Britons express frustration at NHS waits, funding cuts

Many Britons are unhappy about the way the United Kingdom's world-famous National Health Service is being run.

The disquiet is revealed in analysis of the latest British Social Attitudes Survey, an annual audit carried out by the National Centre for Social Research.

Only around half of the 3,000 people quizzed in 2018, some 53 percent, expressed contentment in the way the NHS was being run, the lowest approval rating since 2007.

In 2010, satisfaction levels were 16 percentage points higher. Since then, the government has overseen an austerity program that has led to wide-ranging cuts in public services.

The survey results were analyzed by the Nuffield Trust and King's Fund.

Ruth Robertson, a senior fellow at the King's Fund, a health-centered think tank, said the fact that Prime Minister Theresa May found an extra 20.5 billion pounds ($27 billion) in June for the NHS, in celebration of its 70th birthday, seemed not to have boosted morale.

"We didn't see the 'birthday bounce', that you might have expected, in satisfaction," she said. "Despite the outpouring of public affection around the NHS's 70th birthday, and the prime minister's 'gift' of a funding boost, public satisfaction with how the NHS is run now stands at its lowest level in over a decade."

Twenty-four percent of those surveyed expressed disquiet with community doctors, known as GPs.

Most of the unhappiness was because of long waits for appointments, along with staff shortages, and a lack of funding.

Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, a membership body for organizations that commission and provide NHS services, said: "These findings show the inevitable consequence of starving the NHS of funding for the best part of a decade."

But it was not all bad news. Despite the dissatisfaction with some aspects of the service, 70 percent of people who managed to get appointments were pleased with hospital outpatient services, and 63 percent were content with hospital inpatient care, both well above levels seen in recent years.

Survey respondents cited the high quality of care they received and the fact that it was free at the point of delivery as the main reasons for their satisfaction.

NHS England welcomed some of the survey findings.

"For the third year in a row, public satisfaction with the quality of NHS care has improved and satisfaction with inpatient services is now at its highest level since 1993," a spokesperson told the Guardian newspaper. "The results as a whole understandably reflect a health service still under pressure."

The NHS is almost entirely funded by the taxpayer and through National Insurance contributions, which are collected from working people. Those needing medical services then receive them for free. In the 2008/9 financial year, contributions worked out at an average of 1,980 pounds per person, per year.

Contact the writer at earle@mail.chinadailyuk.com