That’s not to say it’s excusable, just that the appalling neglect of 38 patients at the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch is the logical result of the NHS’s untenable management structure.

Imagine if everything at Tesco’s was free but rationed, and subject to delivery delays of several months. Then throw in the fact that there are no other free alternatives. You would have a nightmare on your hands – huge queues, attracted by the free goods, then further stretched by the long delays.

Imagine how the staff would then behave – harrassed by the limitless demand of customers, but also in a tyrannical position of monopoly power, because there is no alternative provider. They can be as rude as they like, knowing that the customer has nowhere else to go; knowing that, without their services – food in the Tesco’s case, life-saving healthcare in the case of NHS – you will die.

On top of all this, imagine that the government ran Tesco’s, with absolutely no previous skill or experience in running supermarkets; and no accountability when it all falls to pieces, apart from the possibility of losing their jobs every five years at an election. And there you have the perfect recipe for chaos, accompanied by a complete, and inevitable, lack of care.

 Source:  The Telegraph UK, by Harry Mount