Sojal Pak

Theodore Dalrymple at The First Post opines on more smoke and mirrors from the National Health Service.

"The scheme, then, has several possible purposes. The first is to give the government an excuse to cut costs. The second is to insinuate to the public that doctors are not working hard or well enough."

In yet another governmental attempt to pretend that British public services are responsive to the opinions of the people they serve, GPs will have the incomes of their practices reduced if a sufficient number of patients answer a questionnaire, sent to them six months after their contact with the practice, unfavourably.

In a real market, of course, dissatisfied patients would simply up sticks and take their custom elsewhere, without filling in any forms at all. Except where there was no competition, a doctor who dissatisfied his patients would soon find himself without income and would, presumably, try a little harder.

But the NHS is predicated upon an absence of real or effective choice for the great majority of patients, on the grounds that the government knows and organises best.

"Those who complain have little reason to and are often professional malcontents."

In my little town, for example, all the GPs have been removed into one of those vast practices known in the trade as Darzi's khazis (after the junior health minister, Lord Darzi), so that if the income of the practice were reduced because of unfavourable replies by patients to the questionnaire the population of the whole town would suffer. For example, by forcing the redundancy of a nurse. (more...)