I think this is a 100% accurate assessment of the state of the NHS, and our responsibility to cherish it, help ourselves where we can, and mend social care
My own view, for what it’s worth, is that the NHS is broken in places. It does extraordinary work and offers an extraordinary service to many very sick people, a good enough service to many more and a frankly not good enough service for maybe 10%. The trouble is, when it fails, it can fail catastrophically and then be covered up for many years, which leads to endless public inquiries whose recommendations are never implemented, and all we end up with is a massive regulation and legal bill that makes a fortune for the regulators and the litigators, but doesn’t actually improve the service or stop the same mistakes happening again. We need mandatory safe staffing and skill mix levels, starting in the most critical specialties such as maternity, intensive care, emergency care and neonatal care. And we also need the equipment and facilities to allow people to receive first class care in an emergency department, rather than a corridor. And we also need a big investment in community services and public health to stop people getting sick in the first place. And let’s give social care the attention it deserves. So instead of obsessing about how broken NHS is, we need to pull together, help fix it and take as much responsibility as we reasonably can for staying well.