Stick to facts on NHS waste

Colin Bullen seems to find it hard to distinguish between opinions and facts as demonstrated by his letter ‘NHS held back by bureaucracy’ January 14).

Fact number one: A study conducted in 2017 by the Commonwealth Fund, a US Foundation which evaluated the healthcare systems of the 11 richest countries, ranked the NHS as the best and most efficient system in the world. While the Australian Health Care system came second. This is quite an achievement considering most of the other countries in that study cohort spend a larger proportion of their GDP on healthcare than Britain.

Fact number two, bureaucracy has been an integral part of the NHS since its inception. However, it spiralled out of control following the publication of a report by Roy Griffiths, then Director of Sainsbury PLC in 1983, recommending among others that the NHS adopts a business model of management. The late Mrs Thatcher used an inverse quotation by Oscar Wilde to dismiss clinical

managers like doctors and nurses as “people who knew the value of everything but the costs of nothing”.

Clinical managers were subsequently replaced by general managers dubbed men in grey suits or in my humble opinion “people who knew the costs of everything but the value of nothing”. Their main objective was to control and slash the everincreasing costs of running the NHS.

Fact number three, Mr Bullen should move with the time, the days when nurses were viewed as handmaidens of doctors and nursing described as a vocation or calling are long gone. Today’s nurses are highly educated and dedicated professionals with their own body of propositional knowledge. The move from certificate or diploma to degree level was undoubtedly a progressive one that propelled the nursing profession into the 21st century.

Furthermore, a degree education broadens and deepens the nurses’ knowledge base while developing their critical thinking - a prerequisite that enable them to distinguish between opinions and facts.

L.Roger Numas