Many years ago in the early days of the national health service things that were covered and available to the general public kept increasing and increasing, we all realised that this couldn’t go on and on and on. If you remember and for those of you who were too young, the original NHS was based on a friendly society. I believe it was the Oddfellows, at that time.
I belonged to an alternative called the Hearts of Oak.

As more and more illnesses and frailties were added to the services of the NHS, the funding naturally had to increase. There were still private firms investigating diseases and illnesses, these firms were making money by selling the results i.e. tablets and medicines to the NHS. In a way, you can still see this as charities ask for donations to fund their research.

We have now reached the stage where the funding is enormous, but it is still not enough to cover the salaries of its staff. Like most government departments, plain bureaucracy on its own is costing a fortune and needing its own government body to run it.

No longer is it a case of the hospitals being semi-autocratic, with matron being the awe-inspiring at top level. She used to be a figure to be gazed at in awe, now what she used to do is covered by a committee, if that isn’t typical bureaucracy I don’t know what is.

The NHS is now getting out of control, the junior doctors are getting a pittance, yet they are still expected to have extreme loyalty to the National Health Service.
Perhaps it is time that a major review took place, with the public being questioned as to what it really wants.