The NHS is seen as the solution to all the UK's problems, when it ought to be a cog in a larger machine of social care. In certain areas, particularly geriatrics and mental health, the NHS is obliged to use full in-patient beds where residential care would be more appropriate and less expensive. This is because social care is supposed to be funded by local councils, whose budgets have been decimated, while the NHS, as a flagship public service, is largely protected.

The main scourge of the NHS over the last 20 years has been the privatisation of ancillary services, such as portering, catering, and cleaning, which has resulted in more expensive contracts, as well as legions of workers without viable wages or pensions. This places further strain on council housing benefits, and benefits for pensioners. In addition the inferior service provided by these private subsidiaries creates a false economy, as nurses and doctors are wasting valuable time organising medical records, cleaning kitchens and wheeling patients from wards to theatres, when the private company fails to provide the necessary staffing to fulfill its role.

The worrying part for me is that not only is the Conservative plan for the NHS not viable, but the Labour plan is not viable either. Neither have any plans to scale back privatisation, nor do they have any concrete plans for more student places for nursing and medical degrees. The NHS currently fills the gaps in its staffing shortages by recruiting doctors and nurses from third world countries, who badly need qualified clinical staff themselves, while haemorrhaging staff from all departments due to poor pay and working conditions.

A National Health Service can only operate successfully if it is properly supported by other public services and not undermined by private brinkmanship. I am highly doubtful that such a support network would ever be achieved in the US.