Baring Testament

cc. Nick Clegg

Have you realised that just across the pond people are fighting to get just a slice of what we have over here? A National Health Service is what I am talking about. A way to ensure that low income does not mean that being ill and/or injured is a sentence to total financial wipe out or worse, death. Since you have decided to break up the NHS and risk our lives by making changes that have ALREADY been proven to be ineffective; at a time where the country has no money, I was severely tempted to believe that the CON-DEMs loathe, this green and pleasant land, that you have been elected to serve.

Alas, I am way off the mark. What I have recently read has totally convinced me otherwise. No, no, it is apparent to me now that you just want us all to die. No one likes targets, I agree. And scraping targets does initially seem like a fantastic idea to cut red tape and leave the doctors to just do their job, right? But considering that you purport to be proponents of Free Market ideals, I am a touch baffled as to how you can scrap Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) like ambulance response times? I mean, timing how fast ambulances respond to calls seems very reasonable, considering that they are supposed to be fast. Is it not key to their job role? And GP waiting times and waiting times in A&E...two more reasonable requests to been seen speedily I'd have thought.

I mean have you ever waited hours for a GP appointment? Days and days because they can't slot you in? Or just waited for an eternity at the practice hoping to be seen realising you've missed a whole day of work because they are running too slowly? And...oh...no? Well I suppose not, you can afford a private practice and opt out of these kind of shenanigans. Well, have you ever been seriously ill, felt like crap, unable to get a GP appointment, told if its that bad you should go to A&E? Ever been told that what feels like a horrendous illness is not that urgent? Have you ever...sorry, what? No? Again? Well I suppose that also makes sense. After all, what private hospital worth its salt is going to allow you to wait, or turn you away as being no-urgent. Of course you're a valuable urgent patient if your paying, aren't you? I just thought that being attended to by an ambulance when you are quite ill within 20 minutes was a perfectly reasonable expectation.

I just wondered what the rational was behind the CON-DEM reasoning for these changes, after all I'd not like to condemn you all as uncaring and out of touch with the realities of the health service that we face...ooooooh, ok. You want to focus on quality of care. Well that does make sense, I salute you. After all, ensuring that I am not seen within 20 minutes of calling for an ambulance may not kill me if its not life threatening, true, and increasing my stress levels while I still don't know what is wrong with me will greatly increase the quality of care I receive. Ok. So should I just not call for help if I deem it necessary, take an ibuprofen and go back to work? Yep? Got it.

I totally understand. Obviously in a period of austerity the most value for money that I would receive is paying for an NHS that I cannot access due to prohibitively long waiting times. Unless you are dying. In which case, go ahead and try to access your NHS. I mean in that case they really don't have to see you within 4 hours of arriving at A&E all in the interests of promoting quality and patient safety. Obviously having to be seen within 4 hours is far too hasty. Plus if I die waiting, I'm no longer a patient of the NHS. I'm just dead. One less person to put a strain on the service. Fantastic way to deal with patient quality of care and service.

Also, I did think that Nick Clegg cared about the social welfare of this nation though, so I am slightly shocked about this...no? What? He was willing to sell out in exchange for actually being in power (something that has not happened for a Liberal Democrat in living memory)? But that doesn't make sense! Plus he held himself up as a beacon of integrity. Now all he has received is all of the flack and none of the (real) power, I....huh? Oh, ok...he was too stupid to realise that he'd signed his soul over to be condemned forever? Sorry, what? Sure...., I won't tell him, if you don't...