[gruez]

>I think it’s amazing that a solid system can be defunded like that until it just sorta crumbles under it’s own weight

"defunded"? Maybe if you're comparing post pandemic budgets to pandemic budgets, but spending is still way up compared to pre-pandemic levels.

[1] https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/12020081/embed?auto=1

[sefrost]

I want to add some extra data for other people. The UK has an aging population. Old people need more healthcare spending.

If we adjust the data for age and demographic changes, then we can see spending was reduced between 2010 and 2021.

https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/the-past-present-...

[throwawaylinux]

It is pretty blatant dishonesty to call it defunded or reduced spending though, as much as some ideologues like to claim it is.

[DanBC]

The people doing the defunding say that it's defunding. They're proud of it. They wrote a manifesto saying they were going to do it, and then they did it.

It's pretty blatant dishonesty to say that healthcare hasn't been defunded, and then only focus on NHS provision of healthcare while ignoring public health, social care, nursing care, etc.

[throwawaylinux]

> The people doing the defunding say that it's defunding. They're proud of it. They wrote a manifesto saying they were going to do it, and then they did it.

Oh? Do what, fund the health system at almost record levels?

> It's pretty blatant dishonesty to say that healthcare hasn't been defunded, and then only focus on NHS provision of healthcare while ignoring public health, social care, nursing care, etc.

It would be if someone had done that. Incidentally, are you saying that NHS has not been defunded? You wouldn't be very popular with said ideologues either then.

[photonerd]

The NHS has been underfunded for about 40 years, but especially under Conservative government.

Blair’s Labour—for all their faults—at least stopped the bleeding, but there wasn’t enough political & popular support for significantly increased spending.

Then Cameron & his bs “austerity measures” cropped it

[throwawaylinux]

> Blair’s Labour—for all their faults—at least stopped the bleeding,

Stopped the figurative bleeding and started the literal...

But by stopped the bleeding, do you mean kept at levels comparable to those set by the previous conservative government? I.e., agreeing with the level of funding set by the conservative government.

I find it weird how governments are given a pass in that way. Setting funding from X to Y is a horrific crime, but leaving it at Y when you have the power to change it to X is somehow okay.

[glomph]

Labour under Blair significantly increased the spending on the NHS compared to the conservative government before them.

[throwawaylinux]

https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/the-past-present-...

Looks like there has been no slashing going on, even adjusted for inflation and demographics. And the conservative governments after 2010 kept funding at about the same levels as the Labour governments set it at. Fancy that.

I wonder what governments have had to show for this massive 2x increase in adjusted healthcare spending. Vast improvements to the system, surely.

[photonerd]

Your own source shows that when adjusted for population size/etc the trend has been flat/slightly down.

Now add inflation, that it was underfunded in the first place, and that the charts used start right after a major recession & the beginning of Thatcher…

[throwawaylinux]

I think about flat since Labour was last in power, yes. And it is adjusted for inflation. Seems to have been no real "defunding" going on. And if it was underfunded in the first place, a 3x adjusted increase in spending must have done wonders for it, there must be significant improvements in key objective metrics since then, have there been?

[rcxdude]

The increases over the time period in that graph are still less than inflation, making it a real-terms funding cut, especially relative to the growth in population.

[gruez]

Here's a chart that adjusts for inflation:

https://www.economist.com/img/b/400/436/90/media-assets/imag...

As you can see, it's below pandemic levels (as I previously said), but still way above pre-pandemic trends.