Please sir, can I have some more

Cicero is getting bored.

Every day he wakes to more bad news from the NHS.

You can’t get to see a GP. Accident and Emergency wards can’t cope with the demand and are in crisis. Social care is on its last legs resulting in bed blocking.

And all the time the answer is more money.

Like a junkie with a bad habit, the NHS is addicted to taxpayers’ money.

And in an election year the politicians are happy to indulge, keen to throw more and money of our money at the NHS, desperate to outbid each other at how much cash they want to shovel into the NHS rapacious jaws.

It is like the Cold War arms race. But with more money.

Does anyone seriously believe that the only way to treat an alcoholic is to drown them in more and more alcohol?

Of course not.

The conventional treatment for any addict is to treat the addiction not indulge it; to wean them off the drug of addiction; to get them to confront the problem.

It is time to apply this thinking to the NHS.

Otherwise the addiction to taxpayers’ cash will continue. The Black Hole that is the NHS will get bigger.

It used to be said that it was wrong to keep throwing money at the M25 to expand capacity. All that did was to attract more chariots to the M25 and very quickly we were back to square one.

This is what is happening with the NHS.

So there must be another way.

Even if it is an approach our politicos will be reluctant to take.

It is time to get brutal. Time to think different.

Cicero has the good fortune not to need the NHS but he would not give them another penny, they get enough as it is, until and unless they can show they can spend it wisely and are spending what they have wisely, effectively and efficiently. There is little evidence they are doing this.

And he knows from personal experience that loads of money kills innovation. Think about the space race and the story of the pen.

Take away the money and we will encourage our doctors, nurses and assorted NHS Apparatchiks to think differently.

Here is one example.

Cicero has a slight asthmatic wheeze.

He has prescriptions to help.

Every year the prescription has to be renewed involving a visit to the quack.

And every year it is renewed.

It is a needless hassle for Cicero. It wastes the quack’s time. Quacks who are hard pressed.

So why not change from an annual review to one every five years or unless condition changes.

Immediate gain in capacity.

Simple. Straightforward. Economical.

So get on with it.

And stop being like Oliver Twist and always asking for more.

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.