In the BBC drama This Is Going to Hurt, based on Adam Kay’s memoirs, we see an NHS that is barely holding it together. Doctors and nurses are stretched just above breaking point, so eventually some break. The wiring for emergency alarms in the labour ward is just about functioning, so at some point it fails. There’s only one psychiatrist, so a patient goes home who really shouldn’t.
Quite apart from being extremely dangerous, these crises are expensive, too. Staff gaps are plugged by costly locum (or freelance) doctors. Mistakes made by exhausted staff can result in patients suing the hospital. Patching up the ward’s infrastructure after it breaks costs more than sorting it out in time. In short, giving the NHS just enough to keep it running above the waterline is a false economy – and only keeps it lurching from crisis to crisis.
