Let's Raise a Half-Full Glass to the Zombie NHS: A Response to Recent Commentaries.

Martin Powell

doi:10.15171/ijhpm.2015.210

Abstract

Let's Raise a Half-Full Glass to the Zombie NHS: A Response to Recent Commentaries.

Highlights

Powell the charge of ‘trahison des clercs.’ Third, while Klein and I tend towards ‘cock up’
The original article was worth writing if only to allow Klein to remind us of his 1983 phrase ‘the longest death bed scene in British institutional history.’. He argues that drawing up a balance sheet is difficult because of the sheer complexity of the service, because there are wide variations in performance and because the notion of performance is itself contested and multidimensional. He states that the National Health Service (NHS) is once again in financial trouble is ‘beyond doubt,’ but sees a service creaking at the edges, but as yet far from terminal decline
Scott Greer[3] argues that the analytic problems raised might be disguising a larger issue of what exactly is the NHS? Like Klein, he agrees that the very multidimensionality of the NHS makes it hard to identify criteria and evaluative templates for its death

Summary

Introduction

Powell the charge of ‘trahison des clercs.’ Third, while Klein and I tend towards ‘cock up’ I will respond in terms of their level of agreement with me: to Rudolf Klein (largely right), Scott Greer (partly right), Ian Greener (right and wrong and right), and David Hunter (largely wrong). Scott Greer[3] argues that the analytic problems raised might be disguising a larger issue of what exactly is the NHS?

Results

Conclusion