Damaging access to services
There are now signs that increasing the use of private providers by the NHS, and the subsequent cost, may be damaging people’s access to NHS services.
The poll also found that nearly two in five (37%) UK adults reported having been told by an NHS professional that a treatment, test or procedure they could benefit from, was not available on the NHS. Many in this group said that the problem has become more common specifically since the start of the pandemic (11%) or in general over the past ten years (15%).
In a separate survey of nearly 7,000 openDemocracy readers across the UK, a similar proportion (40%) reported being refused a treatment, which a healthcare professional thought could have helped, on the NHS.
Four in ten (41%) respondents also said they or a loved one had been discharged from NHS care before they were ready, and over half said they had struggled to access NHS care at a convenient location. In both cases, the majority said the problem had worsened in the past ten years, with most saying the decline in healthcare accessibility predated the pandemic.
Madders added: “The finding that 40% of people may have been potentially denied a treatment is an alarming indicator of how a decade of austerity in the health service has denied people their basic entitlements in the NHS.”
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