Skip to main content

NHS=IOU

I see in his usual attempt to out-Blair Blair, David Cameron has changed his slogan to three letters (as opposed to Blair's, three words: the irritatingly pointless "education, education, education").

The letters are N.H.S.- the National Health Service.

I am sure that all the Healthcare professionals in the country will be delighted that politicians are coming to second guess them and impose more outside controls.

I listened to Andrew Lansley, the Tory front bencher, on the Radio this morning.

Oh Dear! He was totally glib, shallow and pointless. "Yes, there must be more money". When pressed as to where and how much, no answer.- the very essence of an ignorant politician.

I have no more answers to the questions of the NHS than Andrew Lansley does.

I do, however have many questions.

The demand for Health care is growing and is particularly acute in the last months of life. We have the technology to prolong life a little- yet there are significant moral questions about whether this is desirable- don't we need to talk about death with dignity?

Labour significantly increased expenditure on the NHS, yet outcomes have not improved- why not?

Should the National system be rebalanced into smaller units?

It seems impossible to roll out a truly national IT system- can we not get different systems to talk to each other via the internet?

How can we balance the need for consistent experience amongst doctors with the need for local provision in different specialist fields?

Are large hospitals actually any better? Do the risks of cross infection negate any other benefits?
Why are British healthcare students not gaining jobs after qualification?

What do the medical professionals think? How much should we listen?

Should not in-patients at least pay for bed and board?

Should we now abandon "socialized medicine"?

If so, how?

The issues in Healthcare are complicated and will not be solved by political grandstanding.

My heart sinks at the idea that the Tories intend turning the NHS into a political football.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Well their policies so far appear to consist entirely of chucking money at the NHS. They'll probably also involve repeatedly interfering to show they're "doing something". We don't need to imagine what the effect will be, as that is the situation at the moment.

Meet the new boss / Same as the old boss
Cicero said…
Sadly true- but then what do you expect from a political calss that knows nothing of life outside the political bubble?

Blair: junior lawyer-MP-PM

Cameron: "advisor"-"lobbyist-MP-Leader of Opposition

Popular posts from this blog

Liberal Democrats v Conservatives: the battle in the blogosphere

It is probably fair to say that the advent of Nick Clegg, the new leader of the Liberal Democrats, has not been greeted with unalloyed joy by our Conservative opponents. Indeed, it would hardly be wrong to say that the past few weeks has seen some "pretty robust" debate between Conservative and Liberal Democrat bloggers. Even the Queen Mum of blogging, the generally genial Iain Dale seems to have been featuring as many stories as he can to try to show Liberal Democrats in as poor a light as possible. Neither, to be fair, has the traffic been all one way: I have "fisked' Mr. Cameron's rather half-baked proposals on health, and attacked several of the Conservative positions that have emerged from the fog of their policy making process. Most Liberal Democrats have attacked the Conservatives probably with more vigour even than the distrusted, discredited Labour government. So what lies behind this sharper debate, this emerging war in the blogosphere? Partly- in my ...

Concert and Blues

Tallinn is full tonight... Big concerts on at the Song field The Weeknd and Bonnie Tyler (!). The place is buzzing and some sixty thousand concert goers have booked every bed for thirty miles around Tallinn. It should be a busy high summer, but it isn´t. Tourism is down sharply overall. Only 70 cruise ships calling this season, versus over 300 before Ukraine. Since no one goes to St Pete, demand has fallen, and of course people think that Estonia is not safe. We are tired. The economy is still under big pressure, and the fall of tourism is a significant part of that. The credit rating for Estonia has been downgraded as the government struggles with spending. The summer has been a little gloomy, and soon the long and slow autumn will drift into the dark of the year. Yesterday I met with more refugees: the usual horrible stories, the usual tears. I try to make myself immune, but I can´t. These people are wounded in spirit, carrying their grief in a terrible cradling. I try to project hop...

Are the Liberal Democrats Libertarian?

A few days ago Cicero met with one of the better known figures in the Libertarian Alliance, Brian Mickelthwait . Brian writes for various blogs that I enjoy reading- including Samizdata . Ahead of our meeting Brain expressed "scepticism" about the Libertarian credentials of the Liberal Democrats: "My charge was that when you meet a Liberal Democrat you never know what he will believe. The one who talks to you is likely to say what you want to hear. But the others will simultaneously be telling other people with quite different views what they want to hear. So don't vote for these lying creeps." Political parties- all of them- are coalitions of people who quite often disagree with each other. Apparently we are not supposed to "air our dirty linen in public", but actually one of the reasons that the Liberal Democrats appealed to me was that they were prepared to talk about issues and policies amongst themselves in public. The eclipse of the Liberal Party...