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- No, criticizing the NHS is not against the religion there. The newspapers are forever getting in digs about long waits, unpopular (but perfectly rational) dec

- No, criticizing the NHS is not against the religion there. The newspapers are forever getting in digs about long waits, unpopular (but perfectly rational) decision from NICE about what drugs to pay for, and junior doctors and their apparent insistence on being paid properly. This is exactly what I'm saying. The NHS are seen as perfect by some. All criticism is digs that are wrong. I'm pro-NHS. But this perspective that it's infallible is beyond all reality.

arethuza 1y ago
"The NHS are seen as perfect by some" I've never met anyone who thinks that the NHS is perfect - least of all anyone who has used it or anyone who works there.
- cs02rm0 1y ago
  Just read the comment further above to see that there are people who cannot stomach any criticism of it. Many years ago now my sister turned down the chance to go to an international conference held in the Netherlands, when I asked why, she said it was because the NHS was the best in the world and had nothing to learn from other healthcare systems. I'm still stunned, and she still doesn't know anything about other healthcare systems.
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vintagedave 1y ago
> All criticism is digs that are wrong. Often, when people criticize the NHS they have an ulterior motive, like privatisation. Consider all the political difficulties the NHS has had in the past few years. As such, negative remarks can be read or misread as dogwhistles for other views, so they're something that have to be phrased carefully and within context. I was unclear: did you publish a book, or did your sister? In general, for something both as key and as endangered as the NHS is, criticism isn't always useful -- support is. Problems can be recognised and addressed through support.
- cs02rm0 1y ago
  I did. I'm not anti-NHS, I've no agenda to see it privatised, I just want it to be better. I tried many, many private routes first. I tried NHS England, NHS Digital, the Innovation Service, AHSNs (many sections having since been renamed/reorganised). About 20 different contact points over two or three years, most of which seemed inappropriate but I made sure if anyone told me it was someone else's responsibility I checked with them. The problems had already been recognised through public inquiries and yet were still ongoing. I even offered to build the software for free, which, hopefully, for an individual dealing with an organisation with a budget into the hundreds of billions, falls under supportive. But as far as I could see, offering support was getting me nowhere. I just had people acknowledging the issue and then shrugging their shoulders, pointing fingers at everyone else. So I wrote a book on it, spoke about the issue publicly and within months it was decided to spend tens of millions on sorting it.
  - afavour 1y ago
    > I even offered to build the software for free, which, hopefully, for an individual dealing with an organisation with a budget into the hundreds of billions, falls under supportive. I think it's wonderful that you offered to do that but it simply isn't realistic. Who is going to support this software in the long term? How are you handling privacy concerns? What guarantees can you offer about server security? Who is paying for and maintaining the servers in the long term? What happens (to be blunt) if you die the day after the software is delivered? There's so, so much wrong with the way governments provision software projects from outside parties. But there is good reason to have contracts the length of the Bible. Picking up work from individuals on a whim is courting disaster.
    - Silhouette 1y ago
      TBF the government and its agencies - including the NHS - are doing themselves no favours with how they're managing IT at the moment. There are persistent and valid claims that the NHS is inefficient in its use of technology. It wastes lots of money, wastes clinicians' time, and sometimes fails to get accurate information to the people who need it in time to be used. But there is a best being the enemy of the good problem here. The amount of regulation involved in supplying any kind of tech product or IT service to these public sector organisations is becoming prohibitive. Parts of the industry that have been providing these products and services into the NHS are being crippled in productivity or even literally shutting down whole supply chains because it's too onerous to comply with all the red tape. It's not just individuals but the small businesses that employ or engage them and then the medium-sized business that use the small ones. If you're working with big consultancies with their own legal and compliance teams then sure you can write hundreds of pages of contracts and require compliance with several external standards about managing personal data and IT security and whatever else. But that regulation flows downhill to the smaller suppliers who don't have resources already available to deal with those issues and at some point it becomes overwhelming and everyone has had enough and decides to become a gardener. Now your only options for supply are big consultancies engaging big suppliers who charge big prices and provide big company levels of service and responsiveness (in the most pejorative sense of these terms). Surely this isn't the best strategy for a system that desperately needs to be more efficient and sometimes more innovative. There is a broad spectrum between "adopt a one-off product with no support from a single well-meaning individual" and "everything requires so much red tape that only the places charging those £x000-per-day consulting rates we're always mocking are actually allowed to provide it".
monkey_monkey 1y ago
> But this perspective that it's infallible is beyond all reality Very very very few people think the NHS is infallible. What are you even talking about? We all understand the NHS has many many problems, and those of us that have used the NHS understand this even more. However, we still think it's a lot better than the private healthcare model. Not sure what you're getting out of this weird strawman argument you're putting forward.
- cs02rm0 1y ago
  I'm afraid there are people who cannot tolerate NHS criticism, you may not be aware of them until you've tried to see a change in the NHS. Some of them would even describe their very existence as a strawman, but it's not a strawman to the people they've blocked from seeing the NHS improve. Yet private healthcare is a strawman, I've never argued for it.
  - monkey_monkey 1y ago
    You've moved from saying the NHS is like a religion that no one can criticise, to "some people cannot tolerate NHS criticism". I'm glad you've toned down the ridiculous complaints to something more reasonable.
- graemep 1y ago
  > However, we still think it's a lot better than the private healthcare model. What private healthcare mode? WHat they have in the US? Then definitely yes. What they have on France or Germany or Japan or almost every other developed country.? Then No. What they have in Singapore? Still No.
  - monkey_monkey 1y ago
    Yes I agree that the UK should spend as much per capita on healthcare as France, Germany and Singapore.

arethuza 1y ago

"The NHS are seen as perfect by some" I've never met anyone who thinks that the NHS is perfect - least of all anyone who has used it or anyone who works there.

cs02rm0 1y ago
Just read the comment further above to see that there are people who cannot stomach any criticism of it. Many years ago now my sister turned down the chance to go to an international conference held in the Netherlands, when I asked why, she said it was because the NHS was the best in the world and had nothing to learn from other healthcare systems. I'm still stunned, and she still doesn't know anything about other healthcare systems.
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- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

vintagedave 1y ago

> All criticism is digs that are wrong. Often, when people criticize the NHS they have an ulterior motive, like privatisation. Consider all the political difficulties the NHS has had in the past few years. As such, negative remarks can be read or misread as dogwhistles for other views, so they're something that have to be phrased carefully and within context. I was unclear: did you publish a book, or did your sister? In general, for something both as key and as endangered as the NHS is, criticism isn't always useful -- support is. Problems can be recognised and addressed through support.

cs02rm0 1y ago
I did. I'm not anti-NHS, I've no agenda to see it privatised, I just want it to be better. I tried many, many private routes first. I tried NHS England, NHS Digital, the Innovation Service, AHSNs (many sections having since been renamed/reorganised). About 20 different contact points over two or three years, most of which seemed inappropriate but I made sure if anyone told me it was someone else's responsibility I checked with them. The problems had already been recognised through public inquiries and yet were still ongoing. I even offered to build the software for free, which, hopefully, for an individual dealing with an organisation with a budget into the hundreds of billions, falls under supportive. But as far as I could see, offering support was getting me nowhere. I just had people acknowledging the issue and then shrugging their shoulders, pointing fingers at everyone else. So I wrote a book on it, spoke about the issue publicly and within months it was decided to spend tens of millions on sorting it.
- afavour 1y ago
  > I even offered to build the software for free, which, hopefully, for an individual dealing with an organisation with a budget into the hundreds of billions, falls under supportive. I think it's wonderful that you offered to do that but it simply isn't realistic. Who is going to support this software in the long term? How are you handling privacy concerns? What guarantees can you offer about server security? Who is paying for and maintaining the servers in the long term? What happens (to be blunt) if you die the day after the software is delivered? There's so, so much wrong with the way governments provision software projects from outside parties. But there is good reason to have contracts the length of the Bible. Picking up work from individuals on a whim is courting disaster.
  - Silhouette 1y ago
    TBF the government and its agencies - including the NHS - are doing themselves no favours with how they're managing IT at the moment. There are persistent and valid claims that the NHS is inefficient in its use of technology. It wastes lots of money, wastes clinicians' time, and sometimes fails to get accurate information to the people who need it in time to be used. But there is a best being the enemy of the good problem here. The amount of regulation involved in supplying any kind of tech product or IT service to these public sector organisations is becoming prohibitive. Parts of the industry that have been providing these products and services into the NHS are being crippled in productivity or even literally shutting down whole supply chains because it's too onerous to comply with all the red tape. It's not just individuals but the small businesses that employ or engage them and then the medium-sized business that use the small ones. If you're working with big consultancies with their own legal and compliance teams then sure you can write hundreds of pages of contracts and require compliance with several external standards about managing personal data and IT security and whatever else. But that regulation flows downhill to the smaller suppliers who don't have resources already available to deal with those issues and at some point it becomes overwhelming and everyone has had enough and decides to become a gardener. Now your only options for supply are big consultancies engaging big suppliers who charge big prices and provide big company levels of service and responsiveness (in the most pejorative sense of these terms). Surely this isn't the best strategy for a system that desperately needs to be more efficient and sometimes more innovative. There is a broad spectrum between "adopt a one-off product with no support from a single well-meaning individual" and "everything requires so much red tape that only the places charging those £x000-per-day consulting rates we're always mocking are actually allowed to provide it".

monkey_monkey 1y ago

> But this perspective that it's infallible is beyond all reality Very very very few people think the NHS is infallible. What are you even talking about? We all understand the NHS has many many problems, and those of us that have used the NHS understand this even more. However, we still think it's a lot better than the private healthcare model. Not sure what you're getting out of this weird strawman argument you're putting forward.

cs02rm0 1y ago
I'm afraid there are people who cannot tolerate NHS criticism, you may not be aware of them until you've tried to see a change in the NHS. Some of them would even describe their very existence as a strawman, but it's not a strawman to the people they've blocked from seeing the NHS improve. Yet private healthcare is a strawman, I've never argued for it.
- monkey_monkey 1y ago
  You've moved from saying the NHS is like a religion that no one can criticise, to "some people cannot tolerate NHS criticism". I'm glad you've toned down the ridiculous complaints to something more reasonable.
graemep 1y ago
> However, we still think it's a lot better than the private healthcare model. What private healthcare mode? WHat they have in the US? Then definitely yes. What they have on France or Germany or Japan or almost every other developed country.? Then No. What they have in Singapore? Still No.
- monkey_monkey 1y ago
  Yes I agree that the UK should spend as much per capita on healthcare as France, Germany and Singapore.