Agenda 2019

Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once. English is a rich and complex language. It can also be confusing, particularly when a change in emphasis, where the spelling is the same, or with the addition or deletion of just one letter can change alter the whole meaning of the word. An example of this happened to me only yesterday (5th March) when I had an appointment with a consultant at a local hospital. I had arranged this appointment over the telephone a couple of days earlier, following a conversation with my GP. She had advised me to make the necessary arrangements and that her referral letter would be sent to the hospital through the post as normal. Arriving at the hospital in good time, I completed the usual formalities of confirming my registration on their system and awaited the call. The consultant duly arrived and conducted me through to his consulting room where we sat down and commenced the appointment. I described to him the symptoms which I ...

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/may/30/nhs-england-mass-centralisation-simon-stevens NHS must end mass centralisation.     NHS chief executive Simon Stevens At last, perhaps the penny may have dropped. The new boss of NHS England Simon Stevens has said what many of us have been saying for years, that the NHS (and governments responsible for it) must end mass centralisation and instead expand its local services to treat people in their own communities.The re in statement of "cottage hospitals" is long over due. On the 25th May in fact, I commented in another context (Return to Victorian-style hospitals to fight superbugs, experts urge.)  "A good idea. Perhaps a return to the "cottage hospitals" is also called for. Larger is not automatically better as is often found in the huge complexes that pass for hospitals today." The Old Hospital (Burford)  We may yet see sanity and efficiency return to our NHS.