Confessions of a GP

Politics

I know very little about economics and, to be honest, I don’t really understand exactly why interest rates go up and down. My main concern is how much my mortgage payments are each month. Fortunately for us, we have the Bank of England to make decisions about interest rates. It is an independent organisation, unrelated to the ambitions of individual political parties and politicians, which works to maintain the stability of the economy. I have no idea who the individual members of the bank committee are. I imagine them to be wise old men with white beards who sit at a round table somewhere, possibly in a bank vault or a castle. Wherever they work from, the important thing is that as a nation, we generally seem to trust that the decisions that they make are the right ones and ultimately for the benefit of us all. I’m relieved that politicians who know little about economics aren’t allowed to make dangerous decisions such as slashing interest rates to win votes. Unfortunately, we are not so lucky with regard to decisions made about healthcare.

All the recent big policies with regard to the NHS appear to have been to win votes rather than actually improve the service that it provides. They have been made by politicians who have never worked in a medical setting and are fairly healthy so rarely use the NHS. They are policies targeted to impress the important voters. People who are genuinely vulnerable and unwell don’t tend to vote and certainly don’t swing elections. This means that the elderly and mentally ill are pretty much neglected. The worried well, however, are a much more important voting population. Young healthy commuters are the least wanting with regard to health requirements, but the politicians need their votes. Opening surgeries on Saturday mornings, four-hour A&E waiting times and having choice over which hospital a GP refers you to are all examples of this. They are not necessarily bad ideas, but they have all been poorly thought through and instigated. Most of us who actually work in the health service could think of many more deserving causes to throw millions of pounds at.

My solution would be to have an equivalent of the Bank of England for the NHS: a small expert organisation that could basically manage the NHS and help make the important decisions about how taxpayers’ money is best spent on our health. It would be independent and not be affiliated to a political party or be directly affected by general elections. It could be made up of experienced nurses, hospital doctors, GPs, managers and patients who all have very recent and direct experience of being at the coalface of the NHS.

It may seem slightly undemocratic to have our NHS not directly managed by the elected government, but the elected politicians are clueless morons and keep fucking things up! Would it work? I don’t know. Would it just add another tier of ineffectual managers? I hope not. Would it be worth a try? I think so.