NHS - Care, or Tax burden?
Sue Hayter talks in her letter (EADT 26/11/09) of the need for equality in assessing care needs. This is fine in principle and the NHS Continuing Healthcare programme attempts to address the problems, but the reference to supporting people with acute needs is the nub of the problem in the NHS. The general emphasis on specialist acute care provision seems at the heart of the hospital closure programme. Acute care is the most expensive care, and we seem to be failing to give sufficient priority to prevention and detection with long waits still taking place for hip operations which demobilise people. The poor quality of our cancer detection and treatment compared to Europe has recently been highlighted, and the post code lottery regarding successful treatment exposed.