We Love the NHS

Have also found here!

I am sure there is not one contributor here who would not like to see universal healthcare for all, and I include Dan Hannan too. I hope the debate is about quality and not access. I do have great respect for the NHS, and it is a great comfort that should me or my family fall ill I can expect good, quality treatment. I look upon it as someone who is not a natural Labour or left of centre voter one of your great achievements, the 1948 Health Act, which you are rightly proud of.

However it is has become treated as an a Diety that is above criticism. While you can rarely, if at all call into question the commitment of the doctors and nurses, I believe that it has become a bureaucratic mess. How has it become the 3rd largest employer in the world? Like much of central and local government it is a self serving, box ticking, buck passing, backside covering, committee holding mess. Money, time and resources which could be returned to the taxpayer or put into patient care.

Where I have sympathy with the right is that the NHS has no real competition and if through health care vouchers you can partially elect to opt out of the NHS and spend your income on private health care, I think the competitive arena would shake the NHS out of its complacent malaise.

"It should be defended from right-wing traitors like Hannan"

And so the reasoned debate over optimum systems for healthcare systems continues.

The mere fact that Hannan questioned whether our current system is necessarily the best produces a hysteical reaction and cries of 'traitor'.

And just to repeat some of the comments about Hannan on the previous NHS thread:

"He's a traitor to this country"

"Scum...lower than vermin"

"When Hannan flies back home, we should string up him at Heathrow Airport"

Is it any wonder that it is impossible to have a reasoned debate on healthcare in this country when this sort of hysterical nonsense is thrown at someone who dares to question the 'approved opinion' on the NHS?

You need not agree with Hannan, but I have yet to hear a reasoned argument in defence of our current system other than anecdotes of personal expriences. Both Mark Moore and Mark Cannon below are quite right when they sa that you could find such stories from eery healthcare system n th world and on their own they are not an argument that our current system is the best.

Come on - if the current NHS system is the best (which it may be - I do not know the answer to this one) then it must be possible for someone to actually argue that coherently and not simply threaten to string detractors up from lampposts at Heathrow!

So no criticism from you that Hannan chose to discuss this with Glenn Beck of all people?

No criticism of the disgusting lies spread by Fox News about our NHS?

No, didn't think so. That tells us all we need to know.

Does that make him 'scum' and 'lower than vermin'?

Northern Monkey - you are normally better than that.

Good stuff.

The NHS is the greatest institution this country has to offer. It should be defended from right-wing traitors like Hannan at all costs.

Maybe now Americans will finally understand all the bull they've been told by Fox News.

I agree when I gut mugged in London I received nothing short of exemplory service from the ambulence crew, and later from the A & E staff. They do a great job!

Good on the NHS!

I counted 18 in the last minute - I don't understand how this correlates with 750 every 5 seconds.

But then again - I don't use Twitter. Like most people.

Twitter is a frivolous waste of time and can in no way stage debate of inform policy. It is sadly symptomatic of much of what is wrong with society.

But at least most people seem to steer clear - I don't know a single user. Too many twits make a...

That was earlier this afternoon. 3million people in this country use Twitter. It really was a powerful thing to watch this afternoon...

"3million people in this country use Twitter"

Half of which are "hip" politicians trying to do an obama by saying what they;re having for breakfast.

I don't know a single user.

Three million people do not "use" twitter.

A small minority of registered users generate most of the content. It is a complete clique.

And as I said it gives no room for intelligent discussion. All there is room for is "I like the NHS", "I had an operation", "I went to the GP".

Impossible to discuss the internal market or QALY based allocation or third sector provision.

Maybe you should learn to be more pithy.

I <3 NHS

When I had a burst cerebral aneurysm 7 years ago it saved my life and I my wife and children will always be grateful.
But there are things that are wrong, target-focussed nonsense, and improvements that should be made.
The sign of true love is the NHS itself wanting to get better every day, not sitting on its laurels.

Nice comment, I agree.

The hashtag is now trending at over 750 new Tweets every 5 seconds!...

Somehow the prospect of death doesn't seem quite so awful.

The NHS spends many billions of pounds each year. Of course it does some good. And those to whom it's done good are grateful, not least to the individuals who didit. But it doesn't mean that it's the best way of providing healthcare.
A kneejerk reaction to any suggestion that there might be a better way is to reason as follows:

1. The NHS did some good.

2. Therefore it is the best way of providing healthcare.

That is, as the sharper-witted members of your readership will have noticed, something of a non-sequitur. That is the sort of thinking pieces like this post and twittering that "we love the NHS" encourages. It makes sensible debate and reform difficult.

Well put Mark. That is precisely the way the argument goes.

A doubter says "I think that the NHS isn't the optimum way to provide healthcare". Someone comes along and says "well the NHS saved my life when I had ..." as though that proves it.

Note to all - The NHS is a health service. Of course it provides successful treatment. No-one is saying it doesn't. Even Hannan doesn't believe that it does some good. But it is the wastefulness and the fact that better systems exists that irritates him so.

I don't think that 'better systems exist'. There is no ideal system and each will have winners and losers, but a national system does score highest in terms of 'fairness'. In any case, the idea that another system can be simply transferred from one country to another is farcical.

Mike I ask how did you reach your conclusion that a better systems does not exist? Have you by chance reviewed the post of the other NHS thread from "James Smith" (no relation)?

I do not think that people are trying to transfer a system from another country, but to merely look at what can be learned and copied. There are two truths with the NHS

1. The care it provides is excellent.
2. The cost is stratospheric.

My question to you is "How would Mike Homfray feel about better care for a lower cost?" I seem to remember seeing a documentary about 3 hospitals in the US where care is provided in a co-operative fashion for the poor at 1/3 rd of the cost of the NHS for the same treatment. If anyone has a link to this I would appreciate it. Imagine the money saved going into building 100,000 low cost houses p/a?

We now have 3 (or possibly 4) "National Health Services". You get different treatments in different "national" health services. A Scottish NHS, a Welsh NHS, an English NHS and, I suspect, a Northern Irish NHS. Andy Burnham is more accurately desribed as Secretary of State for Health (England). This is the product of the present government. Is it "fair"? Is "fairness" more important than good treatment?

A system doesn't have to be "ideal" to be better than our present system, just better.

Why do you assume that there has to be a wholesale importation of another system? Is the present NHS beyond improvement?

Mark out of interest what system would you put in place of the NHS. I agree it is not perfect and the money invested needs to be better spent but I do not believe there is a fairer system anywhere else in the world. The standards within the NHS compare favourably with the private sector. In fact in terms of emergency care the NHS is probably much better. Virtually all Consultants in the private sector are Consultants in the NHS and most of the other allied professions will have been trained courtesy of the NHS and may also work in both sectors. I believe it is the best system but I am open to being persuaded otherwise. What we need, I believe, is stability within this sector and I would start by taking control of the NHS away from politicians. One of the biggest problems, I see, is the constant ‘policy change/initiatives’ inflicted by politicians, of all persuasion, on this service. This in turn has a huge impact on the ability of the NHS to concentrate its efforts on its main purpose of delivering first class health care to all.

Of course not - but that's the point. I think the NHS is essentially the bast model but any system may need revision and to be responsive. Those criticising the NHS like Hannan are calling for a fundamental shift towards a US-style free market system.

As for fairness- the US system provides the best care available - for those who can afford it. So for those on the left of centre, yes, fairness will always be part of what we consider to be central to any health care system.

OK so last week when I broke my ankle crossing a poorly maintained street the NHS treatment I received was first class. I hope my return trip tomorrow to visit the fracture clinic will be as good.

One of my former colleagues Prof Karol Sikora is quoted in today’s Daily Telegraph as saying that, “ NHS queues for scans and other tests “can emulate Heathrow on a bank holiday weekend”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/6017690/Barack-Obama-healthcare-NHS-patients-missing-out-British-expert-warns.html

He adds that “Inevitably in a tax-based government run health service, the increasing costs will be borne by younger working population”.

I will not be a twitter convert and the #hashtag site’s functionality needs some serious work!

Katherine,

' "One of my former colleagues Prof Karol Sikora is quoted in today’s Daily Telegraph as saying that, “ NHS queues for scans and other tests “can emulate Heathrow on a bank holiday weekend”.'

Well, maybe. The last time that I looked at the figures, NHS scans of all sorts - MRI, CT, ultrasonic, radiographic - have increased from something of the order of 26 million a year in 2000 to 33 or 34 million a year in 2007 ; I cannot direct you to the DoH page that gives up-to-date numbers because the DoH website is a sod to navigate. Sometimes it's easy ; sometimes it ain't. Given the increased prevalence of scans, if it's like Heathrow (bank holiday weekend) nowadays, it must have been like a third world provincial airport ten years ago.

However, two points, if I may : (i) does Prof Karala have a vested interest in the provision of private sector medical care? and (ii) does the Daily Telegraph have a vested interest in knocking a Labour government?

Waiting lists have - and no-one seems to dispute this - fallen dramatically in the last twelve years, from 18 months to 18 weeks. Doesn't that indicate a huge leap forward in the provision of health care in this country? Doesn't it indicate a huge reduction in avoidable suffering?

Now, I know it is statistically invalid to extrapolate from a few to the millions of people who are in contact with the NHS every year, but (i) the young couple who live next door to me are from South Africa ; the wife went into labour at 0200 on a Sunday, went to the NHS hospital and they both said, on return after a week in the hospital that 'they could not fault the treatment in hospital ; it was excellent' and (ii) when I go out door-knocking for the Labour Party, and meet someone (or their spouse) who has been in hospital, I make a point to ask about the quality of care. So far, the answers have ranged from 'excellent' to 'brilliant' and I have not heard one complaint.

Labour has transformed the NHS in the last twelve years, by leaps and bounds. I just wonder about the agenda of those who seem to find it necessary, always, to knock the very concept of a NHS. It works as well as, if not better, than any endeavour put together by human beings.