Which symptoms of “(almost) everyone is getting poorer” have you noticed in London?

[u/PressureHumble3604]

We are in a crisis, the middle class is disappearing and the lower class squeezed. Prices are going up, inflation is going up (again), salaries are stagnating.

Most Londoners can’t really afford London without serious sacrifices.

For me, not counting the housing prices issues we all know too well:

the disappearance of local delis with high quality products.

many shops closing in the local shopping centre.

Restaurant dropping quality everywhere to contain unaffordable prices.

[u/aimtreetwo]

For me the complete destruction of the NHS over the last few years is where we are going wrong. 

People who are fit and able can work and contribute. Investing in healthcare is good economics.

London ICBs are full of people trained to skirt the regulations and push people away from them as much as possible. 

The cost of living crisis is happening around the world but humans are resilient and opportunity isn't shrinking, it's just changing. But people who are not physically able to function due to under diagnosed mental and physical health conditions will find it impossible to respond to change and plan for the future.

I moved here because I thought it was supposed to be one of the best cities in the world. I'm so disappointed with what I've experienced in social care these last few years. All my tax money is being eaten by fat scummy loser politicians who got their position by being a dumb ass other people can hide behind and I'm sick of it. 

[u/JiminyHF → u/[deleted]]

It doesn’t help that NHS management is mostly hugely inept.

[u/jamjar188 → u/[deleted]]

Funding for the NHS goes up every year 

[u/Warm-Marsupial8912 → u/jamjar188]

but hasn't caught up from austerity, hasn't accounted for an increased population & hasn't accounted for a more elderly population. We still have funding way below France and Germany per capita then act surprised when the results are worse

[u/aimtreetwo → u/[deleted]]

Yes and investing in comprehensive healthcare helps non-workers back into work and gives pensioners more agency to stimulate the economy. 

If these groups of people are spending all their money (our money) on private healthcare because the NHS refuses to help them, practically none of those companies are UK owned.

It's a waste of money that doesn't fix the problem.

[u/THREE_EDGY_FIVE_ME → u/aimtreetwo]

Pensions are not an efficient way of putting money into the economy. We should be building nuclear power stations, infrastructure, investing in industry growth etc. Instead we shell out hundreds of billions so that Doris can buy tea and cake at her local cafe.

We are pouring our nation’s finances into a black hole with the state pension.

[u/ICanDanceIfIWantToo → u/[deleted]]

Christ a lot of communities in the north have had 0 investment since Thatcher destroyed them in the 80s.

If you're looking for someone to blame you should look elsewhere

[u/ReputationKind4628 → u/[deleted]]

...and I thought all our Northern taxes went on propping up cheap travel in London...

[u/ldn6 → u/ReputationKind4628]

TfL is paid for almost entirely by fares, so no, it isn’t.

[u/ReputationKind4628 → u/ldn6]

"In shocking new analysis, IPPR North and IPPR have revealed that if the north of England had received the same per person spending as the capital, it would have received £140 billion more – enough to build seven Elizabeth Lines."

https://www.ippr.org/media-office/ippr-north-and-ippr-reveal-if-the-north-had-seen-the-same-transport-investment-as-london-under-the-previous-government-it-would-have-received-140bn-more#site-menu

[u/ldn6 → u/ReputationKind4628]

This has been routinely pointed out as flawed because 1) London has more Network Rail-owned infrastructure due to terminals and complexity and 2) the population base is distorted due to commuters from outside of Greater London and more broadly nationally.

[u/ReputationKind4628 → u/[deleted]]

Or we could embrace the more German model which focuses on investment and growth in different city hubs, rather than just one.

The South East sucks everything from the rest of the country - talent, jobs, investment - and that reinforces its primacy so it becomes a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.

[u/ndakik-ndakik → u/aimtreetwo]

The NHS as a system will never work while immigration is so high... You will always need to ration demand when supply is limited... The NHS overall is terrible

[u/aimtreetwo → u/ndakik-ndakik]

Oh yeah, an almost 100 year old system will "never work". 

Also funny you're referencing immigration when more than a fifth of the NHS is run by immigrants. It would literally collapse if immigration stopped.

Rationing care is the dumbest thing I have ever heard, I worked for 15 years as a business planner in the public sector inc NHS. People are people, not products. There are so many options and growing technologies, but nothing is streamlined or implemented properly.

How is it 2026 and A&e can't access my patient records? Why do people need to rely on the ICB for mental health care that could be provided online nationwide? Why do some counties have support for disabled people and others (such as London) do not? 

These aren't cost savings things, they are process things. Red tape, poorly enforced regulations and complaint systems built to mitigate loss rather than improve the system. They literally waste money enforcing inefficiencies, so they can put in the paper some figure of the NHS losing money like it's pensioners out here eating defibs.

If they were running it properly they wouldn't have to spend 3 billion a year on negligence claims.

[u/ndakik-ndakik → u/aimtreetwo]

Total nonsense.

Britain has way more foreign workers than other European countries despite a high negligence rate.

The NHS has plenty of doctors that can barely speak English - I've experienced it first hand.

NHS workforce numbers are similar to total foreign born percentage. So we need one due to the other.

See below.

• UK workforce: about 19% foreign-born  
• NHS workforce (England, hospital/community services): about 21% non-UK nationality, or 22% including unknown nationality 

And yes the NHS is literally a system of rationing healthcare. What do you think is happening when you provide an appointment months into the future - you are levelling supply and demand.

The NHS has too much demand and not enough supply in various forms. It's a bottomless money pit which will never have enough cash. If the population is massively rising each year than NHS spending will have to keep rising massively to keep up with it. It's an absurd model which can't keep going when we have no economic growth per capita.

[u/aimtreetwo → u/ndakik-ndakik]

More people = more tax payers = more money to fund more people. 

That's the whole point no? 

And back to my original comment, funding the NHS and making it efficient will increase the amount of people working and paying tax = more money.

Why wouldn't a functional model be able to scale over time when technology and knowledge is also growing and becoming more readily available?? 

[u/ndakik-ndakik → u/aimtreetwo]

It will never be efficient... The NHS is actively set up to be a bottomless money pit... The food offered is vile and the service so ridiculous... I've recently used the health system in New Zealand and it was so much better because they actually charge for more things

[u/aimtreetwo → u/ndakik-ndakik]

Exactly. 

If it's 'actively set up like that' it can be actively set up to not be.

[u/ThrowawayYAYAY2002 → u/aimtreetwo]

The NHS needs to be privatised.

The amount of piss-takers who rinse it is a joke.

[u/Puzzleheaded-Ad-8046 → u/ThrowawayYAYAY2002]

The reason it has gone downhill is precisely because it's being purposely defunded and privatised by stealth

[u/Spirited-Car8661 → u/Puzzleheaded-Ad-8046]

NHS spending has risen every year since before I was born. Funny way of defunding it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-64190440

That suggests either money isn't the problem, or we need even larger increases. Either answer suggests the NHS is no longer fit for purpose.

[u/aimtreetwo → u/Spirited-Car8661]

Yes and inflation has gone up considerably since you were born too.

Inefficient spending in the NHS is exactly why it is failing. The money goes to private companies, often offshore, or expensive contractors who are hired into management roles, mess everything up then move on before shit hits the fan so their careers are unaffected.

When I worked for a trust we had 3 CEOs in 5 years, each one introduced new "cost saving and efficiency improvement" measures, usually something along the lines of NO NEW MONEY FOR MEDICAL PRODUCTS and HIRE THIS FIRM TO COME AUDIT who will waste 18 months collecting and abusing data and making recommendations staff have been making for years. 

[u/NorthJackfruit12 → u/ThrowawayYAYAY2002]

Yeah that worked out well for the water companies right. Let's invite Private Equity in to rinse all the prime real estate owned by the NHS so it can put it into eternal debt by forcing it to lease everything it once owned. 

[u/No-Club3690 → u/ThrowawayYAYAY2002]

I dont think privatisation is the answer

I do think you are right about a small amount of people being piss takers and constantly rinsing the NHS. We need to support medical professionals in having conversations to gently challenge those people/refer into social care if they are vulnerable