From the High St: Message to corridors of power

September saw the release of an independent investigation of the National Health Service in England by Lord Darzi, who is an independent peer and NHS surgeon. He was asked by the new Labour government to review this key area, to identify failings but not to propose detailed solutions (on to those later). 

His findings present a stark picture of a service that he says is in ‘serious trouble’ with declining productivity, ‘ballooning’ waits and ‘awful’ emergency services that put patients at risk.

Of course, we know all about the challenges faced by ophthalmology and how those will be further impacted by an ageing population, and all the other factors that we know about in terms of poor infrastructure, more complex management needs, numbers of clinicians being trained, etc.