As we've been saying, advancing technology saves the NHS money
Some of us here are men of a certain age, those others of us male here hope to reach that maturity. So, this is good news:
Anew five-minute steam treatment for an enlarged prostate has been hailed as a breakthrough by NHS surgeons following tests on British patients.
The simple procedure was found to shrink glands on average by 36 per cent - but while the result is similar to other treatments, it has far less side effects.
The process, conducted by surgeons at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust in London and Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust on 150 men, involves injecting an enlarged prostate with jets of steam without the need for surgery.
Current procedures, while effective, can lead to loss of sexual function,bleeding and incontinence with patients kept in hospitals for days at a time.
It was reported that health watchdogs are ready to give it the green light for NHS use.
This is indeed the sort of thing that men of a certain age welcome. Also those who desire to reach age.
However, we're all aware of the current mantra. That as technology marches on the NHS needs ever more money to be able to deploy those new technologies. This is though just the standard bleating from a bureaucracy that they must have more of our money. For look at what the effects upon costs are of our new technology:
Professor Hashim Ahmed, a consultant urological surgeon at Imperial, said other hospitals are poised to roll out the treatment as soon as they get the okay from health watchdog NICE.
"It frees up huge NHS resources because you need much less theatre time," he told the Daily Mail. "You are also opening up tens of thousands of days of bed occupation around the country."
As is true of new technologies in general - it's cheaper. For that's rather what a new technology is, being able to do that old task with fewer inputs, to be able to do it cheaper.
This technological revolution is going to reduce the costs of the NHS, not increase, and don't let anyone tell you different.