The 2014 update from the US based Commonwealth Fund on its ongoing research into the efficiency and value for money of the world's leading health services provides a stunning endorsement for the NHS:
In 12 categories the NHS comes top in 9 in this group of elite countries. It comes second in another and 3rd on timeliness. Unfortunately, we still choose to live unhealthy lives.
What is more it is stunningly cost effective: just look at that bottom line. In terms of bangs per buck we beat the world.
So why is the government so determined to destroy what we have?
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Ideology, and dogma, Richard. Leaving aside the scandal of PFI, it was one of the last parts of the public sector in the UK that was not open to being pillaged by the likes of Serco, Virgin, and the rest of the commercial organisations who fill their ever inflating bank balances from the public purse, while generally providing a service of a lesser standard than the public providers they replaced.
Of course, the survey you refer to was carried out before the privatisation of the NHS has had time to kick in. Over the coming five years we can expect to see an increasingly dramatic fall through the rankings to levels something similar to the US. Patients will suffer, but the pillagers of the public purse and their political lapdogs will be as pleased a punch.
I should have made the point that you do: this is pre-privatisation data
Yet we are being pushed to a system of, and to let in providers from, a country which had no firsts, whose highest was a third and which came last in five of the eleven categories.
Indeed
Having experienced the nhs from the earliest days it was a pionerring vital service and it was and is unique in the world so i hope it continues to work for the people of the country. Having retired to france I can testify to the comparison to the french system !!
Although Ivan’s response and Ian’s rueful observation are both correct, I think we need to add in an extra observation – that of animosity-fuelled revenge.
We are being governed – ruled, would be a better term for the actions of our neo-feudal overlords – by a bunch of ideological fanatics determined to avenge the successes and improvements won by the determined efforts of their class enemies (and, you Right-wingers, PLEASE don’t call this class envy by the working class – the most aggressive class warriors have always been in the upper, wealth-owning class, as Warren buffet said “there’s a class war going on, and my class is winning).
Of course, it’s a major plus that destruction of the Welfare State also re-directs the wealth of King Solomon a hundred-fold into the pockets of their chums, but the main objective is to smash the system, leaving it irreparable.
I have said before that Thatcher was a Right-Wing Maoist, and her time in power was the Right’s “Great Leap Forward”. Cameron’s administration is the Right’s “Cultural Revolution”, led by a new “gang of four” – Cameron, Osborne, Gove and Hunt – who will leave behind them the situation spoken of by Tacitus, who put into the mouth of the British opponent of the Romans (and apologies for the Latin, and for repeating this quote I’ve posted before) this criticism of Roman power;
“Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant”, whoich translates as “Where they make a wilderness, they call it peace!”
Animus and hatred are what fuels them.
Andrew
I agree
And it has long been so
Richard
Superbly put, Andrew, as you cut to the fundamentals. The point about the contrast (or perhaps we should say continuation) of the “projects” of Thatcher and the Cameronites is particularly insightful. And yes, you have used the Tacitus quotation before. But it remains as accurate and powerful a critique of this government as when you first drew our attention to it.
Mao killed millions. Get a grip.
We have got a grip
What worries us is that our nation is being killed by neo-feudalism
A strange sense of deja-vu. Maybe I’ve been reading your blog too long Richard!
You recall an earlier version!
As a note of balance I do think the discussions on ‘privatisation’ in healthcare are sometimes over-played. At a national level the scale of services that have moved into private hands since 2010 has been fairly small. Probably no bigger overall than during the last Labour government (which did encourage the establishment of independent treatment centres, for example). Most of our hospitals are, and probably will continue, to be publicly run. With the current level of funding growth (negative in real terms due to the proportionately greater size of health related inflation) and the large risks inherent in many parts of health care (such as complex cancer care, elderly emergency care, probably almost all of mental health services) I doubt much of the private sector would wish to take on such risks. They may wish to take on the more lucrative and generally simpler bits of the system (straightforward planned surgery being one) but I doubt much else.
The bigger risk is the tidal wave of negative reports in the media and from politicians regarding the service and the people who run it. The GP workforce is already too small and has many current practitioners looking at early retirement. Taking GPs as just one example, why would you want to get good A levels, complete a difficult degree, work hard as a junior doctor for years and then become a salaried GP on circa £80k a year (every day making decisions that may be life or death to your patients) if the mass media portray you as lazy and careless? Obviously you wouldn’t then consider a career in banking, earning a much larger salary, with little risk of legal censure and the media portraying you as a business leader. You can replace GP with Hospital Doctor, Nurse or many other medical professions. If we implement policies from the growing consensus regarding the ‘evils’ of immigration, I am not sure who will be left to run the NHS.
The chart confirms what most of us working in the NHS know: there are parts of the service that work badly, and there are some shocking examples of poor care, but overall the NHS provides high quality care at just about the highest value for money return of any health system (with the possible exception of Japan).
Sadly the examples of poor care are shown everywhere and treated as common (rather than the exceptions that they generally are); whilst the outstanding care is rarely mentioned and treated as exceptional (rather than the commonality that it usually is).
Sorry, rant over. Thanks for the post.
This is a historic perspective
The rate of privatisation is increasing very rapidly and this data is pre that
I agree there is poor care: there is also supremely good care
I saw some figures recently of the rapidly increasing scale and value of NHS services being outsourced/privatised compared to 12 months ago. Sorry I haven’t got time to track them down now, but from memory they were substantial and significant increases across the board.
Personally I think there’s little doubt that NHS management, etc are under heavy pressure to get as much a possible privatised before May 2015 so that very little can be undone by the next government (assuming they want to). We have, of course, seen the same elsewhere with rail franchises and with many privatisations (or semi privatisations) that most of us don’t even hear about. It’s a slash and burn approach in all but name. Or as Andrew put it far more poetically earlier, citing Tacitus: “Where they make a wilderness, they call it peace!”
It may be “peace” now, but mark my words that in three to five years time, when these policies have had time to bite (and as we’re now seeing with some the the early policies of this government such as the bedroom tax) the consequences will be appalling and will not be rectified easily or cheaply.
I am sure you are right
This is a deliberate burnt earth policy
I agree that ‘privatisation’ is still in the early stages, but it’s the direction of travel that’s worrying, and the inevitability of it going much further – the intent is clearly there and signalled.
Agreed
http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/gp-training-figures-are-a-complete-car-crash/20006999.blog
Undoubtedly true
Have you recovered from your op yet Richard?
Not even had it yet
Not due for several months a) because we now have waiting lists b) because I need other treatments first to limit hopeful scale of surgery
You should have gone private :p
j/k – get well soon
Not forgetting that the hospital now treats privately as well…which is bound to limit NHS treatments somewhat.
Of course, my surgery will not be done by the NHS until it becomes a surgical emergency..but I can have it done at the same facility, by the same team, for a shade short of eight grand….
Me too
I am not paying
Is this data for the National Health Service (England) only, or does it include all four of the UK systems that make up the NHS?
To be honest, I do not know
Further to Ivan Horrocks’ point about figures on NHS privatization, the ever reliable Dr Éoin Clarke (PhD) – TheGreenBenches@Hotmail.com of the “Green Benches” rides to the rescue at
http://www.greenbenchesuk.com/2014/05/a-definitive-list-of-166bn-worth-of-nhs.html
He’s a good guy
The same guy that had to apologise to Virgin etc for lying?
The same guy that received a raft of coincidentally timed lawyer’s letters from NHS suppliers, I believe. Yes, him.
I find these figures hard to believe. Not the NHS numbers as I agree we have a superb care system, but to have Norway and Sweden ranked 10th and 11th! Having lived there they have without question some of the best health care services in the world.
The fact that Jeremy Hunt was not all over the news yesterday quoting this report speaks volumes for how the Tories view the NHS. If it were the IMF praising Osborne’s economic policy he would have been out there soaking up the praise. The only mention in the mainsteam media was a footnote on a BBC 10 o’clock news item last night in an otherwise pessimistic report about the NHS.
I found the expenditure per capita interesting given that the data is from a period when tens of millions of americans had no healthcare at all.
agreed
Does Lucky Godot (“most of our hospitals… will continue to be publicly run”) really not know about (a) the already-existing-and-being-implemented EU Competition and Procurement regulations (strengthened by the H&SC Act 2012)to the onerous financial cost and detriment of the NHS; and (b)the secretively-prepared & IRREVERSIBLE Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP, aka US-EU Trade Deal/Agreement), which Obama-Cameron want signed by end 2014, which opens the floodgates for gloves-off privatisation and which (inter alia) encourages the private sector to SUE GOVERNMENTS (already happening under similar deals)if they sanction public sector commissioning or activity which the private sector considers would undermine or “threaten” its profits? And TTIP signed will override national legislation. Some late-onset awareness (despite media quiet and obfuscation – not least the BBC’s!) is beginning to generate some opposition, but if it fails…. The NHS grave is already being dug; and as “This may hurt a bit” asks: “why isn’t everyone angry?”. Because – like Godot? – too many just don’t know; and “they” are doing all they can to keep it that way.