As a child, I rarely set foot in the doctor’s surgery. Not because I was super fit, rather that our GP always came to us. Now you can buy an ISA or get your ‘phone screen fixed at home but would need to dial 999 to (maybe) get medical attention there. It’s going to get worse, as GPs are now leaving the profession faster than hospital consultants, and that’s pretty fast. Thank goodness for Dr Google.
Years ago when I worked in Greece, families used to fly their poorly relatives to London to get better medical treatment. Now it’s cheaper, even with the cost of flights and hotels, to go to Lithuania for a hip replacement and Hungary or Turkey for a bit of dental work.
In the real world, large chunks of the NHS are already sort-of privatised. In Gloucester, many cataract operations are carried out by a private company; which, yes, has cut waiting times considerably. In Oxford, three GP practices are now owned by a private company....
Pension rules have, since ‘Pensions Simplification’ a few years ago, become ridiculously complex. Much of the ad hoc, short term stuff added since has had unforeseen effects, such as huge tax bills for doctors having to work extra hours to keep the NHS afloat. They...