Letter

Is the NHS getting better or worse?

BMJ 2004; 328 doi: 10.1136/bmj.328.7431.106-b (Published 8 January 2004)
Cite this as: BMJ 2004;328:106.3

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Better to be vaguely right than precisely wrong

  1. David Kernick (su1838@eclipse.co.uk), general practitioner
  1. St Thomas Health Centre, Exeter EX4 1HJ

    EDITOR—In his editorial Smith asks whether the NHS is getting better or worse.1 By falling into the reductionist trap of assuming that the healthcare system can be understood by dissecting it into its component parts, he succeeds in being precisely wrong rather than vaguely right.

    Underpinning his argument is a belief that the transfer processes that relate inputs to outputs …

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