The Care Quality Commission has delivered a grim report on the current state of safety in our NHS (Report, 15 October), describing some harrowing failures and expressing grave concerns, but the identification of the real source of the problems is, of course, outside its remit. What is clear to most of us is that the political establishment has decided, just as it has with the welfare system, that the “monolithic” NHS is unaffordable, a dinosaur leftover from a dark “socialist” past. Through continued “efficiency drives”, restructurings, funding cuts, persistent attacks on consultants, junior doctors, GPs and nurses, the entire system is being driven quite deliberately into an orchestrated crash.
There can surely be no doubt that the British people continue to be keenly supportive of the concept of a National Health Service. Nevertheless, the crash will certainly come. Perhaps the affluent among us have less to fear: the huge (mostly US) medical conglomerates are waiting in the wings, ready to step in and take over. After all, have not our political masters been both covertly and overtly inviting private medical providers to enter the British healthcare “market” for many years now, exactly so as to ready themselves for the moment when the system finally collapses and we shall all be grateful for any viable alternative. No doubt that will be the point when the market delivers to the British people the “customer choice” that they allegedly longed for, assuming that patients in future have big enough limits on their credit cards.
Milan Svanderlik
London