There has been quite a vast amount of discussion in the last couple of days around NHS reform with the government’s critics and multiple “self-interest” groups attacking the coalition’s plans to reform the NHS. It would have been very funny were it not such a potential danger that the opposition party can not see any need to reform our health system despite the fact that the NHS is the worlds third largest employer and that the budget for the NHS actually accounts for more of the nations tax income than any other service (I seem to remember reading somewhere that the NHS actually costs more than is collected via Income Tax, but I can’t remember where so it’s just here say.) Anyway to have the Shadow Health Secretary claim that plans to reform the NHS are driven by ideology is a chilling indictment that Nu Layb’r seem to think that all of the issue caused by their incompetence are now all forgotten, There seems to be from these people a denial of the problems that they have caused which does not just extend to their usual trick of “Not our fault gov.” and start to point towards an actual policy of “Let’s prevent anyone from trying to improve it.” A policy which could well end up being Labour’s greatest legacy to the anarchic state formally known as the UK.
Anyway the reasons for the reform for the NHS are simple so I will not spend to long labouring the point.
1) It’s too Big
2) It Costs too much
3) It does too much
4) It wastes too much
Now as a resident of the United Kingdom I love the NHS, I think deep down so do most of us, however it IS unsustainable, if you as an individual were in as much debt as the Country is and you were renting a Lamborghini at £2000 a month, it would not be considered very prudent for you to cut your £10 a month newspaper bill (Although I would advise that you also cut out the non-essential items.) instead you would be suggesting that this imaginary person got rid of the Lamborghini and got something more reasonable like an Astra. The problem faced by the UK however is that we are paying for the Lamborghini and have got an Astra, albeit an Astra that is staffed by a professional driver but the hard work of the dedicated workforce still can’t make the Astra a Lamborghini.
So if the problem is not the money going in why would Labour think that the solution is to keep adding more money, if it hasn’t worked for the last 13 years I am at a complete loss to see why they think it would work now – but I guess that kind of thinking is how they got us into this mess in the first place! – The time has not just come to reform the NHS, but has come and passed several times, and if the NHS is to be reformed isn’t it infinitely better that it is driven by local medical professionals based on the needs that they see everyday rather than going the “Labour” way and bringing in another level of management to help push the decisions back into the centre where a Bureaucrat can sit with his medical insurance plan and decide that an old lady in Lancashire doesn’t need access to a drug as it will only extend her life by five years!
Not sure I agree with all you have said. The Nhs is a very complex animal as well and the changes do not seem to take that into account. I agree a lot is wasted and we are working very hard to be more productive and to think outside the boxes to enable us to be more efficient. As for it being too big - not sure anything can be done about that, and any national organisation is big as people want care at a convenient point. I think we all get to moan about the NHS because that is what the media do and we should look at all the good it does and not the negative stuff. After all it is there, free and 'convenient' when we really need it even though it can be very frustrating to deal with at times.
ReplyDeleteBut I think that better options can be forced from taking decisions away from my central government and out to the areas that need them, If we could have health care professionals looking at the needs of the people in their areas rather than looking at hitting targets to try and increase their funding it should be possible to have a better service for less money.
ReplyDeleteAs for the size, it is questionable if there could ever be a scaling back of the NHS but it is strange that the UK as the 22nd most populous country needs a workforce smaller only to the Army (China) and Railway Service (India) of two countries with populations of over a billion people, at the same time the Health service is ranked 18th behind nations who spend a fraction of the cost.
Anyway, I agree that it is too easy to pick on these bodies (Same as the Post Office, Trains, Councils etc...) however this doesn't mean that we should not try to save the good, remove the red tape and get the budget back under control.