He’s got the right attitude …

 

Another morning where I don’t know if I should laugh or cry when looking at what is deemed to be ‘news’, perfectly demonstrated by the print edition’s front pages. At least the Aitch tsunami has subsided. Sadly, the rest of the ‘news’ only show that no ‘guidance’ has come from Whitehall and thus every front page is a monument to the chief editors’ political hobby horses (link): slebs, NHS, a dash of strikes, a dash of ‘cost of living crisis’ … and Sunak ‘confessed he’s used private healthcare’ …

I was captivated though by the FT’s lead article’s headline ’Attacks on Royal Mail and Guardian stoke fears over surge in cyber crime’. My attempt to find this in their online edition however was stymied by the now common practice of every single online paper to split an article into many and then invoke paywalls.

So all I have to offer about the poor Guardian being ‘attacked’ is a resounding tee-hee-hee. As for the Royal Mail: how would we peasants know? Do we have stuff to send overseas?

And so to the ongoing ‘NHS Crisis’. There’s Sunak’s ‘confession’, deserving of a whole article according to The Times: 

“[…]  amid fears that the issue would continue to dog the prime minister if he failed to answer it, Sunak yesterday used a question on NHS dentistry to admit that he had used independent healthcare in the past. “I am registered with NHS GP,” he said. I have used independent healthcare in the past, and I’m also grateful to the Friarage in Northallerton for the fantastic care they’ve given my family over the years,” he said.” (link, paywalled)

The horror! How dare he! We’ve all gotta be ‘equal’ in the misery which the Sacred Cow provides, according to a gleeful Starmer:

“The Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer mocked Sunak’s comments saying that as he was registered with an NHS GP he would now “enjoy the experience of waiting on hold every morning at 8am to get a GP appointment.” He said: “Those that are waiting now don’t want another round of empty promises or boasting about what he’s done. They just want to know when they’ll be able to see a doctor.” (link, paywalled)

Yes indeed, a PM who has fallen ill doesn’t need ‘preferential’ treatment at all just because he’s the PM and running this country! I’m sure Starmer himself is queueing on the phone to his GP when he falls ill. 

Meanwhile, the top opinion piece authors in both the DT and The Times have come up with their contribution about the Sacred Cow. David Aaronovich declares that the

“Greatest threat to the NHS is loss of faith – The first step to recovery is a pay deal that boosts the morale of hospital staff and stops doctors leaving for Australia” (link, paywalled) 

Yes of course! Stuff their mouths with money, as Aneurin Bevan did, and they’ll stay, never mind the working conditions overseen and enforced by ‘management’ – a management which would get the same pay rises as doctors and nurses because they’re also ‘equal’. How pay rises would change how we plebs regard the NHS – dunno, he doesn’t say:

“​​The latest British Social Attitudes survey shows that public satisfaction with the NHS fell from 53 per cent to 36 per cent between 2020 and 2021 — the lowest level since 1997. It seems reasonable to presume that public confidence will be even lower now.” (link, paywalled)

How very surprising – who could have seen this coming? Aaronovitch describes next that ‘people respond in predictable ways’, one being to do a Sunak:

“When this kind of slow collapse happens, people respond in several fairly predictable ways. First, those who can will pay. A survey from the Office for National Statistics released just before Christmas found that 13 per cent of adults had paid for private medical care in the previous 12 months. Another survey put the figure at about 20 per cent. And climbing.’ (link, paywalled)

The other is what many of us have been doing. Note that ultimately all those excess deaths are our own fault (my emphasis):

“Some of those who can’t pay just “go dark”. Again, we reported shortly before Christmas that the rise in excess deaths might partly be caused by people simply not “bothering” the NHS with what appeared to be routine conditions, which then turned out be anything but.” (link, paywalled)

We’d better not ask who and what got us into that mess! We’d better not ask why the Sacred Cow has money to pay for ‘diversity managers’ who earn more than top nurses. Better not ask about the bureaucratic nightmare which the frontline staff have to cope with every day. Box-ticking is also ‘treatment’, innit like! 

Over in the DT Allister Heath has come up with a novel proposal in his piece headlined:

“The NHS is dead – and it’s dragging the rest of the country down with it – Labour and the Tories are incapable of fixing it. Our only hope is a doctor-led campaign for a new model” (paywalled link).

How this ought to happen – well, he proposes a sort-of system prevailing on the Continent and then comes up with this:

“Millions will go private over the next few years, paying for operations and taking out insurance. Private GP services will boom. This will begin to normalise independent healthcare, undermining the pernicious idea that it is somehow “wrong” to pay for health. Yet this won’t be enough. As with Brexit, truly radical change to funding and delivery of healthcare will require a professionally executed, grassroots campaign for change, followed by a referendum.” (paywalled link)

As Brexiteer Mr Health knows of course what effort went into that referendum, not least by volunteering foot soldiers. Still, it’s a nice little bauble, a ‘jam tomorrow’ attempt to omit addressing the true reason for the dying sacred Cow: over-bureaucratism. This is why his proposal is ‘jam tomorrow’

“The struggle must begin immediately and needs to be fronted by concerned doctors and nurses, including whistleblowers who have seen the destruction wreaked on vulnerable patients by an amoral bureaucracy. The public will trust medical professionals’ motives but not those of MPs, economists or business leaders.” (paywalled link)

Good grief – overworked doctors and nurses should now also work on reforming the whole health system? Even the left-wing doctors’ trade union the BMA? Even while a large number of people don’t trust doctors and nurses any longer?

I note that neither he nor Mr Aaronovich truly address the issue of an over-bureaucratised, adim-shackled NHS whose ‘managers’ and ‘CEOs’ earn massive sums which are then lacking at the ‘frontline. 

One proposal both of them make, more or less veiled: people should be ‘going private’. So far, this is a heinous crime in the eyes of Labour and of many lefty GPs, as I know from experience and as the outrage regarding Sunak’s ‘confession’ has shown. 

I believe Labour may well pick this up and turn it on its head: ‘Teh Rich’ must be shamed into going private because they are robbing ‘Teh Poor’ of places in hospitals and in GP surgeries. Why not have waiting lists for private health care as well … 

And there’s one more thing which is strangely lacking in both those opinion pieces and indeed in all the ‘NHS Crisis and what to do about it’ reports. There’s not one mentioning the pre-covid health secretary. In case you forgot, he was ‘in office’ from 2012 to 2018. His name is Jeremy Hunt. I wonder why that is …

That’s all I have for today. Given the dismal weather outside and the dismal ‘news’ inside, perhaps hibernation is a good option. Have a good day.



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