They are hailed as heroes in Italy and Spain as the countries bear the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic, but nowhere does the medical system stir more passion than in Britain. When the government asked for 250,000 volunteers to help, three times that number signed up.
The cult of the National Health Service has been key to so many political fortunes over the decades, but no leader has weaponized it more than Boris Johnson after years of austerity measures implemented by his Conservative Party. While peers across Europe come under strain fighting the pandemic, few have more to gain or lose from the ability of the health system to cope than the British prime minister.
[...]
Meanwhile, the government is relying on that regard for the NHS to keep the country united and, crucially, deflect from criticism that the heath system has been starved of the money it needs.
The last decade has seen the NHS under more pressure than at any time since it was founded in 1948, the vaunted postwar ideal of free medical care for all. Deeper-than-average cuts to hospital beds, seen previously as a sign of efficiency, are drawing scrutiny. The system has about 40,000 unfilled nursing positions and fewer doctors as a percentage of the population than countries such as France, Germany and Italy.
“What’s really noticeable in the U.K. is not so much that our funding is out of line, but that our physical capacity is much lower,” said Anita Charlesworth, director of research at the Health Foundation. “We run our system really hot.”
[...]
Health-care spending has grown just 1.3% a year in real terms since 2009-10. That compares with annual growth of 6% in the preceding 13 years. When it comes to beds, many countries have scaled back as medical care advances, but Britain has cut more than most. That meant more than nine out of 10 beds were occupied before the coronavirus, according to Charlesworth. The number of doctors, nurses and MRI scanners also is below the average of a group of European countries.
From the article:
[...]
[...]