So, Theresa May has a grand new plan for the NHS which involves making health care more 'community-oriented' instead of hospital based. Back in the 1980's, we had lots of small community-based hospitals and I was lucky enough to give birth to my youngest son in our local hospital; he was one of the last children to be born there. I say lucky because back then you stayed in for 5 days after giving birth (10 if you had a caesarean) and the nurses looked after the babies at night so you got a well-needed night's sleep. The food was really good too; we had home-made scones for breakfast and good dinners in the evening. I was so well looked after; I didn't want to go home! Now, you're out in 24 hours and once the baby is born, you're basically on your own. As for the food, after my recent stay (on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the worst and 10 the best) I'd give it a 3 and that's being generous!
Then, Maggie Thatcher closed them all and centralised everything in the larger hospitals. The thing about this is that over here, they built 2 huge hospitals, one in Omagh and one in Enniskillen, at a cost of millions under PFI schemes which we're going to be paying for, for the next 20 years.
Now it's all change again! Maggie may not have been for turning, but it seems Theresa may!