You might expect Ward B47 to be a depressing place.
The majority of patients are aged over 80 and the expectation is that 30 per cent will have passed away after three months.
All have mental health issues such as dementia, Alzheimer’s or confusion.
There’s a new service available in my area of London. It’s for a private GP practice which will allow you to “see your doctor when you want”, “not have to wait in a busy waiting room”, and “have longer appointments”.
This is not Mayfair, but a socially mixed area with no precedent for private medicine, so such a development is extremely revealing. While the government is hell bent on “modernising” the NHS, some doctors obviously think what patients really want, even if they have to pay for it, is something much simpler: a traditional doctor-patient relationship.
Full article: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2000/apr/11/futureofthenhs.comment