Personal view of the NHS circa 2006

The Facts

I am a qualified Registered Mental Nurse(RMN) who had to leave the profession after 3yrs training because it was valued (in the 1950s) at below average wage by society, and was insufficient to support my growing family. But subsequently as MD of Miller systems Ltd I have been involved in medical research with Consultants and Doctors (who after 7yrs training are paid three or more times the average wage for what they do!). This may have coloured my perception.

My Opinion

The National health Service is a primarily a business earning money for the personnel involved and secondly a service for its clients (would it exist without the salaries paid to its experts?). The vocational element has been largely bypassed by socialist fair pay policy as far as nurses are concerned but consultants and doctors level of pay excludes them from claiming any vocational motivation (“though it may be there as an also ran”). My opinion is that we pay far too much to our experts from all professions because the general public give experts too much credit for knowledge they are believed to have. People who are not experts want to believe that our experts hold the position that God used to have. But both concepts - "That God or human expert are infallible" (in my humble opinion) are mistaken (God may know but he is not telling anybody. It would break his cover and then we would not be free anymore!). Let me offer a rational for this opinion. Firstly I have been an expert in my profession. For 20yrs I have sustained a small company (7 employees strong) providing technical services to scientists. The 20yrs of management being my evidence of expertise. This is backed by my lengthy membership of the Institute of Diagnostic Engineers. So I am aware of the proportion of spin to knowledge involved in being an expert. Secondly Politicians are experts in their field but no one in their right mind would expect them to get the predictions right more than 25% of the time. So how come we put our lives into the hands of Doctors and Consultants? Its an unjustified belief which has repercussions in the cost of the health service, but since we abandoned God there is no other help but human! General opinion? We all want something for free! But the NHS is not free, nothing is! The NHS is a burden on the nation, But perhaps a more acceptable one than “every man for himself and the ----- take the hindmost”. It is unfortunate that the NHS has got tangled with belief of equality (see where is equality taking us). “Equality is another impossible belief to realise”. What might be more realistic is a belief in being humane which the dictionary defines as benevolent compassion and inflicting a minimum of pain. It introduces the concept of degree as being practical and acceptable. Using this principle we can argue that some known and cost efective treatments should be available (by human right) at tax-payers expense. But that other uncertain expensive treatments which involve less than a certain percentage success rates are an unfair burden on the labouring tax-payer because “the labourer is (also ) worthy of his wages” and that anyway the money might be better spent on some other risk with a better prospect of success. The Percentage of success would be a political decision and should be adjusted to what the government decided the country could afford. Of course this argument hides another consideration. That is the opinion of the unfortunate individuals to whom the Doctors have declared a sentence of death! (Should be outlawed as inhumane). We can see that, in their opinion, they should be able to demand whatever treatment is available what ever the expense. But that is emotional blackmail and Government should protect the tax-payer from this irrational approach.

Comment

Politics is all about the general beliefs that become accepted by the majority of the public. Its not about facts or statistics, although they may be instrumental in shaping general belief. The government has to manage change but to do this it has to “win hearts and minds” by selling principals not policy. The policy will follow once the principals have been established. I think the control of the medical profession is a monopoly of the General Medical Council who’s hidden agenda will naturally be to maintain and increase their income. The monopoly should be broken up by acknowledging that specific university qualifications in certain subjects will be sufficient qualification to take a job as a doctor in the NHS. Such doctors should be free to join a Union such as the General Medical Council which would then be subject to the law, as other unions are, preventing monopoly from blackmailing the tax-payer. My hope is that by thus reducing the status of the General Medical Council we would in time replace the irrational belief and substitute a more democratically dependant one. I believe then that competition would in time correct the excesses of the present system. No one authority would be able to suppress knowledge that is the essential food of good government.

by R. Miller RMN. FIdiagE