Sqad - I think I have failed to make my point clearly.
I am drawing attention to the fundamental difference between a business - British Gas, and a service - the NHS.
I am fully aware that the NHS has to be run efficiently, and to have budgets and to stick to them, and in that sense, bsuiness practises are appropriate.
My argument with the Tory philosophy, is their application of 'market forces' to the Health Service - and it is a service - and such activity is utterly inappropriate and pointless.
If I want to compare the price of a tin of beans between Sainsbury's and Tesco, I can make my choice for the same item at a different price, and the supermarkets' competition for my custom relies on market forces, the ability of one business to provide a standard product at an attractive price. In that sense, the notion of competition benefits me, it encourages one business to out-bid the other in terms of cost and provision.
You cannot apply that concept to the notion of a hospital proceedure.
How am I suposed to have any inkling of which hispital is going to give me the better treatment (the cost issue is utterly irrelavent to me, I am ill, I want treatment a.s.a.p.).
So the idea that doctors and clinicians should 'compete' for 'business' in a health service seems to me to be a world away from the concept of health care - aside from the fact that the poor patient has no idea how to make an informed decision, assuming for one moment that they would ever feel the need or the dsesire to 'shop around'.
As I have said, the NHS is not in the business of competing, it should be focusing on providing a uniformly excellent service for everyone, which is the whole ethos of the NHS - a socialist principle, and should not be hijacked by the idea that competition and market forces are always the best way - a tory principle.
I trust this clears up any misunderstanding.