It’s not my most favourite organization in the world but I wish the NHS Happy 75th birthday nonetheless. The End Of Terror war has lasted for over a third of the NHS’ entire history (since 02.04.1997). I have very rarely, on occasion, met someone resembling a human being within the org’s employment structure. The National Health Service is, after the People’s Liberation Army of China (PLA) and the Indian Railways, the largest single employer in the world. Of course, the big birthday present for the NHS today is that my new mate, Aneurin Bevan Chief Executive, Nicola Prygodzicz, is chasing up the mental health peer mentor job role that I am overdue to be starting, so it could be a very extra special birthday indeed for the rusty old corp; and who knows? Maybe for the 100th birthday I’ll be deep on the inside, as a worker, and perhaps DJing at the big birthday party, if it hasn’t all been engulfed in a big black hole by then. Aneurin Bevan, the founder, had an idea of ‘cradle-to-grave’ care but I think that he did at least mean that you could get away for a bit from this architecture and that you’re not supposed to spend every waking hour as a patient within the NHS system with it being enforced in such a totalitarian way as my experience suggests. I don’t know what his thoughts would have been on End Of Terror?
