Jeremy Hunt (I have a huge desire to call him something else) has been on The Rest is Politics. I liked listening to him for the first part of his interview, but had to stop when he talked about the NHS. Specifically productivity. Rory Stewart has mentioned NHS productivity before, but they forget, or ignore an important issue. NHS waiting lists. When I stopped listening to it, Hunt was rambling on about performance targets, but they were out in place because when Labour were in power after electing Tony Blair, it was used as a political football by the Conservatives and their supporters in the media.
When it comes to targets, while they are annoying, many benefit patient care, and this has been seen in primary care. A target on ambulance waiting times is important for those who need an ambulance, waiting times being higher under the time that Jeremy Hunt was. There are numerous other areas where performance faltered under the Conservatives and many put that down to a lack of decent funding. This chart was shown to my then MP, Will Quince, when he defended how the Conservatives funded the NHS. He appeared to be surprised when the graph was shown and while other versions of it existed before then, this is my favourite.
I am to listen to the rest of the interview with Jeremy Hunt, but I am going to have to ensure I am in a place where I can swear and rant when I do so. My children have memories of me shouting at the radio when he was on it, and other than football, this would be the few times that they would hear me swear. I suspect no one will get his name wrong on it.
Later, I will edit this to include the video of his interview.