Dennis Benson

Another beautiful golden day! The optimists among the chicken-breeders are talking excitedly of a summer to beat them all. The rest of us remember similar delight at this time last year! But we live for the day and this one is brilliant in every sense of the word. However, at least one of our number is not entirely happy. He has been told by his GP that there are now restrictions on NHS orthopaedic referrals and his chance of a hip operation is now remote. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised since the massive Lansley cuts are slowly but surely taking the NHS performance back many years.

In fact a survey of GPs published yesterday found that cuts are being made not only in areas deemed non-urgent. Over half of the 500 family doctors questioned said that waiting times had gone up for musculoskeletal work, and 42% reported a rise in waits for neurology treatment. Almost a third say that there are now delays in cardiology and one in ten say that waiting times for cancer treatments are rising quickly.

Interestingly the survey was carried out by Spire Healthcare, the second largest private hospital group in the country. And they are not in the least depressed by what their friend Mr Lansley is doing. Dr Jean-Jacques de Gorter, clinical director of Spire, said yesterday that the increased use of the private sector now being enjoyed is to be expected “as a result of health secretary Andrew Lansley’s measures and efficiency savings”.  He reported that his group was already seeing waiting lists for elective admissions and diagnostics going up and patients are “likely to turn to the private sector”.

Spire claims from its survey that more patients are asking GPs about private treatment. It claims that a third of those surveyed plan to make more private referrals this year. Almost half (49%) are said to be asking their patients if they have private medical insurance.

The number of people with private insurance is actually flatlining or even dropping, as people are made redundant and lose the healthcare benefit that went with their job, but Dr De Gorter expects more to pay out of their own pockets as the NHS delays increase.

I honestly believe that, unless Lansley is stopped, the end of the NHS as we have known it is in sight. Private hospitals will lure top surgeons away from the NHS and will step up their GP-influencing campaigns. Of course this is one of the aims of the Conservative minister. Competition, he will argue, will lead to even better healthcare and higher standards. So far as the private sector is concerned that is correct but the massive flip side is that the NHS hospitals, starved of funding from basic work, will deteriorate and ultimately decline in numbers.

The end of the Lansley trail is plain to see. If you have expensive health insurance, or are relatively wealthy, you will notice little difference. If you don’t, you will probably die or at best suffer a lower quality of life.

If we regard that scenario as unduly pessimistic we will delude ourselves and betray generations to come!

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THOUGHTS FOR TODAY;  LUCK:   “Everything went right for him until the day he was born”….Victor Borge   “If it was raining soup, he’d be out with forks”…..Brendan Behan    “Just my luck. I was at the airport when my ship came in” ………Henny Youngman   “As one door closes another falls on top of you”…..Angus Deayton   “It always looks darkest just before it gets totally black”…….Charlie Brown    “Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone”…..Jim Frieberg   “What I’m looking for is a blessing that’s not in disguise”…..Kitty O’Neill Collins  “I’m so unlucky that if I was to fall into a barrel of nipples I would come out sucking my thumb”……Freddie Starr

ANSWERS TO YESTERDAY’S QUIZ;  1.  Shane Fenton   2.  Gordon Sumner

TODAY’S QUESTIONS;   1. Where did troops fight for control of Islam’s holiest shrine?     2.Who went out to be Rhodesia’s last British governor?

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