IMF pours cold water on NHS funding  >>>   Complaints against NHS reach all time high  >>>

Where it all began
In 1948 the newly elected Labour Government in Britain introduced the welfare state into Britain. For a country who had won the 2nd world war it appeared just reward for the ravages they had suffered. The Liberal peer Lord Beveridge, architect of the plan, like so may who strive to assist the 'poor' or redistribute the wealth of others, he failed as did the Labour Government, to cost such a massive undertaking properly.

The welfare state born under the slogan, "from the cradle to the grave" has come back to haunt Labour over the decades. Within a year of its inception prescription charges had to be introduced due to the spiralling cost of providing drugs free on the NHS.

The "free" NHS is anything but free, it is neither national, in a healthy state and today rarely provides the service a 21st century nation such as Britain deserves. In short its a nationalised industry exhibiting all the worst aspects of the old defunct nationalised industries of the 50's and 60's.

The individuals who work in the NHS were often 'blackmailed' by successive Governments, Labour and Conservative, into accepting lower wages than their skills deserve on the basis that the NHS was some sort of 'vocation' and that anyone who questioned the basic values of the NHS was somehow hitting at the sick and the weak. Nothing could be further from the truth.

When it comes to enforcing standards across the hospitals as a whole, private and NHS there are two standards, a) The Commission for Health Improvements monitors NHS standards, and b) The National Care Standards Council monitors private care. You wonder why, wonder no more.

It operates in the same way that local councils monitor private nursing homes for the elderly, they can condem private homes for not coming up to scratch but their own homes which are often in worse condition are let off the hook. So it is with hospitals. If you compare the NHS hospitals with the private ones the conditions in the NHS would be so deplorable and the public outcry so great the government compares NHS with NHS then you dont get such a variation.

Not only has the current Blair government failed to live up to its promises concerning the NHS it has openly admitted on 26th November 2001 that it has failed.

The public purse can no longer support every item of health care for everyone, its nonsensical, for as technology advances the range of treatments people will want as individuals will not have the same importance to other taxpayers who will resent funding treatments they regard as frivolous.

One of the most urgent cases for reform lies within the hospitals themselves. Many wards are decaying, elderly patients are bed blocking due to the governments irresponsibility in allowing social services to get their inefficient hands on money which should be going into providing beds in private nursing homes. Unfortunately social services up and down the country are refusing to sanction beds in private homes for all sorts of politically correct reasons. This at a time when council run homes are getting away with murder in terms of standards of care.

NHS patients are unable to pay extra for private rooms, even though recuperation in a private room is known to improve recovery. Why cant they pay extra, you know why, because under Mr Blairs regime if everyone cant have it then no ones having it, except, Mr Blair and his ministers of course.

IMF NOW POURS COLD WATER ON PLANS FOR NHS
The International Monetary Fund recently questioned Gordon Browns financial package for the NHS describing it as, 'risky'. They reckon much of the money will be wasted. (so do the public in every opinion poll). Not only will any vestige of recovery be put at risk but the recession in Britain will be more prolonged. Interest rate cuts won't help without tax cuts as well. Didn't we say that months ago.

Complaints against NHS soar
The governments own figures show the extent of the failing NHS. Complaints against NHS trusts now approach nearly 50,000 per annum. Most of those refer to long waits, poor Accident and Emergency care and awful hotel care in the hospitals. Surprisingly few blame hospital staff or nursing staff. Most individuals are sympathetic to the role played by nurses, doctors etc.

Most people lay the blame squarely at the governments door, with to much management and local council and government interference.