An American Doctor Experiences the NHS Again
I&#x27;ve worked in the NHS, for several different organisations at different levels of the hierarchy (PCTs, SHAs, CCGs etc), as a contractor, over several years.<p>I would privatise it tomorrow. The amount of waste in terms of time and money were eye-watering, <i>every time</i>. The amount of politicking was immense. A project that should take a few weeks could easily expand into a couple of years. I resigned from my last contract because it actually felt immoral to be taking a large amount of cash to either sit around twiddling my thumbs, fight with people, or do work at the slowest possible pace in the most ineffective way. I&#x27;d rather do something else. Basically, I&#x27;ve never worked for a private company that was anything like that, even the worst ones, and I find it hard to believe any private company would survive very long working that way.<p>I&#x27;ll add, my Japanese girlfriend and her friends are utterly unimpressed with the level of service. As was my Spanish girlfriend, who also worked on a hospital&#x27;s grounds as a medical researcher.<p>I&#x27;m not saying we should copy the Americans, no way, but the Japanese system is private, the German system is private, the Dutch and French systems are also private. Going private does not mean chucking the idea of universal healthcare on the fire, it means <i>properly</i> separating the regulator from the provider and removing the kind of conflict of interest that led to the cover up of high mortality rates, among other things. There is more than one way to skin a cat.<p>And no, I&#x27;m not a Tory. Try picking up a copy of Private Eye if you want to divest yourself of the notion that the NHS is a saintly institution. Or work there.