Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

The NHS

More alarming news about the quality of care in the NHS. Trusts given the accolade of good and then found deficient. Today we learn that some 5000 people who go into hospital with routine non- threatening conditions die. This is preposterous. Let me repeat 5000 people, yes three noughts, 5000, are dying in hospital when they should have come home treated. Arguments are now breaking out in quango land as to which inspectorate is right.

I am one of the few who does not quiver with emotion at our wonderful NHS. I think it is outstanding, indeed wonderful, in any major crisis or emergency. It works like clockwork in a seamless drive to aid and treat the injured and the traumatised  with world class excellence. The reason for this is that is has all the skills and knowledge and has, in the emergency, suspended all its normal operational processes to concentrate on treating the patients above all else.

When the crisis is over it withdraws back into its hierarchical world of trusts and quangos, lists and targets with the shambolic outcomes we hear of every day, making it, on the judgement of effective use of assets, one of the most inefficient organisations in the world.

It is also one of the least democratically accountable. Considering its consumption of £100 billion of taxpayers money anually this is shocking. It is also unacceptable.

Iraq War Inquiry

Sir John Chillcot and his team are making a very good start. Complaints have been made by the legal profession that there are no barristers allowed in this inquiry and the usual adversarial ding dong so much and wrongly admired as a route to truth, is missing. It is precisely because the method is inquisitorial that it is working so well. Questions are searching for answers rather than clever and witnesses have been much more forthcoming than is the case when they face cross examination. Already we begin to see that many of our fears for the integrity of the war and honest governance are justified.

In my book I am very critical of the record of Public Inquiries,  their failure to arrive at robust conclusions and their gravy train of lawyers’ fees. I propose a good many changes. Chillcot is much nearer the mark.