Apparently, our wonderful NHS, the envy of the world, is in a right old mess. So says the independent report written by the independent peer Lord Ara Darzi after his independent and strictly apolitical review of the service. It may come as a shock to readers, but according to this scrupulously independent and impartial report, the main problem appears to be ‘chronic underinvestment’ since the year 2010, despite year-on-year real term funding increases from British taxpayers for that entire period.
As with most political publications, the report is more interesting for its omissions – for example, someone clearly forgot to mention that the independent Lord Darzi was a Minister of Health in a previous Labour administration and, until 2019, he sat in the House of Lords as a Labour peer.
I doubt many voters will be deceived by this choreographed political street theatre. As with the recently discovered ‘£22 billion’ budgetary black hole, most of the public will see straight through the spin. In political terms, Labour is attempting to ‘manufacture consent’ – first described by the influential American journalist Walter Lippman in 1922. Lippman described the process by which political elites construct the version of reality they wish the public to believe, by manipulating the press. The theory is based on Lippman’s premise that the modern world is too complex for any individual to fully understand. Hence selective presentation and interpretation of facts can be carefully crafted to justify predetermined policy choices by those capable of controlling information flow.
There is absolutely nothing in the 163 pages of Darzi’s report which is in any way surprising or novel. The publication is a data dense narration of well-known problems with few attempts to explain familiar glaring paradoxes:
Why does the NHS service consistently underperform on every possible metric despite huge budgetary increases?
Why does hospital productivity continue to fall, despite a 17% increase in hospital staff?
Why can’t patients access GP appointments in a timely manner, despite there being a 6% increase in the number of General Practitioners?
What explains the appallingly bad outcomes in cancer and cardiovascular diseases compared to every other developed world healthcare system?
What explains the disparity in post pandemic recovery between the NHS and our European neighbours?
According to Ara Darzi, these failings have nothing to do with poor management. Nor can they be blamed on the ever diligent and dedicated workers. The alternative reality presented by the former Labour Health Minister, suggests the problem lies in a £37 billion shortfall in capital investment because the evil Tories starved our precious NHS of taxpayer largesse. In Darzi world, as with the wider NHS, failures are always someone else’s fault.
Yet once the media froth has subsided on their futile attempt to blame all the woes of the NHS on the previous administration, Starmer’s ship of fools are left with a serious problem – the ball is now firmly in their court. As the self-proclaimed party of the NHS, voters will soon expect Labour to deliver tangible improvements in both performance and productivity – to quote Michel Barnier “the clock is ticking…”
Thus far, Labour have been long on generalities and short on specifics. Wes Streeting piously chants the word “reform” more frequently than Starmer refers to his father’s occupation (apparently, he was a toolmaker). To date, I’ve not seen a definition of ‘reform’ other than vague commentary about benefits of digitalisation, consistent with the prevailing delusion that ‘machine learning’ will save us from public sector profligacy and inefficiency. Irrespective of what the Health Secretary means by ‘reform’, there is a major obstacle to whatever plan he is hatching. I’m confident that the NHS workforce and their Healthcare Unions define ‘reform’ as consecutive above inflation pay rises, more working from home, part time contracts and enhanced pension entitlements.
And here lies the essential problem with the NHS. Despite the sanctimonious claptrap and aggressive hostility to criticism, the primary concern of the NHS is the welfare of its staff, not its customers. In economic terms, this is a variation of the ‘principal-agent problem’ –a conflict in priorities between the owner of an asset (the taxpaying public) and the person to whom control of the asset has been delegated (the NHS management and workforce). Taxpayers have no direct control and virtually no leverage over the professionals in the NHS. With a socialist government beholden to their union paymasters, this problem is set to worsen.
For example, when the incoming Labour Government immediately agreed a 22% pay rise for junior doctors, the Chairman of the BMA committee assured his followers that they could be back on strike to demand yet more money within a year.
The BMA General Practitioners Committee has advised its members on a range of “work to rule” actions designed to bring the NHS to “a standstill” and is threatening further industrial action in pursuit of an 11% annual pay increment. These two professional groups will not be the only ones extorting money with menaces from Starmer’s compliant administration.
The solution to the principal-agent problem is to directly align the interests of the manager/provider with those of the owner – in other words construct an incentive system which rewards the productive and penalises the idle. This would be my definition of ‘reform’ – a move towards a continental style mixed health economy, social insurance-based system which pays doctors per unit of work done, rather than our current upwards-only salary scale under which the inefficient are paid the same as the industrious.
Darzi, however, sees things differently: “Nothing that I have found draws into question the principles of a health service that is taxpayer funded, free at the point of use.” If he really is that myopic, the noble Lord needs to visit Specsavers. Of course, Darzi is neither short-sighted, nor independent. Stripping back the waffle and verbal padding, the single big idea in his 163 pages is the dissemination of digitalisation:
There must be a major tilt towards technology to unlock productivity. In particular, the hundreds of thousands of NHS staff working outside hospitals urgently need the benefits of digital systems. There is enormous potential in AI to transform care and for life sciences breakthroughs to create new treatments.
If I were being cynical, I might consider a state-run healthcare system with an annual budget of £165 billion a major business opportunity for large technology companies. Highly lucrative multi-year contracts backed by the British taxpayer would be a tasty prize, to say nothing of the massive amount of health-related data to be exploited.
A sceptical mind could imagine how such companies might go about lobbying persons of influence with a new government confronting an urgent political imperative.
Fortunately, we have an independent report expertly crafted by an independent expert to ensure that could never happen.
Consent manufactured.
The author, the Daily Sceptic’s in-house doctor, is a former NHS consultant, now retired.
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What massacre that will be remembered in infamy and shame happened in Gaza yesterday but is absent in this news roundup, I wonder?
I’m sure George Galloway will draw your attention to it. Congratulations, George.
“Police must stop ‘intimidatory’ protests against MPs as threat level rises: Rishi Sunak”
Two great commentaries on this yesterday.
One from Owen Jones: https://youtu.be/wH0XV-ucBmc
One from Neil Oliver: https://youtu.be/hDJ-IqZc628
Sorry, wrong OJ link, he did two yesterday: https://youtu.be/U0EghA4hjXA
Let’s give it the infamous name it’ll be known by – the Flour Massacre.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/03/01/fppq-m01.html
Crikey, it’s Galloway. Mental. ( 2mins )
https://twitter.com/blazey2004/status/1763398420650221638
Note that the majority didn’t vote at all, so he acquired his majority from the minority – a bit like most local government elections in the UK. Goes to show what you can end up with if you don’t vote.
It is what happens when newer parties are suppressed. The results at future general elections might bring forth much worse people than Galloway and in numbers.
Well this guy was 100% prescient, I mean, didn’t see this coming did we..? <sarc>
”There was no massacre of Palestinians in Gaza today.
You’ll be hearing that there was. It’s propaganda. Palestinians trampled each other as they fought for the aid that the IDF sent in knowing that Hamas was going to steal it like they have stolen all aid.
Hundreds of Palestinians were trampled to death and many others injured.
In parallel, a Palestinian mob tried to attack IDF forces who proceeded to shoot warning shots in the air and when the mob didn’t stop, the IDF fired at their legs.
As I said, no massacre in Gaza. When the propaganda starts populating your feeds, just know that it is 100% false.
You’ll be hearing about this fabricated massacre across all mainstream media in 3…2…
Here is footage of the Palestinian mob trying to steal aid and trampling each other.
Don’t believe the lies that are being fed to the media directly from Hamas.”
https://twitter.com/HilzFuld/status/1763190132771864606
Excellent work, fear that you are wasting your time with the jew haters mind.
Massacre reported by Hamas. Well, that is an area of expertise for them, sure.
Oh I’m not trying to convince anyone or change minds, least of all their’s. I am, however, happy to always call out disgraceful human beings that have a disgusting attitude though. Which is what anybody supporting terrorism and sympathising with rapists is, in my book, and I in no way think that’s a radical viewpoint. And as you’ve probably gleaned, I’m also not here for the ‘likes’.
Carbon Passports Surveillance Dystopia – latest leaflet to print at home and deliver to neighbours or forward to politicians, media, friends online.
“The most terrifying thing about Putin is not that he’s delusional, but that he might be right”
If you want an alternative view, the Global times comment is here;
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202402/1307941.shtml
I am no advocate for the Global Times but I always think it does give a feel for the the view of world affairs that is being put out to a large section of the world’s population.
The most terrifying thing about Putin is not that he’s delusional, but that he might be right
Of course he’s right.
What will Europe do when, by incorporating Ukraine, Moldova into the Russian ‘Union State’ which already includes Belarus, Putin encircles the Baltic States?
You’re already looking at it………
As a consequence, in due course, in response to such a Russian ‘Union State’ with Baltic States encircled and subverted, Germany, under a government of an entirely different complexion (and Poland), may very well decide to acquire nuclear weapons.
To every action, there is a reaction……
Quite so. We talk with leaders of many states we do not approve off. We should have been talking to Putin years ago, rather than thinking in our ignorance all we were engaging in was Cold War II.
Similarly Assad. The last secular state in the Middle East. The “Civil” war no such thing, rather his constant war with terrorists. Indeed, his father’s notorious massacre in Homs involved wiping out a Muslim Brotherhood enclave there. As anyone who has investigated the MB, they are the fons origo of Islamic terrorism. Wiping them out in your country – well,hell, shit happens when you are terrorists.
The West has been funding and supporting terrorists in Syria. Before 2011, its GDP was growing faster than our, and they had a growing middle class. Assad very popular. How do I know? My stepdaughter lived in Damascus with Syrian families for six months before the problems. It would have been in OUR best interest to side with Assad, not go for him. Not to mention all those people, such as the shitshow Obama, who were going to deal with him… all gone. Assad ain’t.
And that “gassing” accusation. Do some research. It’s all out there. Not to mention that the only chlorine factory IN Syria was in the hands of the revels.
In my view, the real problem with Putin began with Kosovo and the humiliation of the Russians, particularly those lunatics who took control of Pristina airport, pointless because it would have been impossible to transfer a Russian division and even a battalion by air to Pristina since Yugoslavia was surrounded from all sides by NATO countries; total air supremacy of NATO aviation.
The Clinton/Blair Kosovo idiocy (a deal could and should have resulted from Rambouillet) set a precedent, which, as I and many others pointed out at the time, would come back and bite the West in the backside, as it has now on three separate occasions.
With regard to Assad, it is difficult, I think, to argue that he has governed Syria in the best interests of all the Syrian people. Of course he has his supporters.
Regarding chemical weapons, here’s the research:
‘3……..On the basis of all the information obtained and its analysis, the (Investigation and Identification Team) IIT concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that, between 19:10 and 19:40 (UTC+3) on 7 April 2018, during a major military offensive aimed at regaining control of the city of Douma, at least one Mi-8/17 helicopter of the Syrian Arab Air Force, departing from Dumayr airbase and operating under the control of the Tiger Forces, dropped two yellow cylinders which hit two residential buildings in a central area of the city.
4. At Location 2,1 the cylinder hit the rooftop floor of a three-storey residential building without fully penetrating it, ruptured, and rapidly released toxic gas—chlorine—in very high concentrations, which rapidly dispersed within the building, killing 43 named individuals and affecting dozens more.
5. At Location 4,1 the cylinder hit the roof of a three-storey residential building (at the time uninhabited), and broke into the apartment below. The cylinder ruptured only partially, and started to slowly release chlorine, mildly affecting those who first arrived at the scene.
6. The IIT reached its conclusions on the basis of the degree of certainty of “reasonable grounds”, which is the standard of proof consistently adopted by international fact-finding bodies and commissions of inquiry…..’
https://www.opcw.org/sites/default/files/documents/2023/01/s-2125-2023%28e%29.pdf
‘Videos of barrel bomb remnants found after the attacks on Keferzita on April 11 and 18 and the attack on Telmans on April 21 show yellow cylinders or canisters together with remnants of barrel bombs. The canisters contain markings with the code “CL2” – the symbol for chlorine gas – and “NORINCO,” indicating that the cylinders were manufactured in China by the state-owned company NORINCO. Yellow is the standard industrial gas color code for chlorine.’
https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/05/13/syria-strong-evidence-government-used-chemicals-weapon
Read Hitchens, P, passim on the gas attacks and fraudulent behaviour by OPCW
https://www.startpage.com/do/search?q=HITCHENS+SYRIA+GAS+OPCD&segment=startpage.brave
“international fact-finding bodies and commissions of inquiry…..’”
Sadly, all international bodies are now beyond hope. The UN was set up with the best of intentions; it is now a disaster, especially on Human Rights. Similarly the WHO, which did excellent work in the past, but is now a danger to us all. Their handling of Covid was as bad as can be. Maybe that China and the philanthropath Gates are their main drivers has something to do with that.
All too true.
Israel or Palestine? Let’s see how many different things we can conflate, and see how many people are dumb enough to commit their heart and soul to one teams propaganda. The mindf*ck of Covid and Russia-Ukraine – and heaven knows what else before all that – has left a few defiant stragglers, but Israel vs Palestine has bought the minds of the few who remained. What a disappointing lot we are.
About 72% of the votes in Rochdale were postal votes. Draw your own conclusions.
Speculation, but as a postal voter myself (nowhere near Rochdale) I’m familiar with it. Established parties have long encouraged known supporters to opt for it, as it usually results in them actually voting (hopefully for them). My hunch re all the recent by-elections is that the real majority don’t approve of the system at all at present, and don’t give a s**t.
Isn’t it still the case that postal votes are for those who, for health reasons etc, cannot physically get to a polling station?
No
They are available on demand. Another Blair change for the worse whiuch the Tories have not wanted to change.
And they are encouraged by organised groups, of any of the major ones with reasonable canvassing records to the effect that they are likely to vote for them. Incidentally, that would be a reason why the postal turnouts are proportionally higher than on the day turnouts at the polling station in elections with low turnouts, like the recent by-elections. When I vote on the PV, I usually do it around 10 days early, depending on the delivery by the local Council that manages it. When you are on it, you are not allowed to vote at polling stations. They are reliant on the Royal Mail to some extent as well. I guess if they on strike you can deliver by hand to the Council, but that would probably drive down the turnout if it happens.
“Downing Street has told police to list offenders, such as ‘cat killer’ murderer Scarlet Blake, as male unless they have legally changed gender, reports the Telegraph”
I thought the reason for the costly charade of Police and Crime Commissioners was to introduce a degree of public accountability into policing. And since when did “Number 10” have the power to issue decrees like the French President?
Judge Napolitano puts out an interesting vid on the Israel/Palestine situation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_8_6iZlyc8
The Arab League’s statement at the ICJ case regarding the Israel/Palestine occupation. Blistering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LACse017-A
Can’t be bothered to watch it, but one question – does it mention Hamas breach of the Geneva Convention, and the consequences of them doing so? The Arab League – well, read on…
“To quote the words of the then Secretary-General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, describing the war aims of the five Arab States whose armies invaded Israel the day after its birth on May 14, 1948: ‘This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.’ In the process of trying to achieve this terrible objective, they created the Palestinian refugee problem by telling the Arab population within Israel to leave their homes temporarily so as not to get in the way of the invaders.”
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-big-lie-about-israel-threatens-us-all/
Until Israel wipes out Hamas and its supporters – i.e. those who voted them into power, then Israel cannot be safe. As it was for Jews when we wiped out the Nazis. Hamas are Islam’s Nazis; indeed, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, during WWII, met with Hitler to plan a Middle East Holocaust. Which is just what Hamas wants.
Let’s get real eh?
Extraordinary speech. Sadly, the US will ignore every word of it.
“News presenter Clive Myrie has said he dislikes the term ‘impartial’ and does not believe the BBC must provide balance on every topic, according to the Telegraph.”
Well they don’t anyway, so what’s Myrie on about?
Providing balance and being impartial is impossible. The only solution is to privatise/scrap the BBC and stop pretending it can be impartial.
“Founder of the Free Speech Union, Toby Young said: “Sam Melia’s conviction points to the shortcomings of the ‘stirring up’ clauses in the Public Order Act.
“Why is he guilty of ‘stirring up’ racial or religious hatred, but not George Galloway, some of whose comments about Israel and Zionism have been equally incendiary? Yet Galloway is now the MP for Rochdale, while Melia has gone to prison for two years.
“Either the law is applied consistently, without fear or favour, or it’s not fit for purpose.
“It cannot be one law for right-wing white working class men and another for left-wing politicians.”
Sam Melia: Free speech activists outraged after man jailed for two years for running ‘far-right’ stickers library (gbnews.com)
Well done, Toby Young, for courageously defending this unknown young man who has been so unjustly treated.