This casualty needs more ER than ooh-err

Maurice O'Brien • Published 21 Aug 2009 18:00 0 Comments

HOW come the debate we should be having here about the NHS is instead taking place in the United States?

Like pensions and our increasing longevity, the Utopian ideal of the NHS is a problem which effectively began hurtling out of control from day one.

Generations of politicians have been in denial and they were at it again last week when the all-party twittering classes turned on Daniel Hannan for speaking the unthinkable.

NHS critics, of course, are automatically accused of a malicious slur on doctors and nurses. Tosh. That accusation is wholly bogus, just as it is when condemnation of Government mishandling of the Afghan campaign is mischievously misread as disloyalty to our armed forces.

The layers of NHS bureaucracy multiply almost daily but, despite obsessions with waiting times and targets, queues for surgery remain too long, cancer survival rates vie with Europe's lowest and hospital superbugs are rampant.

The Government boasts of spending £700m last year on cancer drugs. But, to put that in context, in the past four years the cost of executives and clerical staff in the primary care trusts alone has almost doubled to £1.2bn.

That's the economics of the madhouse but, while Labour and the limpid shadows among Dave's Tories are terrified of public opinion, they'll never muster the guts or inclination to take the steps required to reshape the NHS philosophy. Until then their so-called new thinking will involve nothing more radical than Titanic-style deckchair shifting.

In these perilous times when surprise, surprise, Britain has proved not to be the best placed nation to emerge from the recession as we were promised, every enterprise is being forced to tailor its cloth and make every penny count.

Why should the NHS be any different? Because our political leaders are cowards.

* ON THE radio on Monday morning the latest robotic mumblings from dismal Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth preceded the frank thoughts of a 2 Rifles captain, currently operating in the roadside bombers' playground around Sangin. Providing his own eloquent definition of a soldier's courage, he observed that they'd have to be stupid not to be scared each time they venture out on patrol, knowing the next step could be their last.

Next up a young rifleman explained how he deals both with that fear and his anger over fallen comrades, and then "you put your head on and walk out the gate".

Lions and donkeys?

* IS IT just my age or do current events now condition us to feel reflexive outrage?

Spotting a newspaper headline reading '£90 extra if an airline loses your luggage', my blood automatically began to boil. Until I read on and realised it's actually them paying us.

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