NHS - Fit for Patients or Purpose?

I have a lot of experience of the NHS, both as a long term patient with chronic health conditions & working as a volunteer with the Expert Patient Programme, then a lay board member with Research for Patient Benefit.

If the Kings Fund  think that "NHS funding is almost at breaking point" & that "budgets are not large enough to cover patient demand" & there is " extensive evidence that ineffective treatments are overused in the NHS" then I believe it.

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/impact-nhs-financial-pressures-patient-care/six-ways

Anecdotally I know people, including myself, who have gone undiagnosed & who have been prescribed medication in the hope that it will control symptoms - (this actually seems to be the default position. Hard pressed GP's don't have the time to do much else). There seems to be a general reluctance to refer patients to consultants. There also seems to be an over-reliance on test results within narrow boundaries, when it is known that real patients do present outside those boundaries yet still have the condition.

Patients have to be articulate & dogged nowadays. We need to be pro active about our own health. Not easy if you are actually ill. Also not easy to keep plugging away because you know that something is wrong but want to try to keep a good relationship with whichever GP you can get to see.

I'm at the tail end of 2 "viral infections" since mid October. The latest one caused my INR level to shoot up to so dangerous that I could have bled to death or been brain damaged if I had a fall. Finally the 4th doctor said she thought it was Viral Hepatitis. Fortunately I'm not given to panic.

I'm not knocking doctors - they do their very best with an increasingly clunking system. We need them & should value them.

I'm not even knocking politicians - although I think their efforts are worse than useless. I really don't think they have a clue.

But something needs to happen to make the NHS well again - for all our sakes.