An excellent piece by Jonathan Allsopp on the NHS. Originally posted on his blog, which despite its title has lots to say, and always says it well.
In the autumn of 2011, shortly after taking part in a one day strike in protest at the proposed changes to NHS pensions and the wider destruction of the NHS proposed in the Health and Social Care legislation which was then passing through parliament, I was chatting about the NHS, over a beer, with the finance director of a central London hospital. Whilst she admired the strikers for standing up for what they believed in, her view was that there was “no alternative” for the NHS other than to face up to the bleak financial reality of years of “efficiency savings” following the financial crisis of 2008. It was a view that was widespread at the time, and still is, amongst senior NHS figures. A view that says that we must pay for the global financial crisis by slimming down public services like the NHS; it’s considered the “the right…
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wevegotfiveyears 