How would you change the NHS?
How would I change the NHS? Imagine, the money, the power, the ability to change the whole functioning of the NHS at a stroke. With my signature on a piece of paper, I could turn every GP's surgery into a poly-clinic. On a whim, I could decide to employ an army of cleaners who would scrub every ward every night. At my command, Jamie Oliver would cook up highly nutritious and cheap food for every patient, and an army of helpers would make sure that everyone could eat it.
So what would I change?
I wouldn't. I'm not a medical professional. I don't have a lifetime of experience of treating the sick. I don't have the background to run a hospital employing hundreds of people, let alone a whole arm of the public sector employing tens of thousands. I've never had to decide which vulnerable patient gets the last bed in an intensive care ward, knowing it might mean life-threatening problems for the other. I've no idea how much money or how many lives could be saved by investing a little more in alcoholism education and a little less in liver transplants. My experience of hospitals is going into them, being seen, and coming out.
Watching CSI does not make you an expert on forenics. Watching Casualty does not make you an expert on hospitals. And George Clooney is not a real doctor.
Yes, there may be need for change. Yes, there is a role for external scrutiny and input from inspectors, accountants, or whoever. And there's a role for political oversight of one sort or another - even if the whole industry were privatized, we'd want laws and guidelines. But that's not the same thing as continually pelting us with "(in)human interest" stories. Yes, you waited on a bed in A&E for four hours. Please, tell me the other challenges the hospital were facing at the time. Oh, wait, you won't know. Maybe there were lots of other things going on at the same time, maybe there weren't, but the plural of self-selecting anecdotes is not evidence, and the singular sure as hell isn't.
Can we please, please stop this whole Public Services 2.0 thing? Can we pay a little bit more attention to the experts, and a little bit less attention to spouting off from ill-informed, outraged members of the public?