Editorials
The NHS through American eyes
It has an enviable goal and constancy of purpose: build on it
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Criticism from without, demoralisation within, and ubiquitous scepticism besiege the National Health Service. The NHS Plan, released in the summer,1 is the latest in a series of blueprints intended to redefine the resources, programmes, and operating principles of the NHS, but it too has met its share of cynics. We are two Americans, privileged to have an inside view of the NHS and its proposed reforms, and we share an optimism about the NHS that is hard to find in the UK nowadays.
Not that we don't see the trouble. The performance problems of the NHS
are no secret. Some reflect random episodes of malfeasance, such as the
murderous Harold Shipman, but more chronic problems afflict the NHS as
a whole and, in aggregate, cause far more suffering and waste. They
include long waiting lists, postal code variation in practice, and poor
outcomes in cancer care, and they caused the
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