Blog:The Evil NHS
From Bolton Interweb
Len Duzzatenner, Health Correspondent, 16th August 2009
Americans have been debating public health care this week and comparisons with the NHS have caused so much consternation that Gordon the Great Dictator has felt compelled to tweet on Twitter in support of our NSC (National Sacred Cow). Dave the Etonian has also entered the fray following some misjudged and foolish words from a couple of Tory MEPs. Given the sparsity of real news in the August silly season, there are some interesting points arising.
Firstly, someone in Downing Street is still telling our Beloved Gordon that it is somehow a good idea to embrace the "new media". That advisor, presumably the same one who thought it was a good idea for No.10 to have e-petitions, opening the door for tens of thousands to register a demand for his own resignation, and told the Beloved Gordon to put on a sickly fake grin in a You Tube video, is clearly a Tory mole acting directly on Dave the Etonian's orders. When the Great Dictator goes on Twitter, it isn't a tweet but a twit. And if he does it again, what do two twits make? Stop it!
Secondly the Health Secretary, Andy Burnham, accuses Tory MEP Daniel Hannan of being unpatriotic for saying on American TV: "I find it incredible that a free people living in a country dedicated and founded in the cause of independence and freedom can seriously be thinking about adopting such a system in peacetime and massively expanding the role of the state when there's no need." Dave the Etonian quite rightly dismissed Hannan as eccentric. The Labour line is to try and convince people that Hannan is somehow representative of the Conservative Party as a whole. But this is, of course, patent nonsense. Most of the Tory party are of an age where their local surgery and hospital can be counted as second homes and they would not want to lose more free second homes. More seriously, David Cameron has extensive personal experience of the NHS and knows first hand that it offers a service money cannot buy, since he had enough at his disposal to have bought whatever he needed for his late son but elected instead to use the NHS. If the Queen herself has a heart attack you can rest assured she will be in the same Intensive Care Unit as any of her subjects, and she is, I promise, no socialist. They even named the hospital nearest Sandringham the Queen Elizabeth Hospital to make her feel more at home - how can she resist.
Thirdly the Tories have promised real term increases in NHS spending and when questioned on the BBC, Burnham repeatedly refused to make the same commitment, saying it was down to Chancellor Darling. So who are you really going to trust? Sounds to me like Burnham is expecting health spending cuts or at best a freeze. Pity the Tories are not jumping on that one with a bit more enthusiasm.
Prompted by some silly Americans recorded by TV cameras acting like turkeys voting for Christmas, there has at least been some debate on the NHS by British politicians but as usual let down by the appalling standard of the current crop of those politicians. Hannan is an eccentric, who under the daft party list system for the European Parliament, cannot be voted out by his constituents. Burnham is equally daft for suggesting that anyone who dares to oppose the NHS is lacking in patriotism - nothing is more British than being a total dingbat and active in public life. Londoners elected Boris after all, and I love it.
There may be a small handful of fellow total dingbats in the Conservative ranks who would also like to do away with the NHS but then Brits vote for and have elected candidates from the Monster Raving Loony Party. It would be easier to take away TV remote controls and close all the pubs than dismantle the NHS, and the Tories do actually want to get elected.
There is no doubt that in the last 10 years there have been massive improvements to the NHS. Patient choice when it comes to hospitals, even using private hospitals as NHS patients, is fantastic and the fact is that I can see the top Harley Street specialist in any medical specialism if I am willing to travel, and not pay a single penny that I can't afford for the privilege. This choice is really a Tory policy put in place by Labour, and it works. But at the same time, the NHS is top heavy with bureaucrats, laden with targets that skew treatments, heart-achingly still wasteful, and weighed down by stupid PFI debts. There are some really silly GP's surgery appointment booking systems, a dearth of NHS dentists in some places, and some truly awful hospitals that are dirty, dangerously infected by superbugs, and where patient respect is an unknown concept. There is still a lot of work to do, and criticism is fair.
But Hannan is kidding himself if he thinks the alternative of private healthcare is any better. A late American friend died of cancer a few years back. His wife, in her late eighties, had to regularly drive to Mexico, a dangerous journey for anyone, to obtain drugs. They were not poor but upper middle class and my late friend a celebrated US Naval veteran and in later life a senior schools administrator. Had they been poor, had they lived further from the Mexican border, I dread to think of the consequences. If you are a wealthy American in reasonable health and covered by insurance then you'll get a decent service, anyone else gets at worst nothing, and at best treatment in public hospitals that are badly funded and understaffed. A bit like the worst of the NHS, without the best.
Obama wants to change that but to hear the opposition to his health reforms you really wonder what planet these people are on. Publicly funded healthcare has been described as evil and Orwellian. Death panels have been mentioned by the only US politician to make George W look sane and sensible, Sarah Paininthearse. Notwithstanding that Paininthearse's death panels are not a reference to the NHS and our frequently attacked system of testing the efficiency of drugs, but a clause in the bill to do with end of life counselling, you have to understand that in America, political policies are frequently dictated not by the people or the politicians but by lobbyists for big business. Iraq was all about oil? Well opposition to public healthcare is all about the interests of the healthcare insurers and drug companies that rip off Americans (and the rest of the world). Senators and Representatives are funded by big business, and big business tells them what to vote or they cut off the money. Obama came to power promising reforms that the people need and big business don't like so of course he is going to get a battle. For Obama this is more a battle of the people versus corporations and for the sake of the people of America, whether they have been brainwashed by the Corporates or have retained their senses, he must eventually beat the lobbyists. In this dirty war, the worst bits of the NHS are naturally going to be cited. It is actually a sign of real panic in the boardrooms of the USA that they attack the NHS to try and undermine Obama's efforts. We should not take it personally, or get involved via silly tweeting and twittering. After all, when someone like Hannan wants to dismantle the NHS, we immediately quote the American system of healthcare only for the wealthy and insured as something we would want to avoid like the plague.
Just to cover off the evil death panels in the way they have been portrayed by (our) media. This is to do with the way drugs are approved or not by NICE on the grounds of economics - cost versus patient benefit. NICE is sometimes not that nice and will not fund drugs that have not been proven to be particularly effective and that cost an arm and a leg. This is not a perfect world and drug funding, publicly or via insurance, is not infinite with choices to be made. Brits always have the option of self-funding drugs not available on the NHS, or of buying expensive cover-all insurance (the American way). We are not worse off than Americans - we have the same choices as them in addition to a service that funds almost all effective treatments. The Death Panels are not here, they are in the USA where the panel is the Insurance Claims Department. It is a bit of a back-handed compliment to our NHS that it is worth American corporates misrepresenting and attacking it - they must really be spooked.
My worry, from the debate this week, is Tories talking about NHS Reform. We have had enough of Reform, there is a decent and modern and responsive system in place that does not need reform. What is needs is a programme of continuous improvement, building on reforms already made not more massive, expensive, demoralising and confusing upheaval. We need for the bureaucracy to be streamlined, for waiting list targets to be abolished whilst toughening up those on cleanliness and patient care. We need priorities to be set based on clinical need, sensible GP appointment systems, contract (and in-house) cleaning services that don't deliver the highest hygiene standards to be sacked, and accounting practices that favour PFI contracts and leave the NHS with massive and unnecessary debts to be changed. And we need firmer negotiations with drug companies to ensure we don't get ripped off. As someone on a reasonable wage, personally I wouldn't object to paying a fiver to see a GP and a reasonable sum for a decent meal in hospital, if that is what it took. I also think there is a strong case for real community ownership of hospitals and encouragement of more volunteers and community service directed at looking after the places, whether it be a lick of paint or a bucket and mop. There are loads of improvements we could make, just don't call them reforms.
© Evrose, 2011
