The sad thing is that the NHS, often quoted of by people like the one in the video clip linked above, does not exist. Having worked in the NHS, the real NHS, I can say what is there today is a travesty. Full name, National Health Service. Take some time and think on what that means. When it first began the mission statement would, if they had one, have been along the lines of "Enabling the citizen and the visitor alike, freedom from disease, injury and infirmity so they may contribute to the ability of the nation to prosper and be safe". I am talking about health issues but there are too many distractions from health care which take money and resources away from what should be its core, health care. Doctors are on a contract which means they are essentially self employed, did you know that? It means standards are very difficult to police. Take note of the recent scandals if you need evidence of that. Doctors have so much power that they overwhelm the efforts of managers to do the job properly. How many people are given breast augmentation? How many of those are from cancer reconstruction? Not as many as you might think. Many of our health service junior and middle managers have little or no formal education as managers despite the efforts of 'our Maggie'. Most of these have a pathetic level of ability to make a budget balance and what you get is a group of cliques making themselves look good by cooking figures and destroying the careers of dissenters while promoting arse kissers who go on to do the same thing. The NHS 'could' be something to be proud of but frankly nobody has the balls to do the job that needs to be done by restricting the powers of cliques, removing the ability of senior doctors to sabotage the system and returning to the core mission. Holding your breath is optional, I feel sorry for those in the USA, if you do not manage to get strict safeguards in place you will spend a lot of money helping certain health and insurance 'professionals' to become very rich indeed and still people will die when they should not. I am not going to tell you MY nightmares from experiences working within the system, they are rightly and properly mine alone. You will doubtless have nightmares of your own to worry about.
