What I'm reading now: "Learning from failure in the NHS?"

Just trying to prepare myself for the inevitable (PDF).

The number of inquiries into failures of care in the NHS has increased markedly in recent years. The early inquiries date back to the late 1960s and the consistent patterns of failure, which have been revealed over more than 3 decades, are striking. They raise major challenges for public policy and for the protection of individuals in public care.

This paper asks about the purposes of inquiries; it looks at the different types of inquiry which have been established and at the methods and processes used. It also explores the results of inquiries and the changes in policy which have arisen from their recommendations. Some of these inquiries have examined high profile cases, which attracted great publicity, while others have escaped the glare of national attention.

Nevertheless, all of them are important for what they tell us about the quality of care provided to individuals in the NHS.

This paper argues that it is vital to examine the ways in which we conduct inquiries. They consume vast resources (particularly financial and human) and it is important that they satisfy their purpose in the most appropriate way. It concludes that there is more we can learn from failures of care, in the past, in order to improve the health service of the future.

Yes, you've got it: this paper reviews decades of inquiries into the disastrous failures of the U.K.'s ruinous National Health Service.

This is a preview of your future. This is the system Democrats chose to emulate when they shredded our Constitution.