Tom Harris is quoting an anonymous CiF commenter explaining why she will be voting Labour at the next election. Unfortunately, he isn’t publishing comments, so I’ll just have to say my piece here1. The key paragraph is this one:

I’m 85 and been in and out of hospital frequently since 1992. I can say categorically that things are infinitely better now . Back in 1992 not just a long waiting list but when you got a date you had to ring up on the morning to see if there was still a bed. 2 times out of 3 there was not. Now medical procedures have improved and speeded up. When the consultant says “we’ll have another look in six months” you get an appointment in precisely six months. In the nineties a medical exam under anaesthetic meant three days in hospital now you go in at 8AM and sent home 4PM. Many internal examinations are now done by endoscopy and you only spend a couple of hours in hospital. I know because I served on a Health Service Committee that the long waiting lists were due to lack of funding.

Some people would be quick to pour scorn on the lady, or tell her she’s wrong. They miss the point, though. Mrs Bloggs isn’t wrong – how can she be? She’s speaking purely from experience. Her experience of the NHS has indeed improved over 16 years, and that’s a great thing. It may even be due in part to the policies of New Labour.

While these gains may have been made in the past, problems evolve in an evolutionary manner. Ask Blue Eyes: he knows. Whenever the NHS closes a door some bugger opens a window. Gains in patient administration have come at the price of hospital cleanliness and a weight of bureaucracy that Doctors struggle to work under; not to mention a lot of money.

In forming solutions to the problem of cleanliness, other areas of the service will undoubtedly suffer – for instance, (means-tested) patient contributions might be needed for expensive treatments for non-critical conditions such as obesity. And so the cycle continues. Compromises always must be made, and new problems always arise unexpectedly.

Unfortunately, when a government has been in power for a certain amount of time (third terms, normally), the people who’ve formed that government start patting themselves on the back for what they have achieved, rather than trying to think about how they can move forward again.

At that point, it’s time to move aside and let those with the momentum to carry the torch forward take over. I would have thought that, of all people, Tom Harris would get that.

  1. This has been updated to ‘he’s not publishing critical comments. I’m not sure if this post would count [↩]