The Guardian argues that the NHS is failing because it isn’t socialist enough.

How did we get into this situation? Well, the Stafford problems can be traced back to the reforms of the Conservative government in the early 80s, and the obsession with market forces as an unlimited good. At that time, the health service was in need of reform; it needed to be brought up to date. But the desire to find better ways to manage the day-to-day running of the hospital morphed into a perception that clinical staff – doctors in particular – needed kicking into gear. There was this assumption that came with it, that doctors – and nurses – could not be relied upon to drive clinical efficiency on their own, through sheer professionalism and pride in their work.

When the NHS was set up, it was an egalitarian system, “free at the point of access, independent of the ability to pay”. Recently, there have been much-repeated anecdotes featuring consultants down at the golf course or working in the private sector on NHS time – and while those people probably existed, they were a tiny minority. The vast majority of doctors were out there doing far more than their fair share of work, because they believed in the delivery of a good service in the best interest of their patients. Unfortunately, no one could measure goodwill or professionalism.

So we went from a system driven by professional pride and duty of care to one that would accommodate market forces. This led to the paramaterisation of everything the bureaucrats could find to score.

In the Guardian article’s view, it is the existence of metrics that is at fault. It killed the “spirit” of the system. Serve the People. In Memory of Norman Bethune. I happen to think this is BS. But facts are no match for visions, or their near-cousins, hallucination. It concludes, “by reducing healthcare to a few measurable statistics, to create a target-driven culture, we have all but destroyed the essence of what was the NHS.” Right on Guardian: that’s what need to focus on, our bodily essences.