The English language. Rich in breadth and subtlety. Its roots in…
… the dialects and vocabulary of Angles, Saxons, and Jutes… 5th century settlers.
Today… English is constantly changing. Influenced over centuries by Latin, French, Dutch and Afrikaans… and the vernacular created by the day-to-day and social media.
On a global scale… English is spoken by 1.452 billion… Mandarin Chinese, 1.119bn… Hindi 602m.
I was thinking about a word for our times. More specifically, the government of our times. Maybe there are several.
Inflation, for example… the policy seems to be, to make poor people, poorer. Forcing them into indigence… that’s a good word for a bad thing.
Dealing with global forces triggering massive movements of people… we call it illegal migration.
Actually the right word is exodus… from poverty, war and persecution.
Industrial unrest across the public sector. An unpopular government sheltering from the winds of public opinion, and the people they are elected to serve and on whom they depend for reelection, are the ones damaged in the crossfire.
Collateral-damage… there’s a word, or two.
The dilapidation of the nation’s estate. No depreciation reserves or policies… the word?
Neglect.
The NHS, overwhelmed with demand and bullied into producing undeliverable plans to conform to impossible budget restraint.
Words describing the state we’re in;
- indigence,
- exodus,
- collateral-damage,
- neglect…
…and bullied.
The collective word for all this? Unsteady and uncertain government. Failing, clumsy, blundering?
How about… floundering? Derivation Dutch… flodderen.
The alternative? Labour, immature, untested, inexperienced.
Nascent, maybe?
A word for the future… fear… I fear for the future.
The success of the NHS is predicated on the skills and talents of its people, yet there is a recruitment crisis.
To add to the problems the invisible fulcrum-point, the wellness of the nation. The NHS can deal with sickness but when it comes to wellness… the omens aren’t good.
The success of public policies and services are dependent on funding, which is predicated on a growing economy… requiring two preconditions; investment in innovation and a growing workforce.
The International Monetary Fund report on the UK economy makes three telling points;
- By 2022, UK real business investment was lower than in 2016… in contrast to the 14% increase among other G7 economies.
- Long-term sickness is one of the main drivers of the post-pandemic spike in inactivity.
- Future budgets should accommodate critical public investments … [plus] … the level of recurrent spending needed to maintain high-quality public services… especially health, social care.
No more is this better spelled out than in today’s excellent report ‘Could early intervention prevent a retirement disability benefit timebomb from Jonny Pearson-Stuttard and friends at LCP.
Their up-sum;
The growing number of people of working age, unable to work because of sickness or disability… [is]… an issue of increasing concern… for… individuals and the taxpayer.
Stuttard&Co reveal the DWP estimates the current annual bill of just under £19bn for working-age disability benefits is expected to rise by one third in real terms in the next four years.
Wow… over £25bn.
The Office for Budget Responsibility devoted a chapter of its 2023 ‘Fiscal Risks’ report, to economic inactivity and health…
‘…2.6m people of working age are outside the labour force for health reasons… making the UK an outlier in the extent to which high levels of economic inactivity had persisted beyond the end of the Covid-19 pandemic…’
… entrenching disability benefits, for some, well into retirement.
The total people of all ages on disability benefits has risen by just over a million in the last decade and is set to rise by another million in just three years.
The LCP report plots the problem by constituency (page 17)… Isle of Wight, Nottingham North, Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough… ouch… giving us obvious locations where we should target health interventions and investment…
‘… interventions which either prevent someone needing to claim a disability benefit or shortening the duration over which they need benefit,
…[will have] a huge economic payback, over and above the benefit to the individual.’
Stuttard&Co say if the rate of return … is properly measured, there is much that we can do both to improve the lives of individuals and pre-empt a potential retirement disability benefit ‘time-bomb’ from emerging.
They give us a new assemblage of words. Addressing;
‘amenable deterioration
in health’.
Start with page 36.
Policy makers must understand there is so much more to shaping health policy than fairy tales about artificial intelligence.
Real intelligence has produced this crunching report… reveals the real threat… the hidden drag on the economy, the health service and society and, offers a way out.
I hear nothing from any policy maker that comes close to addressing any of this.
There’re two words for it… ignorant complacency.
News and Comment from Roy Lilley
Contact Roy – please use this e-address roy.lilley@nhsmanagers.net
Reproduced at thetrainingnet.com by kind permission of Roy Lilley.
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