0.07 Founded in 1948 on the principles of free medical service for all, Britian’s National Health Service was held for many years as a paragon of how to run a national medical programme. But these days, the British Health Service is one the worst in Europe. And it’s costing lives.
0.28 The national Health Service, or NHS, is funded exclusively through taxes, and not, as in most other countries, from health insurance contributions.
0.35 MUSIC OPEN
0.40 The contrast could not be more glaring: Great Britain is the fourth largest economy of the world, but yet spends proportionately less money on health care than any other European country.
0.54 Around a million people are waiting for operations in the UK, for anything up to one and a half years until they’re seen. More and more patients are quite literally dying waiting.
Tony has an unenviable record:
1.06 This is the certificate…
Tony Collins entered the Guiness Book of Records when he had to wait 77 hours in a hospital corridor for a bed to become free..
1.21 OT Tony Collins, "It was very unpleasant. I didn’t have any privacy. I lay between the toilet, the wash room and the volume acting area. Constantly humans went back and forth. The whole time "
1.36 The Ministry of Health has refused, as a matter of course, to give interviews on this issue for several years now. The Government, and hospitals themselves, are strict with allowing journalists admission, and at the last moment our permission to film here was withdrawn. Waiting lists have become high on the political agenda. Opponents to the Government accuse the Labour Party of manipulating the lists.
1.53 Health experts are worried about the way the NHS is run.
2.05 OT Professor Walter Holland, London School of Economics
"Everyone one treats. A patient on an important cancer operation waits, counts equal much as one that its Tatoo remove to let would like. If for example someone waits 18 months or 2 years, in order to let remove its Tatoo, which it wanted to originally have, then it can be that it is preferred to a cancer patient, that for example the cancer of the breast has."
2.40 CLAY/TONE: Tony Blair
2.42 When Tony Blair came to power in 1997, he made promises to reform the decaying Health Service. Waiting lists were to be dramatically reduced by around 100,000. A withered and underfunded system inherited from the Conservatives was to be brought under control.
But Blair, too, failed to make good on these promises immediately. Until two years ago, whent the Labour Government made massive investments. Patients have yet, however, to notice much difference.
Even within the Government there is division over the correct strategy.
3.16 Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown believes the problems stem from lack of funding. Blair himself feels it is possible to create greater efficiency by privatising the whole Health Service.
3.27 But the large cash injection from Brown and Blair has yet to see any palpable difference. A representative from Britain’s medical union, Dr. Swinyard, explains the money simple hasn’t filtered through to the patients.
3.43 OT Swinyard: OT physician: "Each mark, if we have a restructuring, seems it, we needs more administration. I experienced much restructuring in the last 20 years. We physicians would wish us, which we organize with that stop and begin to act." 1999 (on the left of above) the system it is working at full capacity
4.01 INSERTS of archives pictures
Any strain on the NHS, such as the flu epidemic of 1999, brings the whole service perilously close to meltdown. During the outbreak, hospital beds were in hugely short supply and in some places, even the accident and emergency departments were forced to close.
4.14 Friends and relatives of patients were roped in to help with the care.
4.21 Patients in the UK already wait on average 5 hours to be seen in Casualty. Proportionate to its size, Britain has half as many hospital beds and doctors as anywhere else in Europe.
4.37 Britain is about 2000 medical professionals short. The surplus/pitfall is made up by recruiting staff from abroad, like German Anke. Together with a colleague she is responsible for 6.000 patients. She is also expected to give injections and help the House Doctors with their investigations.
4.59 OT Anke Lehmkuhl, practical lady doctor (in German)"the main difference..... made are"
5.29 When the NHS was founded in 1948, it was the pride of the welfare state. And despite all the scandals, free health care for all is still seen as a principle very much worth fighting for. But it is no longer the great egalitarian dream. Poor people in the UK are still 6 times more likely to die than rich people in the UK.
5.49 OT Dr. Sullivan, Krebsinstititut : "The gap between poor and rich cancer patient increases. The cancer rate in the poorest areas of the country rises further. The inequality between rich and poor grows. That is complete unakzeptabel for a national health system. One must take care of the problem."
6.08 Dorothy was only given a few months to live when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. That was three years ago. She was denied a potentially lifesaving drug due to cost. If she had lived a couple of kilometres down the road, ina different health authority, she would have been given it.
6.30 OT Dorothy Griffiths: “I experienced by coincidence of the medicine, and then which I could not get it because my public health authorities not for it to pay wanted. (I could it, if I had enough money.) If you can pay, you live - if not, you die "
6.52 Finally Dorothy managed to get herself prescribed the drug, but not until after a bitter struggle. She is grateful, but not happy.
6.59 OT Dorothy: "regarding the health service, as I became acquainted with it, am Grossbritaninnien third world a country."
7.08 The reform of the health system is slowly picking up speed, but for many patients, patience is a virtue.
0.28 The national Health Service, or NHS, is funded exclusively through taxes, and not, as in most other countries, from health insurance contributions.
0.35 MUSIC OPEN
0.40 The contrast could not be more glaring: Great Britain is the fourth largest economy of the world, but yet spends proportionately less money on health care than any other European country.
0.54 Around a million people are waiting for operations in the UK, for anything up to one and a half years until they’re seen. More and more patients are quite literally dying waiting.
Tony has an unenviable record:
1.06 This is the certificate…
Tony Collins entered the Guiness Book of Records when he had to wait 77 hours in a hospital corridor for a bed to become free..
1.21 OT Tony Collins, "It was very unpleasant. I didn’t have any privacy. I lay between the toilet, the wash room and the volume acting area. Constantly humans went back and forth. The whole time "
1.36 The Ministry of Health has refused, as a matter of course, to give interviews on this issue for several years now. The Government, and hospitals themselves, are strict with allowing journalists admission, and at the last moment our permission to film here was withdrawn. Waiting lists have become high on the political agenda. Opponents to the Government accuse the Labour Party of manipulating the lists.
1.53 Health experts are worried about the way the NHS is run.
2.05 OT Professor Walter Holland, London School of Economics
"Everyone one treats. A patient on an important cancer operation waits, counts equal much as one that its Tatoo remove to let would like. If for example someone waits 18 months or 2 years, in order to let remove its Tatoo, which it wanted to originally have, then it can be that it is preferred to a cancer patient, that for example the cancer of the breast has."
2.40 CLAY/TONE: Tony Blair
2.42 When Tony Blair came to power in 1997, he made promises to reform the decaying Health Service. Waiting lists were to be dramatically reduced by around 100,000. A withered and underfunded system inherited from the Conservatives was to be brought under control.
But Blair, too, failed to make good on these promises immediately. Until two years ago, whent the Labour Government made massive investments. Patients have yet, however, to notice much difference.
Even within the Government there is division over the correct strategy.
3.16 Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown believes the problems stem from lack of funding. Blair himself feels it is possible to create greater efficiency by privatising the whole Health Service.
3.27 But the large cash injection from Brown and Blair has yet to see any palpable difference. A representative from Britain’s medical union, Dr. Swinyard, explains the money simple hasn’t filtered through to the patients.
3.43 OT Swinyard: OT physician: "Each mark, if we have a restructuring, seems it, we needs more administration. I experienced much restructuring in the last 20 years. We physicians would wish us, which we organize with that stop and begin to act." 1999 (on the left of above) the system it is working at full capacity
4.01 INSERTS of archives pictures
Any strain on the NHS, such as the flu epidemic of 1999, brings the whole service perilously close to meltdown. During the outbreak, hospital beds were in hugely short supply and in some places, even the accident and emergency departments were forced to close.
4.14 Friends and relatives of patients were roped in to help with the care.
4.21 Patients in the UK already wait on average 5 hours to be seen in Casualty. Proportionate to its size, Britain has half as many hospital beds and doctors as anywhere else in Europe.
4.37 Britain is about 2000 medical professionals short. The surplus/pitfall is made up by recruiting staff from abroad, like German Anke. Together with a colleague she is responsible for 6.000 patients. She is also expected to give injections and help the House Doctors with their investigations.
4.59 OT Anke Lehmkuhl, practical lady doctor (in German)"the main difference..... made are"
5.29 When the NHS was founded in 1948, it was the pride of the welfare state. And despite all the scandals, free health care for all is still seen as a principle very much worth fighting for. But it is no longer the great egalitarian dream. Poor people in the UK are still 6 times more likely to die than rich people in the UK.
5.49 OT Dr. Sullivan, Krebsinstititut : "The gap between poor and rich cancer patient increases. The cancer rate in the poorest areas of the country rises further. The inequality between rich and poor grows. That is complete unakzeptabel for a national health system. One must take care of the problem."
6.08 Dorothy was only given a few months to live when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. That was three years ago. She was denied a potentially lifesaving drug due to cost. If she had lived a couple of kilometres down the road, ina different health authority, she would have been given it.
6.30 OT Dorothy Griffiths: “I experienced by coincidence of the medicine, and then which I could not get it because my public health authorities not for it to pay wanted. (I could it, if I had enough money.) If you can pay, you live - if not, you die "
6.52 Finally Dorothy managed to get herself prescribed the drug, but not until after a bitter struggle. She is grateful, but not happy.
6.59 OT Dorothy: "regarding the health service, as I became acquainted with it, am Grossbritaninnien third world a country."
7.08 The reform of the health system is slowly picking up speed, but for many patients, patience is a virtue.