The British National Health Service (NHS) is a mysterious organization. Employing more people than the old Soviet Red Army and the railways of India, it constantly struggles to do the job for which it was invented. Despite massive spending on all aspects of its performance, the NHS continues to deteriorate on most objective measures.

The reason, I believe, is that its current masters, the Labour party, like all parties of the left, does not understand human nature. Here’s a simple How-To guide for Gordon Brown and Health Secretary Andy Burnham. Perhaps I should include David Cameron in the list too — purely to make up the numbers, of course.

The Syntagma Primer on Basic Health
I recently chanced upon Stanley Holloway’s (pictured) superb version of that old Victorian monologue “My Word, You Do Look Queer!” — (old usage). It’s part recited and part sung, so the rhythms are important. Here’s the first verse:

I’ve been very poorly but now I feel prime,
I’ve been out today for the very first time.
I felt like a lad as I walked down the road,
Then I met Old Jones and he said, ‘Well I’m blowed!’
My word you do look queer!
My word you do look queer!
Oh, dear! You look dreadful: you’ve had a near shave,
You look like a man with one foot in the grave.’
I said, ‘Bosh! l’m better; it’s true I’ve been ill.’
He said, ‘I’m delighted you’re better, but still,
I wish you’d a thousand for me in your will.
My word, you do look queer!’

The meetings continue as he walks down the street, then into a pub, and is finally introduced to an undertaker, who asks for “something on account”. Not surprisingly, he’s feeling distinctly poorly by the end:

I crawled in the street and I murmured,’I'm done.’
Then up came Old Jenkins and shouted,’By gum!’
‘My word you do look well!
My word you do look well!
You’re looking fine and in the pink!’
I shouted, ‘Am I?… Come and have a drink!
You’ve put new life in me, I’m sounder than a bell.
By gad! There’s life in the old dog yet.
My word I do feel well!’

These comic verses carry a profound message: if we believe we’re ill, we will be. If we believe we’re well, we are. That’s nothing to do with wishful thinking or desiring an outcome, but real belief.

Later I came across an old clip of a Conservative Party conference in Bournemouth during the 1980s. The then Health Secretary was Norman Fowler. His message to conference went something like this:

“We will double the number of heart operations, double the number of eye ops, double transplants, double cancer treatments …” And so the litany went on.

I began to feel rather queasy myself. Am I coming down with something? My word, I do feel queer! Then it struck me: Fowler was the Minister of Disease, not Health. His measurement of success was the number of people succumbing to the knife. Any reduction would be interpreted as failure.

It’s a known fact that people who take out health insurance often get ill soon after. They are in reality making a bet on illness and disease rather than health.

Take Gordon Brown, as an example. He’s a man with a depressive personality, always thinking the worst of people, trusting no-one. He is partly disabled, having lost an eye, while the good one is deteriorating with age and over-use.

When he came into power as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he tripled spending on the National Health Service. Recklessly, unhealthy Brown gambled other people’s money on ill-health. Naturally, outcomes didn’t improve. The Health Service simply treated more and more sick people. Many came from overseas, their bills paid by the British taxpayer, who didn’t request the privilege. Hospitals became over-crowded and difficult to run, diseases ran riot in the wards.

It was all too predictable. Believe in ill-health and it will come your way. Even witch doctors know that. When a doctor tells a patient “You have three months to live”, a curse has been placed on the sick person. More often than not it will come true. If instead the doctor had said, “I have no doubt you’ll survive if you keep active and remain cheerful”, the outcome would be much better: “My word, I do feel well!”

When Brown took a gamble on ill-health, the national psyche factored in lots of it. As belief produces action, it was clear the NHS would not be able to cope even after its budget was trebled in a decade.

Now, what if the country made a collective bet on good health instead of illness? Fewer operations, rather than more, slicing up the budget not the bodies? In fact, halving the NHS budget over a Parliament.

Andrew Lansley, for it will be he, would be buying health not sickness, changing the public mood from gloomy outcomes — My word I do feel queer! — to that most welcome of realizations:

By gad! There’s life in the old dog yet.
My word I do feel well!

You can read all the verses of the monologue here.

John Evans

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