The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has landed on an arresting image to illustrate the waiting-list crisis in its field. If all 760,000 women waiting for NHS gynaecological appointments were to stand in a line, the queue would go from London to Exeter. It’s great for visualisation, but it also rams home what a criminal waste of human energy this represents – the awful pressing interminability. I couldn’t face the queue for Kew Gardens now, let alone if I were in constant pain.
Given this, plus a crisis in maternity care – nearly half of all services last year were marked as inadequate or in need of improvement – you could make a solid case that it is women who suffer most when the health service is underfunded. But I have to mention the guy in my local car-hire place. I rent a car only to go to one place (Ramsgate, thank you for asking) and I go only in alternate school holidays, so a bit less than once a quarter. Every time I have been this year, he has been back on the waiting list for an operation that got cancelled at the last minute. The system is not working for anyone.
