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Economist articles are usually well-founded and fairly objective, but not this one. With cherry-picked quotes from several reports but no citations, this read l

by m000 4y ago

Economist articles are usually well-founded and fairly objective, but not this one. With cherry-picked quotes from several reports but no citations, this read like it was written to serve some agenda/narrative. E.g. a study "found only one example where there were more covid patients than intensive-care beds". For real? Was it perhaps because of the triage process used during covid? What about the non-covid patients that were left without an IC bed because of IC bed segregation? It is also reprehensible that everything is pinned down to "productivity" of health workers. Are those the same people hailed as "heroes" a year or so ago?

paganel 4y ago
I guess this Economist article can be read in relation to this very recent quote made by Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party in the UK: "The NHS must reform to survive" [1], where "reform" of course that means more privatisation. If you look at it through that prism you can better understand how come some people have started talking about "productivity" when it comes to the health system. The peace dividend dying off also doesn't help, you've got to get the a lot more money for the military from somewhere, so it's either from education or healthcare (or from both). [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-64279654 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-64279654
- philjohn 4y ago
  Except some of the reforms being discussed by Labour are things like finally doing away with GP's being employed by private practices and instead employed by the NHS. The last reforms, after the Con/Lib coalition came to power, which split the NHS up into clinical commissioning groups is where a lot of blame has to be put (along with not keeping funding to the level required). From centralised purchasing giving economies of scale, to each CCG doing their own purchasing, and lots of duplication of roles across the whole country.
Semaphor 4y ago
I remember the news articles of patients being airlifted from neighboring countries to Germany because we still had capacity, while they did not. So yeah, I agree with you.

by m000 4y ago

paganel 4y ago

I guess this Economist article can be read in relation to this very recent quote made by Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party in the UK: "The NHS must reform to survive" [1], where "reform" of course that means more privatisation. If you look at it through that prism you can better understand how come some people have started talking about "productivity" when it comes to the health system. The peace dividend dying off also doesn't help, you've got to get the a lot more money for the military from somewhere, so it's either from education or healthcare (or from both). [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-64279654 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-64279654

philjohn 4y ago
Except some of the reforms being discussed by Labour are things like finally doing away with GP's being employed by private practices and instead employed by the NHS. The last reforms, after the Con/Lib coalition came to power, which split the NHS up into clinical commissioning groups is where a lot of blame has to be put (along with not keeping funding to the level required). From centralised purchasing giving economies of scale, to each CCG doing their own purchasing, and lots of duplication of roles across the whole country.

Semaphor 4y ago

I remember the news articles of patients being airlifted from neighboring countries to Germany because we still had capacity, while they did not. So yeah, I agree with you.