Liverpool Care Pathway – By Fault, Or By Default And Design?

Is this 'our' NHS that was celebrated at the Olympics opening ceremony?

This is from The Mail - 

Last night's spectacular $42million, the brainchild of Oscar-winning British director Danny Boyle, included a segment where dozens of skipping nurses and children in 

Flipping out: A child in hospital attire flips on a giant bed while nurses
 look on; some conservatives have condemned the NHS tribute as 'leftist'

pyjamas leaping acrobatically on massive hospital beds, with a large 'NHS' displayed.

It was a celebration of Britain's national health service, which has provided free taxpayer-funded health care to everyone in the country since its foundation after the Second World War.

The Opening Ceremony was directed by Danny Boyle.

Before the ceremony, the Slumdog Millionaire director defended his decision to feature the NHS prominently in the show. He told reporters that he chose to feature it because ‘everyone is aware of how important the NHS is to everybody in this country.’

He continued: ‘One of the core values of our society is that it doesn’t matter who you are, you will get treated the same in terms of health care.’

Certainly, the NHS is being deliberate and precise in its delivery of universal care in regard to the LCP…

The Commentator executive editor Raheem Kassam was one of many who took to social media to voice their opinions, and tweeted: 'Anyone else realise it wasn't the NHS who tended well to the kids in the Opening Ceremony, it was private nanny, Mary Poppins!'

Another Twitter user wrote: It took seven years for Harry Potter to kill Voldemort, and last night, it took 30 seconds for Marry Poppins. Good one, Harry.’

Lost on some: Dancers dressed as nurses in the NHS and Great Ormond Street
Hospital tribute scene, which meant little to much of the international audience

The Great Ormond Street Hospital, featured in Danny Boyles extravaganza, is an NHS Foundation Trust. The hospital relies heavily on the charitable donations of the great British public. Perhaps, that was why it was private nanny, Mary Poppins, who tended to the kids in the Opening Ceremony!

The copyright to Peter Pan is donated to Great Ormond Street. Charity has a long and proud history.

Today, charity is sometimes frowned on, considered an insult rather than an act of giving and kindness. Instead, we speak of ‘rights’. We all have rights, and rightly so, but has charity been, thereby, undermined?

And have we fostered a culture of dependency instead of independence?

According to The Mail, the Olympics opening ceremony was -

a celebration of Britain's national health service, which has provided free taxpayer-funded health care to everyone in the country since its foundation after the Second World War. 

Great Ormond Street was founded in 1852. Its services were provided free of charge, exclusively for the children of the poor. It was charity-funded rather than ‘taxpayer-funded’ and supported by such great social reformers of the day as Charles Dickens.

I pose no questions here. I give no unvoiced answers...

... but was this ‘our’ NHS, that was so loudly lauded, so proudly applauded?