i think the real story here is an abject failure of socialized medicine, which should surprise no one.
the leading cause of death for almost all age groups are stroke and heart disease related. survival is directly impacted by the speed of treatment. socialized medicine in the UK was not good before the pandemic and has gotten considerably worse. response to calls for heart attack and stroke target time in their system is 18 minutes, but in december of 2022
10% of those urgent calls took over 3.5 hours. there hundreds of thousands of people in the UK waiting for heart care and procedures.
and not just for heart issues...NHS targets six weeks for cancer testing. before the pandemic they were at 97%. during 2020 it fell to 56% and is now only back to 71%. there are hundreds of thousands of people who probably have undiagnosed cancer right now. likewise cancer treatment. they target 62 days from referral, and before pandemic they hit this around 80% of the time. by the end of 2021 it was 66%. neither number has recovered. in the united states cancer testing is available nearly on demand and we average around 24 days from diagnosis to treatment. there are hundreds of thousands of people in the UK who should have received cancer testing and have not, and thousands who are receiving care later.
same issue with "elective" procedures like like hip and knee replacements. people wait months for hip surgeries and over a year for orthopedic
appointments. in the US you can receive treatment in a matter of days.
delays in emergency due to understaffing and lack of capacity care are probably causing hundreds of deaths per week in the UK.
take a look at these figures. its really sad.
https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/nhs-delivery-and-workforce/pressures/nhs-backlog-data-analysis