naomi - // The NHS should be run as a business by people who understand business. //
To my mind, that is what encapsulates the issues which are dragging the NHS down.
The NHS is not a business, it's a service, and the two run on very different systems for different reasons.
In a business, everything must be cost effective, it must justify its position and maintain its contribution towards overall profit margins, or it has to be dumped.
In a service - everything that is needed should be provided, the ends result of care and comfort and ideally cure justifies any and all costs involved in the provision of the service in all its fields.
These two models are absolutely diametrically opposed.
One exists to make money, and works on the basis of the bottom line being profit.
The other exists to make safety comfort and cure and works on the basis that the bottom line is preserving and extending life.
You cannot run a service as a business, and the current state of the NHS shows exactly what happens when you try - suits cut and cut and pick up bonuses for it, and doctors and nurses struggle with inadequately resourced wards and equipment.
If you want the NHS to make a financial profit, get a business manager to run it, if you want it to save lives, get a doctor or nurse to run it.
You can't have both, and trying, as we have and are, means you end up with neither - the veritable worst of both worlds.