woofgang - // The sooner we get to the stage where the nhs is a business and run it like a business the quicker we will get it under control and functioning properly. //
That is actually the problem right there.
The NHS is not a business, it is a service. The problem exists because governments want to run it as though it is a business, and that is not possible.
If you have a business, you sell a product, you compete, you budget, you streamline, you focus on profit, you employ managers and give them bonuses to save money, and they correctly engage in the necessary tunnel vision to follow the money at all costs, literally.
If you are a service, you provide your service correctly, and you are funded approrpaitely in order to provide that service properly. You staff it with people who know what they are doing, and you manage it with people who know what the staff are doing, because they used to do what the staff did.
Those two systems work perfectly will - a business, and a service.
The problem starts if you try and run a service as though it is a business - because you can't, and that is why the NHS does, and will continue to fail.