Blair doesn’t know what he’s doing… and he admits it
Hold up! Before you read on, please read this...
This post was published more than 15 years ago
I keep old posts on the site because I often enjoy reading old content on other people's sites. It can be interesting to see how views have changed over time: for example, how my strident teenage views have, to put it mildly, mellowed.
I'm not a believer in brushing the past under the carpet. I've written some offensive rubbish on here in the past: deleting it and pretending it never happened doesn't change that. I hope that stumbling across something that's 15 years old won't offend anyone anew, because I hope that people can understand that what I thought and felt and wrote about then is probably very different to what I think and feel and write about now. It's a relic of an (albeit recent) bygone era.
So, given the age of this post, please bear in mind:
- My views may well have changed in the last 15 years. I have written some very silly things over the years, many of which I find utterly cringeworthy today.
- This post might use words or language in ways which I would now consider highly inappropriate, offensive, embarrassing, or all three.
- Factual information might be outdated.
- Links might be broken, and embedded material might not appear properly.
Okay. Consider yourself duly warned. Read on...
Blair has admitted that he doesn’t know the effect he’s GP waiting time targets have on patient care. He didn’t realise that it was impossible to make appointments in advance. He’s clearly not a dedicated fan of this site, then, because it’s a issue I identified months ago.
But, more importantly, how can we re-elect a leader that introduces silly targets, and then ignores – or, more acurately, doesn’t even make an effort to find out about – the probems these targets create?
And the particularly hilarious thing is that even after having the situation explained by members of the public, John Reid still doesn’t get it:
John Reid, the health secretary, acknowledged that there were problems but stressed that the target had produced much quicker access for many patients. A few years ago, many patients had to wait a week to 10 days to see a GP, he said, while on the latest figures, 97 per cent are seen within two days.
The reason 97 per cent are seen within two days is because you’re only allowed to make an appointment within two days. It isn’t an improvement. That’s the problem. Patient satisfaction has fallen.
This 549th post was filed under: Election 2005.
