Supporters of single payer health insurance systems i.e., government run health care, and, to some extent, Obamacare, they will point to England as one of the successes of this kind of system. Here is just one more example of how efficient government run health care is:
(Newsmax) — At least 1,165 people starved to death while they were patients in Britain’s National Health Service hospitals over the past four years.
Critics charge that nurses are too busy to properly feed their patients and often place food and drink out of reach, reports the Daily Mail.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics also reveal that for every patient who died from malnutrition, four more died from dehydration, according to the newspaper.
[…]
In 2011 alone, 43 patients starved to death, while 291 died of severe malnutrition. Another 5,558 people were discharged from the hospital suffering from malnutrition.
Sifting Reality 
I’m not sure I would blame this on their health system. I’ve been following a lot of things happening in the UK and while, on the surface, they seem unrelated, they point to a cultural shift that is disconcerting. “Busy” is no excuse for placing food and drink out of a patient’s reach, and it takes takes a long time for someone to starve to death. How does that happen without anyone, such as family members, noticing there is a problem and demanding help?
What I am seeing happening is a rise in … selfabsorption? Apathy? I don’t know what word to use, as it’s not any one thing. There’s stuff like this, plus stuff like the shocking number of people on social assistance, some for multiple generations, plus stuff like the increase of people, women in particular, who go on severe drinking binges, plus things like the state moving in to control people in everything from what they’re allowed to eat to how they’re allowed to raise and educate their children. That doesn’t even touch other areas, such as the number of “immigrant” communities that are isolating themselves and enforcing sharia law, the increase in slavery and child sex slavery, etc., all happening with almost no interferance from the law, apparently out of fear of being dubbed “Islamophobic.”
Something is going on in the UK. Problems in their health system seems to be just one part of a much larger issue.
Kunoichi
I see what you’re saying, but this isn’t a new or isolated phenomena. It seems to be a regular stat. I would blame it on the cost-over-care foundation to their healthcare system
I just read that they place people on their “care pathway” which essentially euthanizes people who get to the point where they are deemed no longer worth caring for, without the patient being informed.
I do blame the system.
We have a couple from England as our friends. When they moved here 25 years ago, one main reason was because of the socialized medicine. Their families are still there and we hear nothing but horror stories about their health care system.
I guess that the problem in UK is decentralization into several local trusts.
Unregulated management in a group (be public or private) is more likely to tend to corruption when funds aren’t management owned.
I would blame it on a socialist system, in general, that has robbed people of their compassion, work ethic, and common sense.