If the NHS is the best health service in the world, this government didn't make it that way

摘要

After all the headlines over the past two years you would be forgiven for thinking that the NHS was a terrible service that failed patients left, right and centre. That is the message the government used to justify the biggest top-down reorganisation in the history of the NHS, AKA the Health and Social Care Act 2013. It is also the message that Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, would like you to believe in order to justify the cuts to staff pay, hospital closure legislation and the rapid privatisation of large swathes of our beloved health service (70% of contracts going to the private sector at the last count). That is why it was so galling when the Prime Minister told the House of Commons (PMQs 02/07/14) that according to a recent report the NHS under his government was the best in the world.