NHS - A Pale Shadow of What It Once Was

Russell Yorkshire

February 3, 2026

When the Waiting List “Falls” but the Lie Gets Bigger.

Isn’t it miraculous how NHS waiting lists are suddenly “coming down”… while patients are still waiting just as long — or longer? Almost like nothing’s been fixed at all. Almost like the problem’s just been hidden.

Because paying hospitals to “validate” waiting lists isn’t healthcare reform — it’s accounting theatre. Patients aren’t being treated. They’re being deleted. Reclassified. Returned to the GP. Quietly removed so the spreadsheet looks prettier. Champagne corks pop in Whitehall.

The patient stays ill.

The NHS hasn’t become more efficient. It’s become more politically useful. This is what happens when government stops caring about outcomes and starts governing by PowerPoint.

Can’t hit the target? Redefine it. Waiting list too long? Shorten it with admin and a press release.

And while lifelong taxpayers — people who’ve paid in for decades — sit deteriorating, anxious, and in pain, they’re told everything’s improving because a number went down.

Here’s the truth they don’t want said: A healthcare system funded by taxpayers should prioritise the people who fund it. Health tourism needs to stop. Not “managed”. Not “reviewed”. Stopped.

The NHS cannot function as the world’s all-inclusive walk-in clinic while British residents are shoved further down the queue in the service they’ve paid for their entire lives.

That’s not compassion. That’s negligence wrapped in virtue signalling.

Image via the BBC

Emergency care for anyone? Of course. Unlimited access for non-contributors while contributors rot on waiting lists? Insane.

And don’t insult the public by pretending this is “complex”. It isn’t. If someone is removed from a waiting list without receiving treatment, they are still waiting — just erased from the stats so ministers can lie without technically lying. That’s not reform. That’s deception.

Doctors want to treat patients. Nurses want to care. Managers want the dashboard green. Politicians want a headline.

Patients get turned into data manipulation. You don’t fix healthcare by cooking the books. You don’t restore trust by gaming the metrics. And you don’t honour a nation by gaslighting it into believing fewer people are suffering.

The NHS doesn’t need spin. It needs truth, limits, and priorities.

Ask why the NHS would go along with this: when institutions stop being neutral and start serving a party, professionalism dies — and politics matters more than patients.

© Russell Yorkshire 2026

Header image via CNN

The NHS turned its back on the people in 2020 and has kept it turned.

Yet the problems go back much further.

Access to general medical assistance is almost non-existent.

Specialist treatment is a pipe dream.

Dentistry has ceased to exist.

The NHS is a criminal organisation, run by criminals for the benefit of other criminals.

It serves no useful purpose.

It merely eats money.

Shut it down.

Kevan James

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