Two things happened this week that illustrate the Alice in Wonderland world the NHS inhabits.
First a quote from the King's Fund
The NHS will not be privatised because public support for it is so strong that any government seeking to change its funding model would be committing “political suicide”, an analysis has claimed.
The research by the influential King’s Fund health thinktank dismisses fears – voiced by Labour and NHS campaigners including Prof Stephen Hawking – that the health service will be turned into a US-style private system.
It reached its conclusions after analysing 34 years of British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey data, which show that the NHS has enjoyed consistently stronger backing from voters than education or welfare.
“The public remains extremely supportive of the principles and core purpose of the NHS with a consistency in its responses since 1983 that is remarkable,” said Richard Murray, the fund’s director of policy.
Bottom Line - keep your hands of the NHS. Don't even think about changing things.
The second quote relates to the amounts of money the NHS has to spend because of its medical negligence (i.e. when it screws things up)
Quote from the BBC
According to the letter, the NHS in England spent £1.7bn on clinical negligence claims last year.
NHS spending in negligence claims
The letter says: "The rising cost of clinical negligence is unsustainable and means that vast amounts of resource which could be used more effectively have to be diverted elsewhere.
"We fully accept that there must be reasonable compensation for patients harmed through clinical negligence, but this needs to be balanced against society's ability to pay.
So you have it. The NHS is manifestly not fit for purpose but nobody can attempt to change it.
No wonder private healthcare is going to be a sure fire certainty of a business opportunity. Dick Stroud
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