If the Conservative Party proved one thing in the last 14 years, it is that pouring money into the NHS simply doesn't work. The cash goes in, but productivity stagnates or even falls.
The NHS, the sixth largest employer in the world, has become the ultimate money guzzler, with its annual budget now approaching £200billion.
Whenever the conservatives are in office. Labour complains that the NHS is being starved of funds that, according to them, explains its problems. Yet even in the era of austerity, under Cameron Osborne, the NHS was protected and subsequently it has been flooded with your taxpayer cash.
But in the final parliament of Conservative rule, funding increased massively. Since 2018, roughly an extra £1bn per week has been injected into the health system, notably more than the infamous suggestion of £350million a week on the Brexit bus.
Jacob Rees-Mogg said that the NHS needs an overhaul
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But outcomes are deeply unsatisfactory. Today, however, the Institute for Economic Affairs has issued its latest report, which has made the case for the complete abolition of the NHS as we know it to move towards an insurance based system.
For too long with the NHS true believers have fooled the public into thinking there are two kinds of system the British, in which everything is paid for and provided by the state, or the American, in which the cost of private insurance is unaffordable for many.
There are other countries and other models besides the US and the UK, and this new IEA report sets this out.
Clearly a number of European countries, such as the Netherlands or the Czech Republic, use social health insurance systems, which are market based and competitive, and they seem to outperform the NHS.
Part of the problem is that the NHS is structured for the convenience of its own staff, not for patients.
A recent policy exchange report found more than four in five hospital trusts had not fired a manager in the last year for poor performance or misconduct.
Rees-Mogg argued that the NHS needs to be adapted
PAWhile the shocking cover ups when things go wrong, especially in maternity services, are proof that the insiders interests come first.
A competitive system would be forced to address issues such as these, which, with some element of co-payment, could help as it would put patients in the driving seat.
Everyone agrees that an overhaul of the system is needed, be it the report of Lord Desai commissioned by Wes Streeting or the IEA.
He urged "we must move past the age of wastefulness into frugality"
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Unfortunately, Streeting is offering more of the same.
While the socialist principle of a national service, centrally controlled, has failed and needs to be replaced with a more responsive system with a variety of income streams.
We must move past the age of wastefulness into frugality, past bureaucracy to efficiency and past sentimentality to honesty.
