//...or have sheduled urgent cancer treatment.//
There are NHS trusts now - some in London and the South East - where surgery of "level 2" urgency has been cancelled for the foreseeable future. Level 2 surgery is that which is deemed necessary within 28 days. If that isn't urgent I don't know what is.
As for "bean counters" I do not use it as a derogatory term for the individuals concerned. I use it to describe some of the functions which thousands of NHS staff undertake which contribute little or nothing towards healing the sick. Here's an example of a current vacancy. It is for a "Quality Strategy Manager", salary £45,753 to £51,668:
"The post holder will be responsible for the following functions, as appropriate to their role within the Directorate (these may be subject to change over time):
Support the organisation’s Statutory Duties for quality by ensuring a clear narrative for quality and strong governance arrangements both nationally and locally.
Lead on quality policy, including national policy for quality governance and surveillance.
Lead Secretariat and governance arrangements for the National Quality Board (NQB)and/or Executive Quality Group (EQG). This will include leading on the processes for national meetings and associated working groups. Key Tasks involve: liaising with senior stakeholders; commissioning, coordinating and writing board papers; taking detailed meeting minutes, producing and leading a chair’s brief; agreeing the agenda; keeping an up to date risk register and action log, maintaining good working relationships with a wide variety of staff both senior and junior; organising meetings and related logistics."
It continues for another page and a half. It's basically a secretarial post to a couple of obscure sounding committees. There are dozens of them, all with similarly sounding job titles and job descriptions. That's what I mean by "bean counters". Good luck to anybody who can screw £50k from the NHS for this nonsense. Personally I'd prefer them to recruit a couple of nurses or porters.
Individual front line NHS workers work their socks off in poor, understaffed conditions. But the organisation itself is unfit for purpose. The headcount for jobs like the one above proliferates whilst the bedcount for patients decreases accordingly to pay for the bureaucracy. It doesn't need reform. It needs complete reconstruction.