£2,500 a shift for agency nurses? Proof the NHS is terminally ill

THE extraordinary revelation last week that NHS Trusts are paying up to £2,500 per shift for agency nurses to plug gaps in rotas is truly shocking. As is the idea, confirmed by unions, that nurses could pick up lucrative private work while on strike.

Both show not only a complete failure of management but also a corruption of the fundamental ethics of healthcare.

But it’s not just nurses. Earlier last week I wrote about the impossibility of accessing a GP, and many readers got in touch to relay similar experiences. Endless tales of incompetence and indifference.

I even had an email from one poor woman whose mother had passed away at home. She rang her surgery to arrange for the duty doctor to certify her mother’s death only to be told that because of Covid they weren’t doing home visits. When she asked what to do, she was told to take her mother’s pulse and ‘press on her chest’ to check that she was dead. Can you imagine? Your own mother?

Quite apart from the crass insensitivity, is that even legal?

To be fair, I was also contacted by several GPs outlining the challenges they face. One explained to me that a big problem is that a lot of doctors coming through medical school are women, and they tend to take time out to have children.

Fair enough, I suppose. But that’s the same in plenty of other sectors, and they seem to cope. And let’s face it, professional women taking time off to have babies is not exactly a new problem.

The other justification is sheer patient numbers – again, a genuine challenge. But show me an NHS surgery that is open weekends and evenings? My last one, a busy Central London practice, was closed for an hour at lunchtimes and on Wednesday afternoons and shut at 5pm. How many other places do you know that can afford to keep 1950s hours in the 21st Century?

Besides, if you’re prepared to pay, there is no shortage of private GP practices more than willing to step in, day or night. A decade ago, private GP practices were rare. Now they’re springing up all over the place. I can’t help wondering how many of those are staffed by doctors ‘too busy’ to see their NHS patients. Meanwhile, patients suffer. Let’s face it, for a variety of reasons – institutional, cultural, financial, political – the NHS simply isn’t fit for purpose. It’s not just that it’s in a mess, organisationally and ethically, it’s also beginning to damage patient outcomes through its own inefficiency. ‘Our’ NHS, the envy of the world? What a joke that is.

I’m not saying the idea of the NHS isn’t a noble one, merely that in its current form it is very far from that ideal. And until and unless politicians acknowledge this, the situation will only continue to deteriorate.

Waiting times, which last week reached a record high with 7.1million awaiting routine treatment, two-month-long delays to vital cancer treatment and 12-hour delays in A&E, will just get worse. This healthcare system of ours is

IF IT’S really the case that 400 private jets flew into COP27 in Egypt, then that does seem like a total farce. Either that or the ‘climate crisis’ is not quite as drastic as they would have us believe.

killing people. I suppose that’s one way of reducing patient demand.

And it seems the more taxpayer money the Government throws at the problem, the worse the situation gets. It’s not just healthcare. It’s education, roads, police – any public service you care to mention. It’s completely unacceptable.

And I, as a taxpayer, have had enough. Why should I – and the millions of others who contribute to the coffers of the NHS and other public services – pay the wages of doctors who refuse to see us and police officers who spend their time prancing around in menopause vests instead of stopping 14year-olds from being stabbed to death outside supermarkets?

Don’t get me wrong: I’m happy to pay my taxes to contribute to a better society. But I also want what I pay for. And what I pay for is to be able to see my GP on the rare occasions when I need to, not be told to send an email, or forced to go private. Is that too much to ask?

Apparently so. And, if reports of what’s coming this week in the Budget are anything to go by, it’s only going to get worse. The Government is about to charge even more in exchange for the same old failures. What kind of deal is that?

Forget Extinction Rebellion. I say it’s time for a Taxpayer Rebellion. Who’s with me?