Let's stop talking guff about the NHS

I've just read that Andy Burnham, the Health secretary, has described Dan Hannan as unpatriotic to have a go at the NHS on American television. Whatever you say about Mr Hannan, it's not unpatriotic to have a different view on how a service should be funded. It's this kind of childish comment which is so belittling modern politics. It's the same tactic as used by Government ministers to describe anybody against unchecked immigration as racist.

Could we have a sensible debate about funding of Health? I doubt it. Since its inception in 1948, made in the aftermath of a devastating world war where everything was rationed, it has become a totem of a generous society - at least it has to us Brits. To question it in any form is to want to privatise it/abolish it/belittle the achievements of the NHS staff/introduce a two tier system. We've heard all these arguments over the last 30 years but learnt very little.

Whatever model you'd like for health provision, if you can't even discuss it without your patriotism being questioned then we really are in a sorry state (literally).

Nobody thinks that the NHS is perfect; waiting lists are too long, drugs and treatment are rationed and hospitals are getting farther away from their patients. But it is a reasonably fair system for access to health care and an easy way to pay for it.

Had we been deciding a model to use for a new health system, I doubt we would have decided upon the NHS now. As it is, it's unique in the world - no one else has copied it. As Daniel Hannan pointed out, it is the third biggest employer in the world after the Chinese army and Indian Railways. That is one helluva large employer! It also provides a large voting block (admittedly if everyone voted the same way) to whoever wants to protect it.

The sacred cow could do with some slimming (especially of administrators) and some services should be put out for private tender. We should look for ways in which the Government via the NHS can look for better ways to make the money we put in go further. If that means more private companies providing health services then so be it. I would feel perfectly relaxed if a new Tory Government made it known that it was very willing to look at new health providers who provided good value for money and good care standards.

It is probably for the best that the NHS is funded via the tax payer and provides services free at the point of use, but a period of enforced efficiency savings would not be a bad thing.

Now, let's have a grown up debate about it and stop the stupidity!

Squiffy.