We all know that healthcare provision in the UK is a tangled mess. The massive influence and control that the government has over the NHS and its resources has created a huge gulf between the service and its patients. Politicians no longer see patients as humans, but as numbers within quotas and costs on balance sheets.
When politicians make decisions, they can often forget the real impacts that this will have on lives. This latest survey by Which? found that 8% of people had tried DIY dentistry. Of those 8%, one in four had tried to remove a tooth using pliers, 12% had tried by tying a piece of string to a door and 19% had tried to pop an ulcer with a pin (These results are painful to read!). Surely the provision of state healthcare cannot have become so bad in the UK that we are resorting back to Victorian standards?
As I have blogged in the past the system for allocating dental healthcare under the NHS is too confusing, bureaucratic and inefficient for both the dentists and the patients. I thought universal healthcare meant that anybody would be treated anywhere if they were in need of medical attention. This type of botched healthcare system simply cannot work and will continue to fail as long as there is continuing top-down political interference.
Under a privatized system the market would distribute medical services much more efficiently. Providers would be able to respond to the demands of patients in terms of quality and availability of care, rather than being forced to give a one-size-fits-all botched service. The state of British healthcare is embarrassing. We should be world leaders with a system to be proud of.
