Let Tescos run the NHS.

Their stores are all the same the length and breadth of the country.
Waiting times are minimal.
The stores are clean.
Parking is free.
A tin of Beans is the same price for rich or poor.
Their toilets are clean and well stocked with handcleanser.
Their canteens are cheap and the food is good.
Good securiy ensures no fighting on a Saturday night and drunks are not welcome.
The managers are well trained and efficient.
Customer service is pro-active.
Their customer wheelchairs are well serviced.
And they give clubpoints

One of the ways I've found to amuse myself in my declining years is by baiting the enthusiastic young Tory MP for the Forest of Dean. He is a simple soul and very keen on the reduction of meddling by Whitehall bureaucrats and suchlike.

But now he's horrified (allegedly) to discover that his constituents who get their health services in Wales get a different set of services to those who get them in England.

So, I'm led to ask, does he wants a highly centralised, not to say Stalinist, NHS? No satisfactory reply so far...

If we had an English government looking after English interests we might be able to get free hospital parking, free prescriptions and the same treatments for alzheimers and cancer that they do in Scotland. As it is nobody represents England's interests because we are the only nation in Europe with no direct political representation. The Barnett Formula pillages billions from the English taxpayer in the form of the celtgeld which the devolved administrations then lavish on their ungrateful subjects. The British MPs elected in England won't speak up for England because that's not good for Britain whilst the celts get to elect their own set of politicians who are interested only in what is best for them and stuff England.

The only way to stop apartheid in England is to create an English Parliament. The British nationalist Liebour government gave the celts a referendum, why should we be denied one?

Postcode lotteries are the natural consequence of different healthcare needs in different parts of the country. They will always exist and I ignore every headline that mentions them.

Hope there's no rationing of Sagres and Vinho Verde.....

The reason people have absurd expectations is that government spending has increase over 80% under Labour ( 55% adjusted) ocvverall. In health proportionately more. About £269 billion pa ( part of the trillion or so increase). For that money we get.. ok
My wife waited two years for a hip operation, but they did a good job. Our care for the twins was ok when they finally got their dates right but it was very far from perfect and at times frighteningly disorganised.
This remember is pretty much the only conspicuous thing we get for our taxes
Thing is Bob, it was 'ok' and no better in 1997. Where did the £270 billion go ? This, remember is during a period when every other walk of life is delivering the same a better products with 20% of the people.
It is not true to say that the post code lottery is meaningless . What it means is that even with the prodigious expense of management ( which I do not call a bad thing per se) there is a still a woeful allocation of resources and quite clearly a misues of excess capacity. Freedom to make clinical decisions is one thing this is evidence of a floundering system and they look because they know what they will find
The only cure for this is to return the NHS to be a basic provider from which we do not expect high standards and have top up payments and a customer basis . It has to happen in some sense answers for the 1940s simply do not fit the next Millenium.