Cllr. Gavin Ayling

The road to hell, says DK (of the excellent Devil’s Kitchen), is paved with good intentions. And he’s right. The NHS is a stinking tax vacuum which, if left in the hands of the socialists, will one-day become the largest employer in the world (rather than just in Europe).

But in a previous post I also criticised the US’s can’t-pay-then-die system which is, to put it simply, wrong. In a civilised country it is right that provision of healthcare for those who cannot afford to pay is made from general taxation. If that makes me an impure libertarian then so be it.

But this system does not have to be the NHS. It doesn’t even have to be in place somewhere else. So here’s what I propose:

The railways in the UK were privatised by the last government in the most awful way. Ticket prices are not set by individual operators and so if I buy a ticket from Brighton to London it effectively does not matter which company’s trains I use. This ruins the point of privatisation — competition.

Oops, I just lost some of my audience by talking about privatisation; well come back will you?

The NHS needs genuine competition. The way I propose to introduce that is to allow half of all hospitals in each area to be run privately. Whatever the state spends per patient, the private hospital in the same area would get the same money. The incentive, then, would be to attract patients to your private hospital in order to receive some of that funding. Money that is not required to provide patient care is then made available to the private hospital’s shareholders. The drive for efficiency to create profits would be balanced by the need to attract patients and so be better than the NHS hospital.

The private hospital would be free at the point of use (because it receives matching funding from the state) and would be heavily regulated in the same effective way the financial services sector in the UK is (and which is clearly not working in the US).

Alongside this revolutionary healthcare system would be a change in incentives for drugs companies. Currently there is a clear conflict of interests whereby drugs companies can make more money from treating illnesses than from curing them. So the drug companies need an incentive to attempt to cure ailments. This should be done by using a competitive prize system where prizes are larger than the likely profits from symptom-relievers. I challenge some philanthropist to start up a charitable foundation to fund these prizes — I would happily contribute to that fund!

And finally, let’s be clear, Sicko is not even as unbiased as the BBC; it is a propaganda work which sits on a body of fact and then changes aspects to suit the maker’s own ends. I enjoyed Sicko, I found aspects of it (that are true) disturbing and I found aspects of it laughable. The reactions of British patients and doctors was clearly genuine — Brits do tend to laugh at that sort of question in a way that Americans do not.

I watched Michael Moore’s Sicko the other day. It’s a fantastic film; not completely free of Moore’s inevitable bias, but there’s so much less bending of the truth this time because, ultimately, there’s little controversy in what he is saying.

But loads of people have seen this film — what can I possibly add that will be interesting?

Well, I just had a cup of tea from my office’s coffee shop and, on the side of the paper cup, there is a ‘Rainforest Alliance’ logo. This logo “guarantees that the farms meet demanding, SOCIAL, ENVIRONMENTAL AND SUSTAINABLE standards” (capitalisation as in original). It continues “workers are… given access to education and medical care…”

So the Rainforest Alliance requirements are more demanding than the social conscience of the world’s richest and, apparently, good country?

Quel surprise.

The NHS isn’t perfect, but it’s infinitely more humane than the US system. Infinitely. And any reform of the NHS must maintain that fundamental requirement that is fairness (and especially free at the point of use).

[Cameron] held up the NHS as a “best of British” institution: “created by a Welshman and benefiting from the skills of doctors trained in the great medical schools of Scotland.”

… and financed by the poor of England to the benefit of the poor and wealthy of Scotland.

I thought I’d remind you there’s a Health Public Meeting by Worthing and Southlands NHS Trust at the Shoreham Centre, Pond Road, Shoreham-by-Sea on Friday 21st at 7pm.

You never know, it may not be a done deal!

Tonight there was a consultation held at the Shoreham Centre. I have loads to write, and there are people to mock, but it’ll have to wait. I left the house at 7.25am this morning, returned just now and I haven’t yet had dinner. Oh, and I’ll be leaving tomorrow at around 7.45am with a Council meeting in Worthing straight after work, so that will be nice.

Still sign the KWASH petition if you haven’t already.

According to the right-wing press and (oddly) the BBC News Website, Cameron’s returning to logic-land and has now, in the space of two days, championed the proper Conservative ideals of lower immigration and tough action on crime.

The two years of near-silence on the subject has made one slightly cynical, but that he sees that he needs to talk about these issues is gratifying. Let’s hope, when or if he gets power on our behalf, he acts as he’s talking.

As I say to people when talking about these and other issues: It seems so obvious if you don’t allow the status quo to muddy your thinking. It is entirely moot how things are today, it is what we want them to be that matters and if the barriers to achieving that are significant, all the more worthy is the effort.

The local campaigns to save major hospitals have been going for quite a while now. KWASH, for example, which aims to save Worthing and Southlands Hospitals — and particularly Worthing’s A&E, Intensive Care and Maternity functions — has been running for over a year.

So some may ask why it has taken until now for David Cameron to call for the protection of these massive NHS assets: BBC News.

But I think he’s right.

If he’d mentioned it when the campaigns started the media and the public would be bored and cynical. By mentioning it now, when the decisions are nigh, he’s able to gain nationwide support, raise the profile of the pillaging Mr Brown’s government is undertaking, and actually run a risk of getting the great apathetic public to be motivated for once!

…

And how can I let this go without pointing out that this isn’t happening in Scotland or Wales. Oh no! This is happening in England where a significantly smaller amount of tax is spent per person. Upset by that? Join the CEP.