According to Telegraph columnist Sherelle Jacobs, the exhortation to “protect the NHS” during the Covid emergency was not a one-off. The inversion of reality – whereby we must serve the NHS, instead of the NHS serving us – is a feature of the system, not a bug. Here’s how her piece begins.
It’s not even winter and already health chiefs are planning to beg the public to stay away from A&Es to relieve pressure on hospitals. Patients’ lives are being put at risk as they are urged to call NHS 111 instead – and kept on hold for 20 times longer than is standard.
This is all ominously reminiscent of lockdown. As it turns out, even back then the NHS never came close to being overwhelmed. Yet people dutifully stayed at home to save it from collapse – with many not seeking medical attention for non-Covid illnesses like cancer. The public is still paying the price, some with their lives, due to the resulting backlog.
One might have hoped that this would be a tragic one-off. After all, the NHS took the extreme measures that it did in the face of a mysterious new virus. But the way things are going, seasonal shut-downs of varying degrees could become the new normal – with public campaigns that urge people to stay away from hospitals, patients permanently unable to see GPs in person, and cancelled operations stretching endlessly into the future.
Even though the Government has committed billions of pounds in extra funding, the health service remains barely able to function. It is stuck in a vicious cycle, whereby it must routinely insure itself against a worst-case-scenario collapse by driving patients away. This, of course, only leads to more late-diagnosed cancer patients and more delays in routine treatments and operations, making the backlog even worse. Although the chances of an NHS “Black Wednesday” remain remote, in this era of close managerial surveillance and media scrutiny, such a prospect haunts its senior ranks.
Such a devastating doom loop has been a long time coming. The NHS has over the years devised countless strategies for keeping non-urgent patients out of hospital – from experimenting with “virtual wards” to half-baked schemes to revive family doctors. Appeals for patients to avoid A&E are nothing new, either, even if in previous years these were less frequent and more local. The bottom line is that, for years, the NHS’s primary strategy has been to reduce the burden that patients put on it, rather than to improve its capacity to treat them.
There is a structural reason for this. Our health service is idolised as open and equitable, free at the point of use to anyone in need. But in fact, it operates as a “closed” bureaucratic system. Like all such systems, it is absorbed with its own survival, which it seeks to achieve by minimising patient interactions. It avoids direct engagement with outside reality, instead conceiving the latter in a way that suits its own agenda – in this instance, re-imagining patients as its loyal servants, rather than as patients.
Such survival tactics are a necessary feature of all living systems (known in biology as autopoiesis, or self-creation). They are discernible in virtually all large bureaucracies and corporations, as observed by the systems theorist Niklas Luhmann. But the consequences in healthcare are alarming. Even though it is staffed with many dedicated and altruistic people, the NHS operates as a selfish organism. Its primary aims are to survive and self-replicate (particularly within its managerial ranks) – not to meet the needs of the public.
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
As per the start of the podcast, super self confident public schoolboy fluffs his lines for a full 30 second Biden moment
Sorry about the Guardian link but most go straight to the Pepa Pig content
Search YT ‘boris johnson pepa pig’, brings up loads.
Yes, the Peppa Pig thing is a bit of a red herring. (The character does look like a Picasso version of a hairdryer – that’s quite a witty quip – and although I thought the CBI was mainly about real industry it turns out I was wrong and it also represents members in “creative” fields, so Peppa is on-topic for such an audience.) More relevant is his seeming like a confused person a decade or two older than his actual age, losing it for quite some time, and sniffing as if…as if he felt some kind of irritation in his nose, shall we say. Fat boozers aren’t thin on the ground among British politicians – a mid-50s, clinically obese, drunkard is the norm – but it’s no secret that this particular one is especially debauched, so who knows? Two more screwups like this would be enough to finish his stint in Number 10 – possibly even one in the right context, such as for example saying something truly egregiously ignorant or joky or confused about SARSCoV2 or pandemic policy or an operationally serious foreign policy matter such as Channel fishing, the Polish-Belarusian border, or hey, why not an issue he’s inserted his foot into his mouth over before – Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe?
The whole sequence starts with him reading his lines quite normally but when he loses it he can only stammer brief repetitions if what he has already said.
Most news film reports start after that, perhaps the editors are reserving the earlier footage for when they really want to stick the boot in.
In part of that ramble bozo praises the idea of people having the confidence to remain in the area where they grew up.
Wtf is that all about?
Pushing and trying to normalise the idea of no travel for the oiks from birth, perhaps?
Something along those lines perhaps or internal Passports for we plebs.
You’d think for an award-winning contrarian, TY would have at least evolved his opinion, but no he’s still hung up on
postive PCR casesinfection numbers, Jesus wept!According to a Savanta ComRes survey: 45% in Britain support an indefinite unvaccinated-only lockdown starting in December, against 32% who oppose, with the figures being 55%-26% among those aged 55+.
32% of the population joining an international general strike wouldn’t be bad going at all. And among 18-34s it’s “only” 29% supportive of house-arrest for the unvaxed, with 39% opposed, so the strikebreakers will have an older age profile than the humans. Shall we give it a whirl? Let’s see how good the horrible “Do What You’re Told and Hail the State” killjoys in their 60s are at lifting bins etc.
It’s interesting that an exact month was named in the question.
Savanta ComRes | 1,720 followers on LinkedIn. We are Savanta ComRes – the interface of a global intelligence business with a boutique political research consultancy. | ComRes is the leading research consultancy specialising in Corporate Reputation, Public Policy and Communications. We bridge the worlds of research and communications.
Does that ‘we manufacture BS for the highest bidder’?
People voting for something to bring everyone into line with what they have already done. Not really surprising especially as there is an element of punishment for the resistors.
Companions in misfortune. An awful situation is easier to bear if you can get everyone else in the same boat.
That’s how junkies and smackheads behave towards any of their number who might try to go straight.
They will go to great lengths to keep ‘quitters’ hooked because if that individual is successful it merely confirms the inadequacies of those left behind.
Unless, of course, that boat is the Titanic…
Not to mention having to care for their own aged relatives.
How to alienate 95% of your audience;
“James Delingpole and I talk about our days at Oxford”.
You’re not interested in “How to get into Oxford with two Bs and a C, assuming pater can phone the admissions tutor at Brasenose and get him to nullify his rejection letter?”
My Comprehensive schoolmate went to Cambridge.
The son of WW2 Polish refugees he wrote his thesis on oil bearing shales off the Northumberland coast well before that was topical and based his lucrative career on it.
Cabinet Office note to journalists: the correct term now is “VACCINE MANDATE”, so go easy on calling it “compulsory vaccination”. Thanks, guys!
For example, Liam Hoare does well in this piece in the Guardian: “vaccine mandate” gets mentioned in the header, the caption, and eight times in the body text, not counting a number of appearances of the word “mandate” on its own, adding even more cuddliness. He only uses “compulsory” three times, starting at the end of the second paragraph that most readers won’t reach, since it’s way past the header, strapline, picture, caption, and lede. Nice work, Liam. The Newspeak medal is on its way.
(PS Those of us in the resistance may wish to consider using the word “forced” rather than “compulsory”, in some circumstances at least. Stay supple!)
How many people, when first coming across vaccine ‘mandate’ thought
‘oh yeah, that’s what we did to Palestine and Transjordan after WW1 to pretend they weren’t just more colonies’?
Must have been quite confusing for them.
Well, I find it all VERY offensive. No mention (or should that be womention?) of womandate at all!
I put Johnson’s decline in his cognitive capabilities down to the jabs.
And continuous brow-beating from Carrie, the well-known horror show!
Toby still can’t bring himself to admit James might be right can he?
If you call it a vaccine, you’ve already lost the argument!
Sage words from the incisively intelligent and authoritative Dr David Martin. It were well that commenters and bloggers listened up. I’d hope to see a lot more of his information featured at dailysceptic.org.
https://eraoflight.com/2021/01/18/dr-david-martin-this-is-not-a-vaccine-it-is-a-medical-device/
https://www.bitchute.com/video/Tu6gojaDSrsd/
A Must Watch¡¡ Dr David Martin And Judy A Mikovits – This Is Not A Vaccine¡
2021-02-16
https://www.bitchute.com/video/6xu20c1_urI/
Call To Action: Share This Widely! Focus On Fauci – 5Th Of January
2021-01-04