One of my friends is a Conservative.
Gone are the days where one would commiserate the fact, and share a sad glance, preparing a political intervention in order to save them from a life of solitude and ridicule. Indeed no.
In my "West Wing" addiction, I have seen art imitate life (Santos based on Obama), and life imitate art (my friend making a political mistake on a blog that caused some strife). Labour have had 11 years to turn around the Post-Thatcher quagmire, to build steadily in an economically plush environment. The Blair years seemed, to me, as a child growing up with no other interest in the world than whether Lancashire would finally win the County Championship.
However, many blogs are highlighting the mess that the NHS is in, from GPs to hospital staff. With that in mind, I searched the Parties websites, looking for a manifesto, or some basis for the changes that have been foisted on healthcare in the UK.
The Conservatives didn't have a "The Manifesto" page, but various "trendy" areas of a site designed to look good. Who knows if there is substance to their NHYes campaign, or whether it is purely a PR stunt. Given the catchy quote from the website:
Labour's financial mismanagement has encouraged a culture of profligacy and waste within the NHS. The number of managers in the NHS is increasing almost three times as fast as the number of doctors and nurses. There are now 264,012 administrators in the NHS, compared to 175,646 beds. In the last year alone, 5,000 more administrators than nurses were recruited. By 2004-05 the extra cost of employing NHS administrators was almost £1.6 billion a year more in real terms than it was in 1999-2000.
Its hard to say what is more shocking - that the Conservatives, those well known champions of socialised healthcare, would be supporting the NHS; or that the NHS has more managers than Beds. Soon enough it won't have enough trained consultants, but thats another matter. What do these administrators do? The new computer system for clinicians should not be accessed by these people, so what will they administer? Letters? Appointments? NHS Direct? Or is it as I have seen on the wards, where the administrators have little ability to do anything without a protocol - even taking a referral to put it onto the computer system (that they, as aforementioned, aren't supposed to be able to access).
I have a friend, he is a paid up Labour member. He has a more lax view of things - accepting that theres many areas that could be improved in the NHS, but lacking clear ideas on how to fix them. Given that he is one of the smartest minds of his generation, like Sam Seaborn, I think we are in trouble.
Ideally, healthcare should be free, and the best care should be given to everyone, with access given to anyone who needs it, when they need it. Unfortunately, doctors and nurses need sleep, so one person wouldn't be enough for the task. That said, those people on the wards, on the shop floor as it were, are the people to organise and deliver that healthcare. Why do they need fifteen levels of middle management before they can get a box of needles for venepuncture? Maybe we should look back to why the NHS was put in place to start with!
Idea - let a Sister organise the wards - heaven knows that they know how to - and leave the doctoring to doctors. Lets save the NHS some money to put towards useful (but expensive) medication by reducing the red tape and hoops that the clinical staff need to get through. Let the NHS be ideal, rather than a quagmire of rushed through half-fixes. Let it be a testament to ability!
