Reasons to be cheerful: the NHS (no, really....)
Or so says this article by erstwhile Observer health columnist Jo Revill:
By the time Tony Blair went to visit St Thomas' hospital in February 2000... doctors warned that he was too ambitious, that he was crazy to imagine they would ever be able to meet the target of an 18-month waiting list.
An 18-month wait ... is that even imaginable now? Of course not. The current target, which the health service will meet later this year, is for no one to be waiting for more than three months for anything at all, a colossal achievement, but one which seems invisible. The transformation in the last five to six years in health care is real and palpable, a result of extra money but also reorganisation, accompanied by the introduction of some controversial reforms.
...A survey for the NHS by the independent Picker Institute of 80,000 patients across 167 hospitals showed that 91 per cent of people feel the care in the NHS is good or excellent.
If BT or Thames Water had a 91 per cent satisfaction rating, they would be besides themselves with joy. And new figures from the Department of Health show that in the year up to March 2007, 98.2 per cent of the 18.9 million people who attended England's A&E departments were seen, diagnosed and treated within four hours.
So how come everyone thinks the NHS is doing so badly then? Economist Andrew Dilnot puts it rather nicely:
When you go into a hospital, you don't automatically think: 'How lucky I am not to have undergone this hip operation 10 years ago, when the wait would have been two years and my surgeon would not have been as well trained.'
Perhaps it is also possible to blame our health minister, who comes across as being so awfully patronising you don't want to listen to her go on about how well the NHS is doing. Instead you'd rather gouge your eyes out with a rusty spoon.
And yes, there are still problems - MRSA, the junior doctors' fiasco etc etc. But compare the NHS with ten years ago, and there's quite a bit of difference. If you have a heart attack after realising just how good the NHS is, at least you'll be treated quickly and efficiently by our health service. And that can't be a bad thing.
Cory
