Obesity is now out of control, and the number of people living with serious life-limiting chronic health conditions is at levels never seen before.  So something about this approach is clearly not working.

GP’s (if you can actually get to see one), seem really only there these days as the gateway to book hospital appointments, or as dishers out of pharmaceutical products.  Pharmaceutical products that mask a patients symptoms rather than address a patients underlying issues (there is no money in this).

My guess is that most GP’s know very little about the latest research in diet, nutrition etc. and what a huge role this plays in health outcomes.  They are stuck with the outdated dietary advise promoted by the NHS and entrenched in a cycle of prescribing endless pharmaceuticals with often very limited efficacy and frequent side effects.  Statins for example.

To prove this you only need to look at the US, where the use of pharmaceutical products per head is the highest in the world.  Yet they also now have the biggest chronic disease burden in the world, and the most metabolically unhealthy population.  It wasn’t always this way.  To see for yourself tale a look at some Woodstock photos from the 60’s.  See how slim and healthy everyone looked.  Compare these photos to the overweight and unhealthy young people all around you these days and you will see that something has changed.

But it feels almost like the huge food industry and the pharmaceutical industry wants it to be this way.  After all there in nothing so profitable as a repeat customer.  A customer addicted to processed food full of sugar and seed oils to make them unhealthy, and then requiring expensive medication to address the symptoms – for life.  Ozempic is the latest profitable wheeze.  An expensive and regular treatment to address an issue that could, in most cases, simply be managed through a better diet.

So it might surprise you that almost all members of the US Congress on both sides of the house receive lobbying money from the Pharmaceutical industry.  I expect it is similar in the UK and I am aware that 86% of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA)’s budget is derived from the drug industry.  Look it up, and then maybe the penny will drop as to why we are in this mess without seemingly a will from the top to change things.

Remember, without an unhealthy population, the pharmaceutical industry makes no money.  He who pays the piper and all that.

To affect the demand side through public health you really need to look at what worked for smoking.  Huge and hard hitting public health campaigns and rapidly escalating taxation.

Be brave Government that did either as the criticism from the libertarian sections of society of nanny stateism. Can you imagine if a freddo was £2? 

That would also only work on the food side – getting people to do something ie exercise would be even harder to lever.

most GP’s know very little about the latest research in diet, nutrition etc. and what a huge role this plays in health outcomes.

Go on?

Go on?

From the US:

an average of 11 hours of nutrition training throughout an entire medical program

How much nutrition training do doctors get

And from the UK:

We learn nothing about nutrition, claim medical students

Doctors know little about nutrition or excersize

And this is just the established (and now somewhat out of date) basics that they know little about, let alone the recent developments in nutrition research, which as ever take quite some time to filter down to education programmes.

I know this because my wife is a qualified and practicing nutritionist, so she, and I to some extent are aware of how much things have evolved, and how much we now understand about how nutrition, and the very closely linked metabolic/gut health, impacts a whole range of health outcomes.

Poor nutrition and other lifestyle factors such as sleep, excersize etc. have now been identified as the single biggest predictor of a whole range of diseases and health issues, with genetics being less important than it was previously believed to be.  We really are what we eat.

But your average GP in the UK knows seemingly very little about any of this.  So can you see the problem?

People need to take some responsibility for their own personal health and help unwell family members.

I am not a GP, or a consultant (or a nutritionist for that matter). We need professionals, and to have access to them, and pay them well for their learning and application so that they’ll keep at it.

And from the UK:

One of those articles is 5 years old and the other is 8 years old…D’you not think things might’ve progressed at all?

IMV as a GP, the relentless push to make us more “efficient” is killing the golden goose.

A GP used to be about twice as cost-effective (on average) as a hospital doctor. This meant that a pound of NHS money spent on primary care (GPs) gave you about twice the benefit of a pound spent on secondary care (hospitals).

That wasn’t because we’re in some way better, but a lot to do with the fact that we could get to the low hanging fruit in health benefits.

The main way that we achieve that is through continuity of care, which means that we know our patients, they know us, and we tend to have a good working relationship.

To have continuity of care, when demand is variable, you need to have spare appointments. This is inefficient.

You also need your GP to be reasonably rested. GPs are mostly spotting needles in haystacks, it’s nye on impossible to do this if we’re fatigued.

The other part of what we do is take shortcuts based on our clinical experience. No other clinicians in the NHS see the number and variety of patients that we do. This makes us pretty good at using our spider sense to diagnose things (and know when there’s not likely to be much wrong) very quickly. Again it’s nye on impossible to do this when we’re fatigued.

Our final secret source is our consultation and communication skills. This is what we specialize in. Yes we’re not perfect, but on average we have more training in it than most other clinicians (other than therapists). Again it’s very hard to communicate effectively when we’re fatigued.

Rested GPs are inefficient, because if we’re not tired to the point of exhaustion  it means that there’s unused capacity in the system.

If you have a rested GP with a reasonable amount of time on their hands who knows you, then in general we’re pretty good at spotting and effectively treating things before they become serious much more cheaply than hospital doctors do.

However, everything that has been done to General Practice since I’ve been a GP has seemed to be with the aim that we should work more like hospital doctors with guidelines written by hospital doctors, targets devised by hospital doctors and the focus on patient access with no regard to continuity of care. At the same time we’re being reorganised into structures that look a lot like community versions of hospital hierarchies. Our patients have been fragmented into seeing lots of different people for different things.

At the same time, over the past fifteen years, funding has actually been taken away from primary care and given to hospitals.

Crazy when you think about it. You have one service that is twice as effective as another. You respond by reorganising the more effective service to look more like the other one, whilst at the same time removing funding from it and giving it to the other one.

It’s madness.

I am not a GP, or a consultant

Sure, but I wonder how many folks have read the NHS constitution, and particularly the first sentence of the patient responsibility section of it?

One of those articles is 5 years old and the other is 8 years old…D’you not think things might’ve progressed at all?

It is very slowly changing as people become aware, but still not a lot according to my wife.  If anything, often views have become somewhat entrenched as there are many vested interests trying to ensure that medicine remains primarily a pharmacological and surgical based pursuit.  Medics and scientists who fall outside of this, or who propose treatment protocols that rock the establishment boat are frequently labelled as cranks, or struggle to get adequate funding to support their research.

Meanwhile research for new pharmaceuticals is awash with cash – because huge financial returns can be made by corporations and their shareholders.  And sponsorship of almost all major therapeutic areas, it’s key opinion leaders, and their educational congresses is by the pharmaceutical industry.  So it is not a level playing field.

Hence the growing prevalence of things like Ozempic which is supposed to help manage the symptoms of type 2 diabetes.  But type 2 diabetes can in most cases also be perfectly adequately managed, or sent into remission, through improved nutrition and without the potential side effects of drugs like Ozempic.

But like I said before, there is not much money to be made from healthy eating.

Sure, but I wonder how many folks have read the NHS constitution, and particularly the first sentence of the patient responsibility section of it?

I think this sits nicely with the rights/responsibilities conversation.

When it comes to the issues with the NHS there isn’t any human element involved that doesn’t have a case to answer for making better choices.

As for the reform, the NHS is a franchise with many, many chiefs and reform is usually a one size fits none process. Look at the shitshow that has been the NHS Digital, Improvement, Leadership Academy absorption into NHSE, Haemorrhage many quality people due to the lack of competence of the leadership function compounded by the size and complexity of the task.

My experience thus far on some of the FTC’s I’ve worked is there is a real lack of competence in leadership, this may in some part be down to choice (that in itself is a challenge the NHS is yet to crack), but more often than not it is down to a lack of time to devote towards growing competence and all that entails Vs the competing priorities people have to manage. It’s quite sad to see close up the impact of that in human terms.

Medics and scientists who fall outside of this, or who propose treatment protocols that rock the establishment boat are frequently labelled as cranks, or struggle to get adequate funding to support their research.

I’ve had direct experience of this myself, where an ex-GP and a patient essentially drove our GPs to distraction with their insistence that only a particular diet would be acceptable as advice for T2D patients and that to show commitment to this, we (the practice staff) should all convert our own diets to align with their particular fetish. It was a short conversation after that. Cranks indeed.

I know this because my wife is a qualified and practicing nutritionist

Not to rock any boats . But Anyone is a nutritionist. It’s not a title protected by law.
By this I mean, it’s kinda just a made up title that doesn’t have a legally qualified backing.
Not to say nutrition advice isn’t of use. But the concept of a nutritionist (over, say, an actual dietician) is nothing short of faddy bs most of the time.
Tumeric anyone?
Sorry.

And I don’t really get this adversity to pharmaceutical treatments.. yes, big pharma can often be terrible and expensive, but I. Reality it’s the introduction of measured and tested drug treatment that had significantly prolonged life.

To take your example of ozempic… YES… of course patients with newly diagnosed type 2 DM can reverse their condition with weight loss (5-10% body weight loss). You don’t need to adhere to nutritionist advice for this. You just need to eat less – salad, shakes, stir fry approach works! But people don’t. (Well, some highly motivated people do.. And that self selecting audience is probably what your wife sees I guess). The rest can’t just be left to rot. So what do we do…we treat with pharma and operations to make them drop the weight. Cos, shamefully, it works.

DrP

DrP

I’m afraid that there’s a massive gap between the claims made for nutritional medicine and the actual evidence that shows those benefits.

I’ve read Tim Spector’s books. They’re very interesting, but the actionable advice that he gives can be summed up in a couple of pages, which, in fact, is what he does at the end of them.

The reason that there isn’t much time spent on it at medical school is because in terms of practical advice it really isn’t that complicated as per Tim Spector’s couple of pages.

If we’re going on about Big Pharma, then it’s only fair to point out that Big Supplement is far worse and far less regulated.

And I don’t really get this adversity to pharmaceutical treatments

Because people are generally emotional and scientifically illiterate. ‘Natural’ remedies are seen as better cos they’re er, natural and a bit magic. The fact the many pharmaceuticals are basically the active ingredients from natural remedies with the shit removed, active mechanism understood and the dosage carefully calibrated is way beyond peoples willingness to understand. They’d rather go with simple pseudo science than accept they are thick and don’t understand real science. They often do their own research as well……..being completely incapable of making any rationale judgements about what they find.

And I don’t really get this adversity to pharmaceutical treatments

Pharmaceutical treatments have their place, many are excellent, but many also come not only with significant costs, but also with potential risks too.  Might I remind you that there have been some very significant criminal fines paid by the pharmaceutical industry for fraudulent, misleading and ethical behaviour relating to safety and usage:

These are just the ones we know about

Then there are also the absolute horror shows like Vioxx, and the lack of much real-world efficacy of things like Statins, but often considerable side effects.

There is also the correlation I mentioned before.  By far the biggest consumer of prescription medication in the world per person is the USA.  So they should be by far the healthiest population right?  Wrong, they have some of the worse levels of serious chronic illness in the world.  Sure, much of it is diet related, and some is probably due to the poorest not having the same level of access to healthcare as the more well off, but facts are facts, so perhaps ask yourself how is this the case with so much access to pharmaceutical treatments?

I’m afraid that there’s a massive gap between the claims made for nutritional medicine and the actual evidence that shows those benefits.

I’m not talking about popping a load of supplements and pills.  That’s a whole other minefield.  I’m talking about what constitutes a basic and healthy diet and the latest research that shows that the previously recommended low-fat (high sugar), high carb, low cholesterol diet, is not no longer considered a very healthy option given what we now know.

Wrong, they have some of the worse levels of serious chronic illness in the world.

A majority of citizens are over 40, access to healthcare is sporadic and expensive for many, and the work culture and work place protection is poor.

There are very real problems of over prescription and consumption of many medical pharmaceuticals in the USA as well (not least opioids)… but “natural” alternatives wouldn’t be any better for those effected if they were to be used instead.

After today’s farce. Yes.

4 ambulances and a gp visit due to poor comms and absence of people commitment to a decision

And what have Labour done to oppose any of the above?  What have they done to hold the Tories feet to the fire?

**** all, that’s what!

Alex

– which bit of the Tory’s having a big majority in Parliament are you missing plus a client media?

– also, a key issue in the USA is the ability to obtain prescription drugs OTC and over-prescription of other drugs

which bit of the Tory’s having a big majority in Parliament are you missing

There has been an ongoing and unprecedented epidemic of excess deaths across all age ranges since 2021 and mostly it is not Covid related.  So clearly there has been some significant mis-management happening under the Tories watch.

Some of it will be delayed care due to GP’s not seeing patients face to face for a while combined with a huge backlog on NHS waiting lists.  Some will be the collateral fall-out from lockdowns and the stress, poor mental health, loneliness and financial hardship that lockdowns created for many.  Some will be due to lifestyle factors brought about by lockdown, e.g. increased drinking, less people playing sport etc.  Some will be down to doctors strikes and staff/ambulance shortages.  Some will be down to the general NHS problems already discussed in this thread.  And some, (heaven help us), might be down to the introduction of a novel medication in early 2021 with no long term safety data.

It would be an easy win for Labour to hold the Tories responsible for this utter and ongoing shit-show.  Yet Labour don’t even seem interested to look into the excess death situation.   Why is that?  Is it perhaps because during the pandemic, all Labour seemed to want to do was to call for more, longer, harder, sooner of whatever it was the Tories were proposing?

It would be an easy win for Labour to hold the Tories responsible for this utter and ongoing shit-show.

Who else could be responsible if the Tories have been in charge for 13+ years?

You really are talking nonsense.

Who else could be responsible if the Tories have been in charge for 13+ years?

You really are talking nonsense.

I think you have missed the point, which was about excess deaths.  Why would Labour seemingly not want to investigate the ongoing large number of excess deaths across all age groups, particularly when the outcome of such an investigation would no doubt mean the Tories were made to look even more awful than they currently look?

According to The Lancet, they state that: “in the period from week ending 3rd June 2022 to 30th June 2023, excess deaths for all causes were relatively greatest for 50–64 year olds (15% higher than expected), compared with 11% higher for 25–49 and < 25 year olds, and about 9% higher for over 65 year old groups”.

They also state that: Deaths involving cardiovascular diseases were 33% higher than expected, while for specific cardiovascular diseases, deaths involving ischaemic heart diseases were 44% higher, cerebrovascular diseases 40% higher and heart failure 39% higher”.

This likely equates to somewhere between 50,000 and 60,000 excess deaths more than would be expected during the June 2022 to June 2023 period.  That’s 1,050 extra deaths a week a week, 150 extra deaths each and every day (equivalent to a Boeing 737-700 aircraft full of passengers going down every single day).  And the vast majority are not Covid related.

These numbers of deaths are a long, long way above normal parameters, and very unusual after a deadly pandemic where your would usually expect mortality rates to improve somewhat.  Yet unlike the daily Covid death toll, we don’t hear much about this on the news, and our MP’s simply do not seem bothered enough to make it a priority to find out just what on earth is going on.

I have written to our Labour MP about this and was fobbed off by him.  Seemingly he didn’t even want to acknowledge that there could be a problem.  And one thing he was sure of was that it couldn’t be anything to do with the vaccines.  So that’s a relief!

So why on earth don’t Labour want to shoot into an open goal?

the introduction of a novel medication in early 2021 with no long term safety data

There’s a long tail of damage from Covid, you wouldn’t expect excess deaths to be zero in this period we’re calling “post pandemic” which isn’t really “post” at all. And Labour have promised to investigate anything left outstanding from the already ongoing enquiry, and specifically how money was spent and who it went to. Now pull your anti-vax tinfoil hat on tighter and shut up now please, there’s a good fellow.