Cutting the Deficit, Not the NHS

Well, here's a thing: despite the country's public health policy being run by such sparkling talents as Jeremy C Hunt, Twizzler Lansley and New Labour's Patsy Hackitt (whose famous commitment to free public health recently climaxed with a post in the profiteering sector), almost two thirds of nurses still have little or no idea how lucky they are. Sixty-two per cent have considered resigning on the grounds of stress, despite the present administration's having already shed five thousand in the name of efficiency. Eighty-three per cent believe their workload has increased, and even some of those probably consider this a Bad Thing, in spite of the concomitant real-terms pay cuts which, subject to the whimsy of George Osborne's ever-mobile goalposts, are at present scheduled to last until 2016. Many are being made to work extra, unpaid hours, thereby combating the under-utilisation and overpayment which blight the lives of almost everyone who doesn't have a private moat; the Minister for Health and News Corporation continually cheers them on; yet still they complain. Clearly, the Government's noted aversion to chaotic, top-down reorganisation of the National Health Service has been to little avail.