By the way ... The NHS learns nothing from history

THE NHS is about 50,000 short of the number of clinical staff needed to provide a safe and effective service, a report by the medical protection Society (MPS) warned recently.

By ‘clinical staff’, we mean doctors, nurses, dietitians, physiotherapists and all of those professionals involved in the care of sick patients.

This is a matter of great concern, given the massive cutbacks we are facing in healthcare, not to mention the push for routine care to be provided on a seven-day basis, despite the revelation that the data upon which this need is based now appears to be questionable.

These various pressures, which threaten the quality and safety of medical care, only serve to confirm my view that the Department of Health and NHS England have very little grasp of how to run a healthcare system.

This was driven home to me this month when I was reading about Sir Frank Whittle, the inventor of the jet engine. Sir Frank’s engine first took to the skies in 1941, yet the Air Ministry decided that jet engines were ‘impracticable’ and dismissed this technological advance.

However, because the concept was not deemed worthy of being kept secret, despite it being wartime, Germany was free to read Frank Whittle’s patent.

They did recognise the potential and in three years had an operational jet fighter.

This piece of history mirrors the lack of vision that bedevils the development of the NHS.

Did no one realise, for instance, the devastation that the European Working Time Directive (which puts a block on the number of hours doctors can work) would cause as long-refined, and carefully evolved, consultant-led teams were dissolved as rotas were forcefully created. Has there been no recognition that as 60 per cent of all medical students are women there might be some subsequent manpower considerations, for example, if they choose to work part-time after having children?

And with general practice currently getting less than 10 per cent of the overall NHS budget (although there are now promises of more — but how much?) and healthcare being pushed out into the community, did no one foresee there might be consequences?

Namely, that GPs are under such strain that many are retiring early and fewer young doctors are choosing general practice as a career. None of this will change until politicians and the powers-that-be learn to look beyond their noses, and see the bigger picture — or become visionaries.

Don’t hold your breath.