Health MOTs

Well, Patricia Hewitt is at it again. Not long after playing down the importance of a £1billion deficit for British hospitals, the NHS is going to spend large sums of money giving everyone in Britain a ‘MOT’. The whole logic behind this is to reduce expenditure for the NHS by catching illnesses earlier. They will be offered at up to five times in your life.

Anything that improves people’s health is to be welcomed, but I think the logic behind this is somewhat awry. If the NHS manages to detect health problems in people as a result of these ‘MOT’s, it will then be forced to treat them at great cost. Whereas, the alternative, is to not find the ailments and therefore let the people die of them, without cost to the NHS. On the one hand, a heart disease is detected and after much expensive surgery etc., they live a long and glorious life to 90. On the other hand, the heart disease is not detected and they drop dead suddenly at 45. The latter is obviously far cheaper for the NHS and has the secondary benefit of helping pension annuity rates as the average life expectancy drops.

Now, whilst the above is a very black and white case, plenty of grey exists. What if the condition isn’t immediately terminal when symptoms occur? In the long run it becomes a cost comparison between reactive and preventative medicine. However, with the way ambulance response times are going, presumably fewer people will survive the onset of symptoms. I really can’t see how all the additional work these ‘MOT’s will cause can possibly cost less than the savings made on reactive treatment.

The other aspect of this that really annoys is the condescending requirement to link a concept with something the average pleb can understand. Why call it an ‘MOT’? It really is insulting when they think people can only understand what it is by using a comparison to a car. Is everything going to be compared to a car? What next? Will Jeremy Clarkson start bed testing the latest supermodel as part of her ‘MOT’? Good taught handling and great acceleration into the straight. Good speed, but thirsty as hell, leading to a rapidly emptying tank? Get her on the rollers and test braking etc. before the all importance emissions tests.

Perhaps the government could combine the two concepts and use Jeremy in the advertising campaign that will undoubtedly accompany the launch. I can just see him eyeing up the patient and complaining about the styling before complementing the driving experience. Sort of ‘pig to look at, but goes like the clappers’.