Lord Darzi’s report on the NHS is just the beginning | Letters
When Tony Blair was elected in 1997, it was on a platform of “save the NHS”. He assured us that it had to change or die. Then came Labour’s agenda for changeby bringing in private healthcare to help relieve some of the burden on the NHS, which was already struggling due to years of underfunding.
The Darzi report clearly shows that the NHS is still struggling due to underfunding by successive governments, but Keir Starmer responds by throwing that right back at the NHS and blaming it, now with the phrase “reform or die” (Darzi report says NHS in critical condition but sets out cure plan, 11 September). It didn’t need “change” then, it doesn’t need “reform” now. It needs adequate funding and to stop diverting millions of pounds to private healthcare, and instead put the money into the coffers of the public NHS.
The problem with this of course is that it would be a tacit admission that capitalism, privatizing public bodies “for their own good,” was only good for rich people’s bank accounts, and therefore a lie. This will never happen.
Pete Lavender
Woodthorpe, Nottinghamshire
Lord Darzi’s NHS treatment plan is a welcome one. I am particularly grateful that he highlighted the variable quality of maternity care and inequalities in maternal outcomes. The review was broad in scope, with one notable and worrying absence: any mention or assessment of gynaecological services. There may have been an assumption that existing Women’s Health Strategy This was addressed, but was not based on a thorough review of NHS gynaecological services, but rather a call for evidence.
Research has shown that the strategy failed to capture data on sexual orientation and struggled to achieve sufficient representation among ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ and vulnerable groups. There are therefore limited conclusions we can draw from the findings.
Women’s health centers, while good in concept, lack consistency in definition, staffing, implementation, and funding. Unless they are designed to meet local needs and made accessible to disadvantaged populations, they can lead to increased health disparities..
Prof. Geeta Nargund
Senior NHS Advisor; Founder, Create a Health Foundation
Most clinicians and NHS leaders will welcome the Darzi report. Many of us are eager to support the bold transformation in health that is needed. But it is not just the NHS that needs to change – the government needs to too. We need to end the politically driven ambition to hit a target – often one way or another – and miss the point. The most glaring omission in this report is the mandate to exclude social care. Everyone knows that social care and health are inextricably linked. Is it because the government has no funded plan for social care?
Until we recognise that the NHS’s problems are a manifestation of a greater evil – our failure to address inconvenient truths such as the Treasury’s failure to support investment in the public sector – we will not achieve serious, lasting improvements to our public services.
Doctor Karl Brennan
Sheffield
The secret consultant writes many reasonable things about the Darzi report (Noble visions have been proposed for the NHS before. Will this time be different?, September 13). But the most crucial factor is: “Our staff are tired, disinterested and fed up”. No amount of reorganisation, new IT or strategic reshuffling of revenue streams can improve patient care until NHS staff feel respected and cared for.
Woody Caan
Retired Professor of Public Health, Duxford, Cambridgeshire