System failure

Our report today showing that claims for negligence against the NHS have risen dramatically is further evidence that simply pouring more cash into the system is not good enough. Politicians are always seeking to outbid each other with how much they are prepared to commit to the health service as though it is their money rather than that of the people who actually use it. We pay not for a nebulous idea that can be extolled as the “envy of the world”, but for something that works properly and helps us when we need it. As it is currently constituted, the NHS does not do this and has not done so for years.

Access to the acute care system is jealously guarded by GPS, who effectively act as gatekeepers to weed out people who do not need to go into the expensive bit of the NHS. But getting to see them is becoming more difficult and puts off people who might actually have something wrong with them.

As a result, they get treated late, sometimes too late. It is one reason why cancer survival rates in Britain lag behind those elsewhere in Europe, because early referral is essential. Among the negligence pay-outs are 1,700 cases of patients who suffered a delay or failure in treatment or a late or wrong diagnosis. The pressures on the NHS are immense with a growing and ageing population at a time when there are fewer practitioners per head. The additional costs of social care are being loaded onto hospitals because there is nowhere else to look after elderly people suffering the ailments of old age. We have argued many times that this is not just a question of money even if extra resources are needed. It is also about the way the NHS is structured and financed. Until these are addressed it will lurch from crisis to crisis.