1 min read
I'm getting increasingly annoyed by the stream of 'what the NHS did for me' features on radio, TV and in the papers to mark its 60th anniversary. Victoria Derbyshire on FiveLive has people ringing in at the moment with tales of NHS derring-do: saving people's lives, treating them for chronic diseases and such like. People are calling in saying how wonderful it is, it saved my life, we don't appeciate it enough, blah blah blah.
It's nonsense, of course. The examples are simply examples of a health care system doing what health care systems are supposed to do. You could hold such a phone in anywhere in Europe and have similar stories of gratitude. There is nothing unique to the NHS about these stories. Naturally individuals are grateful to those medics and nurses who have saved their life, or helped them in othe ways. But it's not 'the NHS' which has saved anyone's life.
How about a phone-in of lives not saved and treatments denied because of the NHS' anachronistic foundation?