In a recent letter in the Telegraph (22.12.22) a retired former Cardiac Surgeon explained how, during his career, the NHS became increasing inefficient. He said that in the 90s he was doing 350 major cases a year and by the time he retired it was down to 120.

He said there were many reasons for this, a New Contract was introduced for Consultants cutting their sessions by 30% while increasing pay by 20% and punitive changes to NHS Pensions, meaning that he would be losing money by continuing to work.

With the introduction of the European Working time Directive the number of Trainee Heart Surgeons reduced despite their wish to keep working, as a result, many Trusts began recruiting from abroad to fill vacant posts.

Very time-consuming revalidation was introduced and has become a massive industry, with no proven benefit. In addition, complicated, expensive, and time-consuming IT was also introduced. The result being reduced doctor patient interactions and reduced procedures.

I’ve had other Surgeons complain to me that they are only allowed to do 3 sessions in Theatre a week, when they could have done a lot more.

One was doing so well that he had no waiting list! A Manager told him ‘he was doing too well’ and instructed him to ‘take a day off, go home and dig his garden’.

In the 90s I sat down with Consultants who used to read all the GP referral letters. They would make a note of what was appropriate and hand to Secretaries who would act. All of this has been taken away and this administration is now undertaken by costly Managers.

Policy changes and decisions announced from Whitehall are hard to fathom they are ill thought-out ideas from a Minister with no health background, interpreted by rafts of Civil Servants who try to merge these initiatives with other laws like the Equality Act and EU regulations.

Is there an underlying agenda to ruin the NHS? Creating Inefficiency by increasing spending while at the same time causing huge patient dissatisfaction?

Every week I see unhappy patients who feel let down by the system. Magnify that by 36,000 GPs and you can see the scale of the problem. Patient satisfaction must be improved, and we must give a drive to doctors to do better. I would like to see each patient meeting the actual Surgeon or Clinician who will be doing their procedure and afterwards each patient to fill in a Satisfaction Survey and all this data analysed.

It would be effective in highlighting under-performing Doctors, then remedial action could be taken.

At the moment, NHS Managers carry on with this folly of wasting huge sums on Diversity, Mindfulness and Audit. Money that could be better spent on improving nurses’ wages.

Dr. Steven Bick

UK independence Party – Spokesman for Health