Most of the British rely on the National Health Service. It is based upon a thoroughly discredited political concept, that an elite has to make choices for the rest of the population. That consumers of health care are not fit to make choices. It provides, overall, a poor standard of care. This is especially true as you get older.

The NHS was born in the heady days of the aftermath of the Second World War. During the war the British state had taken total control of society with one aim of winning the war. That this had been achieved surely demonstrated the capacity of the 'best' brains in the country to run all aspects of society. This was then coupled with the fact that the Soviet Union was widely admired amongst the political elite of the Labour party (who set up the NHS) and the senior civil servants, who mostly came from Communists hot beds of Oxford and (especially) Cambridge. The bottom line was that these people knew what was best and were going to make sure everyone had some of it.
We know that any monopoly, state or private, is bad. Competition provides the goods. If it were otherwise the old Soviet Union would have been a roaring success. If the NHS had been such a good idea why did no other country go down this route?

The reluctance to accept these facts is profound. One reason is the profound benefits that accrue to those employed in the NHS. When the Labour Party was returned to power in 1997 the first thing it did was to scrap the internal market established by the previous Conservative administration. This had always been unpopular with employees of the NHS since it meant that hospitals had to compete for custom. No one likes having to work for custom. Unions representing NHS employees are very influential within the Labour Party.

The Labour administration did introduce targets for all manner of things. This approach is identical to the old Soviet Union's economic planning department, Gosplan. In 2003, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer - Gordon Brown, criticised any introduction of market forces into the NHS on the basis that a hospital couldn't be allow to go bankrupt. That also, the population as a whole was not sufficiently knowledgeable to make decisions regarding the choice of a hospital. What this ignored was that:

1. a hospital may go bankrupt but the assets still exist. Companies take over other companies assets all the time. All that really changes is that successful management replaces poor management.
2. people can be given access to the necessary knowledge (the ethos behind these pages). In any event, they can also use their own personal doctors to help in that decision.

What this boils down to is a system that delivers adequate health care for those aged below 60. However, it is far from world class and has no idea of customer service.
The following letter, published in the Times, in March 2003 demonstrates this

March 10, 2003
From the Marchioness of Salisbury
Sir,

Baroness Knight of Collingtree's Patients' Protection Bill will have its second reading debate in the House of Lords on March 12. It would make it clearly illegal to deny sustenance to patients with the purpose of ending their lives. I and many distinguished colleagues working in this field believe this Bill is badly needed. Britain has a poor record of recovery from strokes. This is attributed to a shortage of specialist units, but there may be an additional reason: the policy, recommended by the British Medical Association in 1999, of denying tube feeding to patients whose rehabilitation might take a long time. This policy was supported in the General Medical Council's recent guidelines for good practice, but we believe it is the wrong way to reduce the costs of the NHS.

It is not only some victims of a stroke who are dying for lack of the basic necessities of life. Bereaved relatives have said that some elderly patients admitted to hospital for conditions that are not life-threatening are promptly sedated (reports, January 6 and 28, 1999). Death follows in a few days because they are then allowed to become dehydrated.

The withholding of food and fluid also forms part of the Law Commission's draft Mental Incapacity Bill, a version of which the Government is pledged to introduce, although it is in conflict with Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which states that everyone's right to life shall be protected by law.

Yours faithfully,
MARJORIE SALISBURY
(Director),
Committee for the Celebration of Life,
Hatfield House,
Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL9 5NF,
March 8.

From this letter it can be immediately seen that anyone relying upon the NHS to provide meaningful health-care is going to be very disappointed.