The Old vs The New – NHS Example

From a Bloated, Inefficient System to World-Class Healthcare

This page describes, as an example, how upgrading to a system of Unified Democracy would gradually and exponentially make our healthcare more strategically planned and much more cost-effective. Streamlining and integrating processes and applying improved funding models to deliver better outcomes with shorter wating times.

How Healthcare Policy Works – Current System

Healthcare policy is determined by the elected Prime Minister and his appointed Minister for Health. Both unlikely to have significantly more healthcare experience than the average professional citizen – any advice they receive purely up to them. Their policies are then driven top-down – with parliamentary debate afterwards.

After 5 years, a different Party may be elected – with different healthcare policies. So the whole cycle repeats in a hotch-potch of initiatives that, apart from some patient informational and prescription improvements, have achieved little, if any, overall efficiency gains at a taxpayer cost of many tens of millions of pounds. Average UK waiting times abysmal in comparison to EU established norms.

That’s the point we’re now at. The NHS, although with high-skilled doctors and nurses, a bloated, inefficient, poorly-integrated system of administration.  With over 2 million employees – more than any other organisation in the entire world- other than the American Department of Defence and the Chinese Army.

Yet, where getting access to healthcare is becoming an increasingly difficult and stressful experience – those that can afford it increasingly resorting to the increasingly expensive private sector – even for their children.  A system rated an abysmal 15h in Europe – yet costing 1.4% of GDP more than the top-rated Dutch one – with better average outcomes and wait times usually less than a quarter of ours.

How Healthcare Policy Works – Unified Democracy.

Policy now becomes established, not by the Cabinet, but by a devolved team called The Healthcare Sector Management Group. This SMG (as for all other sectors), runs strategically-continuously across administrators and consists of an equal number of elected Politicians- and Healthcare Sector Representatives (real world experts).

The elected Cabinet doesn’t drive healthcare policy top-down, but establishes the goals for its improvement in accordance with the proposals people have voted for – then delegates policy formation to the Healthcare SMG. That team then debates how healthcare can be best improved on a basis of ongoing strategic continuity – no longer chopping and changing direction.

Our NHS thus ceases to be a political football exploited by our politicians to attract short-term votes by making promises it lacks the informed capability to deliver.  Its service efficiency now coming under the ongoing control of a publicly-accountable expertly-informed group. A group with the informed and strategic capability to gradually increase its performance towards world-class standards.