A Brief History of the Cult of the NHS

March 14, 2018 Longrider General News, Health and Fitness, misanthropy, Political 15

Despite being a brilliant scientist, Stephen Hawking remained a devotee of the NHS.

 “I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the NHS,” Hawking told the Guardian at the time. “I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived.”

Mmmm. And had the UK had another model of healthcare he would have died? Are we absolutely sure about this? He would have been denied treatment? Really? Or is this merely assertion without foundation? Having had first-hand experience of the French system, I would dispute this assertion. Had he been born in France, he would have received excellent healthcare throughout his life and would likely have lived as long as he did here. Assertion? Yes, indeed, but no more so than the “without the NHS , I wouldn’t have lived.” bullshit.

He singled out Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, for particular criticism. In arguing for a seven-day NHS, Hunt claimed that 11,000 patients a year died because of understaffing of hospitals at weekends. Hawking pointed out that of the eight studies Hunt had cited, four were not peer reviewed, and that 13 more that Hunt had failed to mention contradicted the view.

“Speaking as a scientist, cherrypicking evidence is unacceptable,” Hawking said. “When public figures abuse scientific argument, citing some studies but suppressing others, to justify policies that they want to implement for other reasons, it debases scientific culture.”

Meh! Peer review is little more robust than getting your mates to check your homework. It is meaningless and has no rigour as we have seen with the cult of climatology and I place no faith in it. I tend to agree with the main thrust regarding politicians using science to justify their own agenda, but the fact remains that the NHS is in the lower third when it comes to outcomes. It is top-heavy with management and needs a root and branch reform. That Hawking couldn’t or wouldn’t see and acknowledge that is a shame. It is equally a shame that no political party will dare to grasp the nettle and deal with it for fear of the cult retaliating.

And as an aside, having waited in the wee hours of a Sunday night into the Monday morning with Mrs L in excruciating pain for an out of hours GP to eventually see her and prescribe oral painkillers that she had already told them couldn’t be digested, I am with Hunt 100% on seven day, twenty-four hour coverage, given the small fortune extorted from us to pay for this third world system.

Private companies are perfectly capable of providing public services efficiently and to a high quality. Just look across the channel. The objections are driven by ideology, not pragmatism.

“Over the last six months he remained completely committed to the fight to defend the NHS, to stop privatisation and its breakup. I can think of no better testament to his memory than to reinstate the NHS as a public service and that’s what he fought for until the end.”

So more of the same, then. Sheesh!

15 Comments

  2. Listening to more of those radio ads about obesity causing cancer and telling us all to start limiting our calorie intake to government approved levels, a thought occurred to me. What these ads are actually saying is, we have so completely messed up this country’s healthcare system that it is now completely unfit for purpose. So we would really appreciate it if you could do everything possible to avoid being ill.

    It doesn’t seem to matter that in reality the world just doesn’t work like that and illness picks on you whether you try to stay healthy or not. Also “saving” the NHS in the minds of such people seems to mean leaving it the way it is, doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

  3. One thing in Hawking’s favour was his celebrity status as well as his crippling illness.

    There’s no doubt the folk in the NHS are just as wowed as man in the street when there’s a well known individual in hospital. I know they’re supposed to be impartial, but they’re not.

    (Dare I say this? Probably not, but what the heck he can only block me. There are those in the NHS who consider smokers to be way down on the list for attention, even emergency operations.)

    Second is his condition. Rare and hellish difficult to treat, so great for underlings to observe specialists. You do get a sense that you’re special, even if the only reason is to further knowledge.

    The rest of it, his arguments, his detailed knowledge of cherry picking, well that’s because these were spoon fed to him.

    • …and if you were the doctor who saved his life (as Hawking said of the Addenbrooks doctor) wouldn’t there be triple brownie points for having rescued a towering intellect?

  6. As you point out, for someone with such an analytical mind, his logic is flawed re without the NHS etc (unless of course he meant if instead of the NHS there were no system in place and he couldn’t have gone elsewhere for treatment).

    • This seems to be a hugely popular argument for defending the NHS. Without the NHS I wouldn’t be here, because apparently countries that don’t have socialised healthcare don’t have healthcare at all. Other countries don’t have any doctors, nurses or hospitals, if you get ill in these countries you just die.

  7. Hawking was right about some things, but was ready to recant when proven wrong. However, I’ve actually worked in the NHS, which is why I have good private health coverage whenever I visit the UK.

  8. While the peer review system in science is not perfect and open to the usual foibles which afflict human nature, it is difficult to suggest an alternative method to assess research papers. As someone who has had their work assessed by this method, I can assure that it is no cake walk and rejections and lengthy rewrites haunt my sleepless nights.

    • I understand. Likewise as a writer of fiction, my current novel is undergoing a similar process – someone is poring over the text seeking errors that I will have to correct. However, the Church of Climatology has corrupted the process to the point where saying that one’s work has been peer reviewed no longer holds the gravitas it once did.

  9. Of course being a celebrity guarantees ‘high quality treatment’ from the NHS, ‘dedicated’ NHS employees know they will not be treated kindly in the media for leaving world famous professor or Prime Minister’s child lying on a trolley in a draughty corridor for hours, or in their own mess or without food and water.

    Also being wealthy enough to pay for care and treatment the NHS cannot/will not provide helps.

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