There was a very disturbing interview on the Today programme this morning, with a woman with cancer who is waiting for treatment and can’t get it because of the pressure covid is putting on the NHS. I wish her all the best but perhaps she and others like her will at least force us to improve the NHS. Because while the NHS holds such an iconic place in the nation’s heart it is difficult to speak the truth, that it is obviously not up to the job, but it is true.
Every year for as long as I can remember the annual bout of flu has put the NHS under intense strain, but nothing was done when each year this was a stark warning that something worse than flu would be unmanageable. This was and is a criminal failure.
Many will now debate whether the NHS needs breaking up, the private sector will shamelessly use newspaper commentators to call for its break up and privatisation, but the solution is simple and obvious. We spend 9.6% of our GDP on health, France and Germany spend 11.3%. If we increased spending to match those levels, the NHS would have £45 billion a year more to build spare capacity, cut waiting lists, recruit enough doctors and nurses and all the rest.
Now I never think you should spend extra money without reforming an institution, the current system will absorb the extra cash for little result. But the elephant in the room is; we want a world class health service and we won’t spend enough to get one. £45 billion extra a year, every year buys you one, full stop.
https://jonty.substack.com/
Jonty, did you catch Prof Spiegelhalter’s comment on ‘Open Source’ that he hoped the severity of the NHS’s current problems might lead the country to start planning for a revitalisation of the health service - in much the same spirit as that which led to its inception during the darkest days of WW2?