Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

There can be no doubt that the Department of Health is in serious political trouble over its reforms. How it got there is a mystery. The broad thrust of the new ideas are right. Detail can be adjusted. The Bill is half way through Parliament. Yet opposition grows, Milliband grows more strident, Lib Dems are in another turmoil, Downing Street is in a state of near panic and the nurses have lost confidence in the Secretary of State for Health.

This blog has lost confidence in the current NHS and in particular the Minister for Public Health in England, Anne Milton MP. Interviewed today, she was challenged on the fact that following the abolition of targets, A&E patients were being kept waiting for more than four hours in some cases. Her answer was that what was important was not the waiting time, but the quality of the treatment when you finally got it.

This is preposterous. What is the matter with the mentality of the people who are involved in the NHS? Nobody should wait in A&E for more than ten minutes and in 1980 nobody had to. How can it possibly be defensible for a health service to keep stricken patients waiting for four hours in an emergency? Would we wait four hours for a meal in a pub, or four hours for a routine train, or four hours for a play to start in a theatre, or four hours for an ambulance? No , because every other sort of service organises itself to deliver. But the NHS sees itself not as a service but a process and that process must take its course.

That is why it has to be reformed and if it is incapable of reform, shut down. It would be better to start again. Health Ministers must get a grip. Put more bluntly, this is a nettle that has to be grasped.

Neither of these two items of good news was expected. Both,  probably, will be reversed in the coming months before settling into a downward trend, so not too much should be read into these pieces of welcome data. Nevertheless they do show that things are not going in the direction of the borrow more now brigade of dangerous nutters, still active on the airwaves, but now less so. Osborne can take a touch of comfort with his coffee this morning.

Although the level of youth unemployment remains very worrying, it has not risen as predicted. There is a systemic element to this, related to the weaknesses in eduction, now being tackled. From the perspective of history we can now see that, perversely, it was not the abolition of the grammar schools which created real difficulty later. It was the abolition of the secondary moderns. Much derided and considered socially divisive, their contribution to the well being of society and the employment prospects of their students was a good deal undervalued. Not everyone needs to be a lawyer.

Which brings me to another statistic. The number of professional services firms in trouble has risen by 61% on a year ago. Bars and restaurants in trouble are up by 68%. There may be some truth in the cynical view that the latter is the product of the former. What is not in doubt is that both are a symptom of the re-balancing of the economy. However distressing for those involved, this is not only inevitable, but necessary.

Another straw in the wind of industrial re-generation is the restoration of car assembly at Longbridge, iconic birthplace of Austin cars and last surviving component of the home- grown British motor industry, until the final marque, MG, went bust in controversial circumstances six years ago. The wreckage was bought by China’s largest motor manufacturer and assembly of a British design, the MG6, from parts made in China, is now under way.

We need more of this. Let us hope the range of products will be expanded and include the latest clean technology. The industrial heartland of our country have much to offer. It is sad that our own investors and banks so binged themselves on property (75% of all bank lending) that they not only bust themselves and destroyed much of our industrial heritage, but also bust our country. From their fantasy world they told us that ‘invisibles’ and ‘services’ were sufficient to ensure prosperity. With lots of borrowing, of course. Well we have seen through all that. The invisible were just that, the services were no longer required and the borrowed money has now to be repaid. This is because none of those things are wealth creating, there are just activities which cost other people money, which dries up in tougher times.