WEMJ Volume 112 No. 2 - June 2013

Editorial June 2013

The newspaper headlines are unremittingly gloomy about the British National Health Service and there appears to be good reason for this. The ramifications of the Mid-Stafford crisis continue to reverberate throughout the system. The top man of the Health Service, Sir David Nicholson, is retiring early and a police enquiry into the Stafford affair is underway.

Other problems are reported daily in the press such as Death risk lottery of NHS surgery, Shortage of doctors ‘causing thousands of hospital deaths’ and GPs blamed for crisis.

In this climate it may seem odd to publish an article praising the healthcare system in the UK but that is what is on offer in this issue. Dr.s Xi Jin and Liang Wen  from The First Affiliated Hospital School of Medicine of Zhejiang University were over in the UK to observe our hospital system. Along with twenty-three other doctors they were sent here with the support of the Chinese Government and, in their case, the help of the Severn Deanery.

.....And what they saw they mostly liked. They found the medical education and training system to be excellent and the doctor-patient relationships exemplary. Their main criticism was reserved for the perceived lack of efficiency on dealing with non-emergency cases.

One referee of the article thought that it was praising the NHS too much but the editorial committee felt that it was the honest opinion of the visiting doctors and therefore valid.

As a person who is well-known to be a critic of the problems besetting the NHS the editor is pleased to be able to publish an article in support of our very important institution.

The NHS deals with over one million patients every 36 hours and employs more than 1.7 million people. It is our hope that this enormous undertaking will overcome the crises and move towards a better future.

Paul Goddard