Back to the subject of the thread. This Bill isn’t coming into law without a fight!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8586492.stm

Please re-read my posts and you will see that I have dealt with each of your points in different posts and in response to various contributors, but, for the last time to summarize: NHS largest health employer bar none. UK ranked 18th in WHO table, with several countries with similar populations above it – two of them at 1st and 2nd in the table.

Secondly the pie-chart breaks down the clinical and support percentages very clearly.

And the big “alien” obviously gave birth to two offspring, as she was watching! Fantastic experience! Wish I’d been there…………..;)

I’ll go right back to my original post, which was to state that the NHS is the 4th largest single employer in the world, after the Chinese army, Indian railways and Walmart. QED – it is the largest health employer, by employee numbers, in the world. The employee numbers came from the Office of National Statistics and were published in a broadsheet daily some weeks ago.

An additional pie chart from the ONS.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/resources/graph1alternative_tcm119-24946.jpg

I am sure it is, but I think Bmused was exaggerating simply to drive home the point that our interaction with our children and other children is close to being judged paedophilic and it is for us to prove it otherwise.

You clearly know how the other nations’ health services are constituted but not how many are employed. Please clarify. And obviously anyone working for the NHS is counted as working for the NHS, because that is who employs them.

At the end of the day, as we probably might agree, statistics can be made to mean whatever we want them to mean. In the WHO rankings we fall well short of those countries I have mentioned.

So, it comes down to one’s personal experience and perception. Having had reasonable experience of the health systems of Denmark, Germany, France and the UK, I certainly would place the UK at the bottom of my list. And no one has yet convinced me that considerable savings cannot be made in manpower.

I must, however, make it quite clear that I am not denigrating the job that the majority do extremely well, and often against insuperable odds. That was shown so clearly in Gerry Robionson’e excellent programme a year or so ago.

Steve – I think this is the best, so far…….:D

For those of us who don’t know what you’re talking about, but are intrigued, can you supply a link?