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Wednesday 27 April 2022

Envy of the World



John Ashmore has an interesting piece in CAPX on NHS inadequacies when compared to other developed countries. Worth reading, but it does make a chap wonder yet again why people in the UK clapped the NHS during the pandemic debacle. 

Does anyone still seriously believe the NHS is the ‘envy of the world’?

Over the last few years the phrase ‘envy of the world’ has gone from an annoying cliche about the NHS to an epithet most often employed ironically by its detractors.

Today’s report from the thinktank Civitas, authored by former CPS director Tim Knox, makes for a difficult read for anyone who still honestly thinks ours is the greatest health system the world has ever seen.

Knox’s report is all the more striking for how little editorialising is involved. Rather, he has simply taken OECD health data across various criteria and seen how well the NHS does compared to similar countries’ health systems.

The answer is, unfortunately, not very well at all.

2 comments:

dearieme said...

My own measure of the dishonesty of the NHS-worshippers is that the only other system they mention is the American exercise in crony capitalism and cartels.

A K Haart said...

dearieme - yes, it's dishonestly held up as the alternative even though we'd never go down that road and nobody is suggesting it.