Warr Zone with Simon Warr

GENERAL practitioner Philip Lee, who is also the MP for Bracknell, stated last week that the soaring cost of “lifestyle illnesses” is going to bankrupt the NHS, as sure as eggs are eggs.

What he means by lifestyle illnesses are people eating too much, drinking excessive amounts of alcohol (welcome to UK 2012) and entering the tawdry world of recreational drugs.

In his opinion, these people, who choose their own irresponsible lifestyles, should pay towards their treatment . . . and I couldn’t agree more.

The NHS started with good intentions but the fact it’s free at the point of use has encouraged an increasing number of people to become reckless in the way they live their life, knowing the good old taxpayer will bail them out when they contract type 2 diabetes/their liver deteriorates (or they end up in the gutter on a Friday or Saturday night)/they need support to leave their disgusting world of drugs.

These people who abuse the system ensure that NHS staff are overworked/that medical drugs manufactured in this country are being sold abroad because we can’t afford to buy them ourselves/elderly and genuinely sick patients are being deprived of the care and attention they deserve (and for whom the system was set up in the first place) etc etc.

There has been a blind faith bestowed upon the NHS by successive Governments: an unwillingness to accept that the service is deteriorating before our very eyes – all of them too frightened to act decisively and sensibly for fear of appearing heartless.

The very structure of the NHS as it stands ensures we will never spend enough on health in this country, and consequently more and more genuine patients will continue to receive sub-standard care.

All those who follow an irresponsible lifestyle should pay for the drugs they require and, I believe, the whole drugs budget should be gradually moved from the state to the individual.

The NHS is there for the truly vulnerable, those who are genuinely ill through no fault of their own, but it is being clogged up by an ever-increasing number of selfish people who think they can follow whatever lifestyle they want, no matter how repugnant or how illegal, and receive support as and when they need it, and to hell with anyone else.

All of us taxpayers are paying more and more into the system and the standard of care is simultaneously deteriorating.

Why are we so arrogant to think that we here in the UK have got it perfectly correct and none of our European neighbours has grasped the logic of it all?

Well said, Dr Lee. At last somebody has had the courage to paint an accurate picture of the unsustainable situation. But don’t hold your breath that anything will be done because, as soon as anyone suggests any sort of private contribution to the running of the anachronistic and delapidated NHS, the “heartless lobby” work themselves up into an indignant frenzy. The longer we leave the status quo, the deeper our once-treasured NHS will sink, just like the Titanic.