General   (General discussion, talk about anything.)

I think that there has been a lot of variability.

I spent the second half of my career in the NHS. (I had done something completely different for the first half.)

When I started, of course, it was closer to the NHS's inception than to present date. I think the service was at its best in the early 1980's. The 1982 reorganisation, I believe was a double edged sword: delivering some short term improvement, but at the expense of severe long term damage. When the Area Health authorities were abolished, many of their employees sought roles with either district or regional authorities and brought with them politicisation hitherto not present at these levels.

By 1984, I had become a whistleblower. Did no good. The miscreants committed suicide. Nobody ever brought to account. (Something I have seen again in recent times) NHS now has Fraud and Corruption agency. It is still finding the same sort of stuff going on.

In my experience, the NHS is more corrupt than any other employer I ever had.

Found myself the victim of managers bent upon vengeance, but it was not I that they were harming, but the patients, who's interests they were supposed to represent!

So, it did not take long for another employer to persuade me to walk away from the moras, and take up employment with them.

This is not the place to go into great detail, but I will provide one example.

A children's hospital in which they were being sexually abused. Parents got nowhere with their complaints. Eventually, police set up hidden video surveillance. Eventually, arrested the Unit General Manager: the very person to whom the parents had been delivering their complaints.

He received a custodial sentence.

But:

Reported in Health Service Journal at the time: The management team said that his job was held open for him to return to on completion of said sentence!

I could hardly believe my own eyes!