Beggars and homeless in streets

[seahermit]

In a sense, you are right in that we forget how much better and well-structured our support services are in the UK compared to many other countries - often little support (or none) for the poor, the unfortunate, the ill, the disabled ..

However, our systems are indeed far from perfect and I believe that there has been a great deal of neglect and under-funding for some years regarding the social services, the NHS, mental health services etc. I also think that the benefit system these days is extremely bureaucratic and complex and not at all sensitive to people's real situations. (There will always be people who play the system, that's another issue!).

One could go on all night about how improvements could be made and I am not going to get into the details or the political ins and outs, I am rather bored and cynical about all stuff that these days. However, the fault has to come from the top - I think that our society has become rather more selfish and materialistic and those attitudes are not helped by leading politicians with short-term vision and little experience of (or interest in) sections of the community in deprived areas where they have never set foot.

I would like to see in the Commons some of the altruistic people with a social conscience who created all the welfare state legislation at the end of WW2. THAT would bring back all the support for the Labour party!

[Richard]

Successive governments have known about the funding challenges for years, but failed to adequately deal with them, as a result there is a growing funding gap.
Planned spending for the Department of Health and Social Care in England is £140.4 billion in 2019/20.
Boris recently announced a new five-year funding deal that would see NHS funding rise by £33.9 billion in cash terms (ie, not adjusted for inflation) by 2023/24 compared to 2018/19.
This figure is deemed too low by many professionals and even that is not sustainable without further taxation and the so-called 'Brexit Dividend'.
But the issue of just applying more funding is not simple as there have been huge swings in requirements, even where there has been no major economic shock or change of governments, political leaders always find themselves trapped in a cycle of short-term emergency cash injections.
Although it is true to say that the rate of funding growth slowed during the period of austerity that followed the 2008 economic crash. Budgets rose by 1.4 per cent each year on average (adjusting for inflation) in the 10 years between 2009/10 to 2018/19, compared to the 3.7 per cent average rises since the NHS was established.
The question is how governments can escape from these reactive cycles.
Of the planned spending of £140 billion, as above, £133 billion was earmarked for day-to-day spending on NHS services (staff salaries and medicines) prioritized at the expense of capital spending on buildings and equipment, which are long-term investments.
Governments struggle to find the money to provide a good all-round service at the best of times.

[seahermit]

I know that this is dodging all the complexities of funding and how effective it has been - but a major thing which has become clear over the years is that funding is not enough in itself, just chucking money at a problem in the hope of a quick solution (as beloved by politicians) is not effective.

Money has to be carefully targeted and monitored and there has to be some real understanding of the situation - unfortunately not a talent always possessed by politicians in temporary and transient terms of office.

And if there was a much more effective war on the drugs trade and the international criminal networks which control it, the annual NHS bill would jump sharply downwards. Likewise if a bold government defied all the whinges about "personal freedom of choice, individual rights" etc. and demonized junk food outlets and convenience food, we might eventually have a much healthier, fitter population with fewer health issues. Just dreaming!

[Richard]

Whatever system is set up to supply a population's need for services such as cheap food, clothing or health care will always be vulnerable to how it can best be serviced in the face of a multitude of issues.
Are we exploiting people in sweat-shops abroad, for cheap clothing sold here?
Are we importing labour which threatens our indigenous work force?
Why are our doctors and nurses emigrating and causing a shortage that has to be met by bringing foreign workers in?
Why are we not training enough health care workers in this country?
Are fast food outlets unpleasant to work in and does the product cause obesity?
Certain measures can be put in place but there is, of course, no easy answer and we are subject to political arguments in order to win both hearts and minds, regardless of their efficacy or reliability in the reality of a shifting landscape.

[seahermit]

You should have had a career in politics, Richard, it is hard to argue with any of the issues you have raised! Many things wrong with our consumer society, the drive to import impossibly cheap clothing has indeed impacted labour forces in economically backward countries and the poor quality of the clothing is an added issue - it doesn't last five minutes, gets thrown away which merely perpetuates the whole system. And adds greatly to the wastage, pollution of the environment with microfibres etc. etc. ..

Because not just clothing but many manufactured products are artificially cheap, that means that in the long run it is very difficult for retail businesses to make reasonable profits and survive. Which means real wealth is not being created within society.

I am afraid that I am pessimistic about attitudes changing, greed and irresponsibility will prevail for now - until the climate changes and damage to the environment become so bad that humans are forced to change behaviour in order to survive.