The NHS Consultation, part 3: Your ideas for change
The Labour Government has launched a consultation on the NHS. This is the third of three blogs documenting my responses to this consultation. My ideas are as follows, structured in line with the consultation requirements. Organise the NHS as a franchise, not a charitable trust dishing out money to whoever asks for it The current structure of the NHS is rooted in the first half of the twentieth century, and in turn from Victorian days, when individual hospitals were built in towns with funding obtained from various wealthy benefactors. Each hospital was an independent entity, there was no coordinated service.This is largely still how it works, except the ‘wealthy benefactor’ is the government. Government is funding many hospitals and other projects up and down the country, without seeing them to be properly structured or co-ordinated, i.e. that the funding is put to the best possible use. The NHS should be more of a franchised organisation, like a network of motor dealer...