Morning moan

This triggered by a story in one of yesterday's free papers - Standard or Metro - about how the Secretary of State for Health is telling us how awful this or that widget in the health service is, a health service of which has charge, and how he is going to fix it. More guidance, more savings, more inspections or something. Maybe more court cases. Anything but more money for more people.

This annoyed me because the Secretary is, in effect, suggesting that we can have a world class health service, where accidents never happen, at third world rates. The government of which he is part has been squeezing the health service for years and still has the nerve to bang on about how awful it is that there has been an accident.

New Labour took a different line, throwing a great deal of money at the health service, probably more money than it could usefully absorb in the time (think of all those fine new computer systems which soaked up all those billions) and certainly more money than we could sustain.

But neither party seems to be in the least bit interested in trying to explain to the electorate that they get the health service that they are prepared to pay for. They can't have all the booze they can drink, all the consumer toys from China that they can play with - and health. If they pay more taxes, then they can have a better health service. And it is this that I find really annoying, this abject failure to put the public debate on a realistic financial footing.

Blaming it all on inefficient public servants doesn't wash with me. By the standards of the western world we get quite a good bang for our buck - perhaps twice as much bang for our buck as they manage in the land of trump and free enterprise.

PS 1: I observe in passing than spending money on people to work in the health service would be much better for our dire balance of payments than spending money on consumer goods from China. Much more sustainable, even if lots of the people involved do come from elsewhere.

PS 2: and I noticed yesterday that the line of ambulances outside Epsom Hospital was provided by G4S, rather than by the South East Coast Ambulance Trust which, I think, used to do the job. I suppose it is not that different from using ordinary taxis for a lot a patient movements, but one does wonder about the attitudes and style that G4S operatives will bring to this sometimes difficult work. I wonder even more whether it will prove any cheaper in the long run.