NHS treats patients as an inconvenience, admits boss

Patients are an "inconvenience" to the NHS, which has "built mechanisms to keep them away," said the new boss of the health service.

- JANE DALTON

Sir Jim Mackey, who was made chief executive of the NHS on 1 April, spoke of the 8am daily phone scramble for a GP appointment as one example of the difficulties patients face in seeking help.

"We've made it really hard, and we've probably all been on the end of it," he told The Telegraph. "You've got a relative in hospital, so you're ringing a number on a ward that no one ever answers. The ward clerk only works nine to five, or they're busy doing other stuff; the GP practice scramble every morning. It feels like we've built mechanisms to keep the public away because it's an inconvenience."

And he warned that failing to listen to public frustrations could mean the end of a national health service.

Failings in maternity services, he said, were cultural and "thinking we know best when mothers know best, listening to them and families and building the service around them."

He said: "The big worry is, if we don't grab that, and we don't deal with it with pace, we'll lose the population. If we lose the population, we've lost the NHS. For me, it's straightforward. The two things are completely dependent on each other."