Is The NHS Broken?
I had an interesting conversation with one of our clients this week who is a GP, she is a similar age to me and has been working in the NHS for over 10 years now. Has done a 5-year medical degree, 2 years of foundation junior doctor training plus all her GP training. A long stint for sure.
I asked her ‘What do you think will happen to the NHS?’
She explained to me that the NHS is struggling to cope, the wait times are getting longer even for GP referrals to see a specialist. You try now to book a GP appointment and sometimes you need to wait 6 weeks.
She seemed upset at the fact that what you buy in to as a medical student is now fundamentally changing and already you can see parts are being sold off and privatised.
After covid wait times for an orthopedic referral went through the roof and often people needing new hips or knees were left waiting for 2 years. This gave birth to more private orthopedic referrals, people were simply not wanting to wait with the quality of life they had. That’s ok for some, but not everyone has £10k for a new knee. The question is how do we help those? Is it all going to go insurance based now?
What does work in the NHS?
Please remember I do not work in the NHS; I’m only giving my opinion from an outside perspective which is always dangerous as you do not see the day to day. I’m acutely aware of the problems and do not wish to ruffle feathers just highlight some options for you if you are in a wait list on the NHS for a musculoskeletal complaint. I have been a patient of the NHS many times and think it is AMAZING as are the people in it.
As I see it the NHS is wonderful and the people in it are kind and genuinely care about us. They excel at life saving care, if I was to fall off my bike there is nowhere that I would rather be but an accident and emergency department. The resources are directed at saving life and preserving life. The NHS works with picking us up at putting us back together when we are very sick.
The issue is how to get us from the middle ground where we are improving to getting to our optimum health. Health and wellness will prevent us from getting sick again and needing to go back to the NHS. This is where the problem is in that the resources are not available to educate and care for those who are recovering from say a heart attack, stroke or accident.
To prevent re-occurrence, there needs to be more than just medication, there needs to be education and guided mentorship on how to get from ‘just ok’ to thriving.
It is not their fault; they just don’t have the resources to be directed to this type of care or wellness care. And I completely get it, why would put resources here when we are saving lives over here.
How does Chiropractic fit in?
Not just Chiropractic, but Physiotherapy, Osteopathy, Personal Training, Nutritionist to name a few can all help with this wellness care.
Many of our clients come to us with no pain, no issues, nothing at all. In fact, I met a wonderful lady the other day in her 50’s going through her menopause. She had concerns regarding bone density as there were people in her family with osteoporosis. She was wanting to stay active, keep running and get back to doing half marathons. She needed some guidance to get her body in the best position so she could start training with intensity again.
Now I know what we do is not saving lives and I’m not trying to compare what we do to a surgeon or GP. But if this lady gets fitter, stronger her bone density will improve reducing her chance of hip fracture in the next 20 years, improves her respiratory and cardiovascular health therefore reducing her risk of cardiovascular health.
She also mentioned that running clears her mind from her stressful job and helps her mental health. If you look at mental health referrals since covid, they have gone up.
Chiropractors and other health practitioners don’t necessarily save lives, but they do help with wellness and optimum healthcare. We are keeping people fit, healthy and moving long term. A healthier aging population that is moving and staying fit will reduce the burden on the NHS long term. It maybe that there are more sections of the NHS become privatised. If we can maintain the principles of long-term wellness care to bridge the gap from being ‘ok’ to thriving, then surely, we will have a healthier nation that needs less of the NHS and reduces the stress on it?
If you do know someone who wants more advice, please send them our details. You can send them this blog and they can request a free copy of our book which has posture related exercises in it as well. Click here for FREE book.
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