More updating of statistics in The Welfare State We're In:
The average number of NHS beds available in England continues to shrink.
There were fifty-five per cent more beds in 1988/89 than there are now (282,895 versus 181,772).
Since Labour came to power, the number of NHS beds has fallen from 193,625 to 181,772. Of course, there has been no announcement of this fact so it has gone largely unreported.
The biggest falls have been in geriatric beds, beds for the mentally ill and those for people with learning disabilities. There has been a small rally, since Labour came to power, in the number of acute beds. But the total of general and acute beds taken together has continued to fall.
When people say "Well of course, medical care has to be more expensive these days because people live longer and the drugs are more expensive" they do not mention this major way in which medical care should have got much cheaper. The most expensive thing in medicine is caring for people in hospital. The wages bill is far bigger than the drugs bill. Yet the amount of caring for people in hospital has declined very dramatically over the past 50 years. A huge amount of money should have been saved because of this.
Mothers who had just given birth used to spend two weeks in hospital. Now they are often sent home the same day. There were long-term diseases for which their used to be no effective cure. Those suffering stayed in hospital for months on end.
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in NHS
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A million would be far over the top. That would be one in 60 of us dying each year because of the NHS. In The Welfare State We're In I do some calculations and conclude that a minimum of 15,000 people die prematurely each year because of the NHS being so far below the average of advanced countries. I suggest that is readily conceivable that the premature death toll is about 48,000 and it could be more. That seems quite bad enough!
Posted by: James Bartholomew at December 1, 2005 04:15 PM
Thanks for those figures.They are quite staggering.
Contrast the number who die in train crashes and the outrage That engenders to the almost total complicit silence over the yearly death toll in the NHS.
How many die in private hospitals I wonder....
Posted by: niconoclast at December 2, 2005 10:53 AM
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Do you have any figures of how many people are killed by the NHS each year?Some say it could be million plus,due to botched operations,misdiagnosis, the bug (which name I forget),plus abortions etc.
Socialised medicine should carry a government health warning!
Now they say denying treatment for those who abuse their health is 'health fascism' but could it just be a corollary of 'health socialism' and the antitdote a free market health system?
Posted by: niconoclast at December 1, 2005 03:24 PM