Dear Editor
This article and others in this edition summarise the problems confronting the NHS and general practice in particular.
The changes that have been imposed on the NHS by successive governments have relegated effective patient care to the back burner.
The more rigidly prescriptive the dominant influences become in any system, the more failure is ensured.
I retired early for a number of reasons but I wouldn’t describe myself as burnt out or physically or psychologically injured by work. Instead I became increasingly aware that the job that I had trained to do, joined to do and enjoyed doing was being erased and that, consequently, both patients and professionals were being driven apart and damaged. It was no longer possible to work safely and effectively for the patients.
Healthcare is a complex multidisciplinary task which evolves almost by the hour – but is the evolution for patient benefit or doctrinaire political gain?
One of the most pressing needs is for healthcare to become doable again. This requires a radical unlacing of the asphyxiating corset of regulation and guideline driven care. Patient and doctor/nurse need to be free to create each unique solution that is required. Highly trained and experienced professionals need the freedom to act for patients – this is not the same as giving licence to shambolic therapeutic caprice.
Steve Ford
Re: Helen Salisbury: The urgent and the important