Is our free health service about to end?

Ask medic friends about the future of the NHS, and almost all agree that the once brilliant method of ensuring everyone has access to free medical help is doomed. Before long, there won't be an NHS, or at least very little of it as we know it today.

The obvious problem, probably the biggest challenge, is blamed on humans getting old – it's all the fault of oldies. Of course, it's much more that age-old one of greed and envy among top executives demanding ever higher salaries. 

With the present government seemingly attempting to get over its Brexit mess with a look of generosity for the common man, it was interesting to see Madeline Grant, in The Times, this week spelling out the obvious, that simply throwing more money at the inefficient service won't make it better for patients.

'THE BIGGEST BOOST'

She was referring to Monday's budget announcement that the NHS is to get 'the biggest boost to public spending on the NHS since 2010' an additional £20.5 billion a year.

Not twenty-point-five million, note, but twenty-point-five billion.

Ms Grant reports that the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that colossal amount means that almost 40 per cent of public service spending is for healthcare.

How sobering for the administration at the top of the gigantic NHS tree.

Doubtlessly, so concerned about the cost to the public purse, they will take big pay cuts, to help us all. Of course, they will. Naturally.

The Telegraph in May last year offered some interesting figures about NHS fat cats. NHS England has 187 senior officials paid at least £100,000, the highest getting between £220,000 and £225,000.

The newspaper said the chief financial officer is paid between £205,000 and £210,000. The head of NHS England, Simon Stevens, gets between £190,000 to £195,000.

SOBER LIKELIHOOD

Meanwhile, in my corner of the world, the Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust pays its chief exec between £105,000 to £110,000, and the medical director between £180,000 to £185,000, reports the Surrey News news site.

Brexit seems certain to end the number of actual workers on hospital floors, the people who actually make the NHS work. Continues on the blogs for my ocean-travel adventure book, Sailing to Purgatory, at SailingToPurgatory.com