Don’t be blinded to failings of inefficient NHS

Last night I was out banging a pot in support of the NHS and other key workers. That evening, there was a heart rending piece on the news about a care home and its desperate struggle to cope with a coronavirus outbreak, its heroic young staff camping out in the home in order to look after their residents.

It is clear that there is a disaster unfolding in care homes which now account for a third of all Covid-19 deaths.

The NHS has been called the nearest thing we have to a national religion and it is this which has led to serious mistakes in the handling of the epidemic. Knowing the public’s deep attachment to it, ‘Protect the NHS’ was the central message put out by the government. Of course it was important to make sure that the system did not get overwhelmed but surely it was not saving an institution which was the real priority but saving the lives of the elderly trapped and helpless in care.

The NHS was prioritised for everything, including PPE. To protect it, the Department of Health ordered NHS management to send patients out into completely unsupported care homes without being Covid tested and without PPE. This spread the virus and disaster followed. No wonder the care home staff felt abandoned and desperate.

The NHS is our most popular national institution but our love affair with it has blinded us to its serious failings. Being free at the point of delivery and funded entirely from taxation is an inbuilt contradiction.

Being “free” means demands on it are unlimited whereas nobody wants to pay similarly unlimited taxes to pay for it. It is no surprise that it is chronically underfunded and badly underperforms compared to other healthcare systems in many parts of Europe which use private insurance schemes to augment a basic free service. However wonderful it’s staff are, like all state-run organisations the NHS is rigid, inefficient and prioritises its own survival.

Of course in an unprecedented crisis of this size it is inevitable that mistakes will be made but it should now be obvious that an uncritical love for any institution leads to disaster.

David Reekie