Considering that you neither reside in the UK, nor have cause to make use of
the facilities of our health service, I find it a little presumptuous of
you to feel that you are qualified to pass comment on its continuing
viability, or otherwise. One thing that you need to understand, is that
NHS-bashing is a national sport here, and articles such as that which you
are quoting as being read by your wife, appear every week in the daily and
Sunday press. The Readers' Digest is no more separated from this practice
than any other press offerings, despite the way it tries to present itself.
As far as the content of the story goes, with the ongoing restructuring of
the health service, I very much doubt that medicines are being wasted in the
way described, as an 'across the board' event. For sure, somebody has
probably seen this being done in some health establishment somewhere, and
extrapolated this into common practice. The truth is probably much removed
from that. The people 'on the ground' in the health service are ordinary
folk like you and I, and I don't suppose they like to see waste in their
working lives, any more than they do in their personal ones. I'm sure that
if there is a way to get the remaining medicine out of the tube, the vast
majority of employees are doing so. Apart from that, we don't actually know
that there are not valid operational reasons why sometimes, medicines left
in containers may be thrown away. There could be contamination issues, or
maybe the medicine starts to deteriorate as soon as it is opened, and then
has a very short ongoing shelf life. Whilst there may be some truth in this
story, I think it needs to be considered with a degree of scepticism. These
stories are told in a way as to be deliberately provocative and to cause
outrage at supposed 'waste in the NHS'.
For the most part, the NHS delivers a first class service to patients and,
whilst there are errors made - and you will always be able to find someone
that has got some outrageous claim about how they or their uncle Willy or
their friend down the street was badly treated - the vast majority of people
are perfectly satisfied with the treatment and service that they receive,
and are glad that it is there for them 24 / 7 / 365, without having to worry
about who's going to pay. You must also remember that it is a huge
employer - I think I recently read somewhere that it is the largest employer
in the whole of Europe - and for that reason, if no other, there is going to
be issues with overstaffing and waste from time to time. This is true of any
large organisation, so is sure to be of a mega one like the NHS.
As to your comments about percentages of cancer patients being seen by an
oncologist, I'm not sure that I follow exactly what you were trying to say
there. With UK NHS patients, 100% of people will be referred to an
appropriate consultant (highest level of hospital-based specialist doctor /
surgeon in any particular field) if their general practitioner deems it
necessary. Patients suspected of having cancer are referred immediately, and
often seen within a few days. It is not unusual for treatment - either
medical, nuclear, surgical or all three, to be started within a week of
confirmed diagnosis.
So no. I think, as a resident of the UK, and a user of the NHS for the whole
of my life, you are quite wrong, and the health service is no more 'doomed'
than it has been at any time in its now quite lengthy existence. The current
round of financial austerity measures that have had to be implemented by
this incoming government to try to clear up the mess we are in, are sure to
have some impact on a very heavy tax-spender such as the NHS, but it will
certainly not be "austerity'd into nothing" as you so quaintly put it. The
hospital managers will have to learn better control of their finances, as
they have had to in the past. The only reason that they have forgotten how
to do this now, is that the previous government was of a socialist flavour,
and they thought that the way to improve everything, including the NHS, was
to throw money at it. This has resulted in a top-heavy management structure,
and a lot of internal waste. Once this has been addressed, the NHS will
again be able to deliver cost-effective high quality care, as it has in the
past.
Arfa
