Accidents Happen

It’s not a nice thought, but imagine in the future you’re in a serious car crash. Your life depends on getting to the nearest A&E in the shortest possible time. Under the new plans, the Government wants to take all hospitals out of the NHS and make them compete with each other and with private hospitals, in the same way that Woolworths used to compete with Wilkinsons. The trouble is when Woolworths went bust you could live without it; if your local hospital has closed, you might not be able to.

So you’re in the ambulance, but because your local hospital is a ‘foundation trust’ and no longer part of the proper NHS, it has been cutting costs to try to compete with a new private hospital that has opened up. A&E is very expensive to run – the private hospital certainly can’t do it, and your local hospital has had to close its casualty department to avoid losing out. The nearest A&E is now twice as far away, and the minutes are ticking by.