The feather bed of the State protects and enshrines ineptitude and incompetence in the NHS
Like anyone else in the private sector, I had to discover for myself where my my own skills lie. The feather bed of the State protects and enshrines ineptitude and incompetence.
As an NHS GP I created a large group practice. There was no great skill in that. Patients came from the patient tree. Our income was guaranteed.
However, my partners and I would have earned a lot more if we had spent less on clinical and administrative services to our patients. We were financially penalised by the State for trying to do good quality work with good quality staff in good quality premises.
NHS vs the private sector: Does competition increases the quality of care
In the fully private sector, I had to compete with other doctors. My patients had to pay the full cost of all prescriptions on top of my consultation fee. I would have gone to the wall if I did not provide a better service than they could get for free in the NHS.
In my fully private rehab, patients would sometimes say that they had 'an NHS bed' when I had given them a free place. They had an ingrained sense of entitlement. Personal gratitude was an alien concept for many of them. In a one-way arrangement, they demanded my private services by right.
By contrast, many patients who paid the full fee often expressed great appreciation for what they had received and for the new opportunities they had been given to turn their lives around.
More from Dr Robert Lefever for the Daily Mail...
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- Cannabis is not an innocent drug. Teenage addicts risk significant brain damage 28/08/12
- Filming and shaming A&E drunks isn't the solution to the toxic phenomenon of binge-drinking in the UK 26/08/12
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- England's green and pleasant land is more lovely than ever 19/08/12
- The Olympics gave people the 'feel good factor,' without going to doctors, dealers or publicans 16/08/12
- VIEW FULL ARCHIVE
When I was totally dependent upon income earned from patients, and had no guaranteed salary whatever, I would frequently be abused for not working for the State. The demand was that my organisation should have provided free care for all patients in need. How could I do that when I do not have the power to levy taxes?
In a statist society, that attitude is very common, even in people who expect to be paid, privately or by the State, for every one of their own professional actions.
In twenty three years, my wife and I took no personal income from our rehab, although our expenses were covered. That was our personal choice. Eventually it bankrupted us or, rather, I myself bankrupted us by not supervising the financial aspects of the business. This is the reality of the private sector - and so it should be.
Nowadays I take no significant risk because I rent my one consulting room and I employ no staff. I no longer provide care for large numbers of people. In my specialist counselling work, I focus my attention on building on my previous experience and generating new ideas. I am constantly looking for new approaches.
Recently, along with six thousand other people, the vast majority of whom run their own businesses, I attended a four day intensive therapeutic and educational programme run by Anthony Robbins, the expert in personal change.
I did not warm to him initially but I came progressively to appreciate his skill. Also I respect his evident compassion and commitment, although I am put off by his rank commercialism and I don't agree with his ideas on vegetarianism or his approach to physical fitness.
Mass hysteria? Thousands attended one of Anthony Robbins conferences
Even so, I totally support his rejection of the use of mood-altering drugs, recreational or prescribed. He tries his way of helping people to do without them. So do I.
Anthony Robbins started his personal motivation ideas in the USA, disagrees with mood altering drugs of any kind
That much, if little else, we have in common. For that, I respect him, even though I am wary of his techniques that, to my mind, border on indoctrination. I prefer to make my decisions in quiet on my own, rather than in 'peak' state in the company of thousands of other people. I believe my gentle reflections have more chance of my long-term adherence.
Mass hysteria doesn't do it for me. My energy and enthusiasm are independent of other people's encouragement or exhortation. They go with me.
When six thousand people shouted in unison 'I am a leader', I thought of the multitudinous throng responding to Monty Python's Brian by saying 'Yes! We're all individuals' - except the one who said 'I'm not'.
By contrast with my professional respect for Anthony Robbins, despite my reservations, I do not respect clinicians who are so indoctrinated and hide-bound by standard therapeutic approaches that they do not observe that they are creating zombies out of their patients.
They may have many professional qualifications, and may even have prestigious appointments and even NHS merit awards, but no apparent or actual fundamental commitment to caring for patients.
Rather than dismiss Anthony Robbins, as many do (I was present at a psychology conference in Anaheim, California when an attempt was made to throw him out), these distinguished pundits could learn at least one personal quality from him. He may be an actor but his is a quality act and his heart is in the right place. On that basis alone, he merits the massive influence that he has.
