Rishi Sunak must pray his improvements to the creaking NHS work — for all our sakes
Dose of sense
IT’S a miserable ritual faced by millions. Scramble to a phone at 7.59am, call the GP’s receptionist and hope for the best.
All too often, the outcome is an engaged tone or — if you’re lucky — an appointment in a week or two.
In our modern NHS, despite the tens of billions of pounds it devours, you need to know in advance if you’re going to be sick.
Today, Rishi Sunak — the son of a GP dad and a pharmacist mum — sets out what look like practical, commonsense improvements to the creaking system.
Allowing women to get the Pill from their pharmacist without seeing their GP first, and encouraging patients to go straight to a chemist when they need a blood pressure check or drugs for milder conditions, will free up millions of appointments.
And easing some of the enormous pressure on doctors will, in turn, leave more time for patients who really do need to see their GP, and avoid diverting them to A&E.
Sorting out NHS waiting times is one of the PM’s five pledges. Rishi must pray this medicine works — for all our sakes.
Slow commotion
THE public are unlikely to wear any more excuses from the police or politicians for failing to get to grips with the Just Stop Oil morons after this weekend.
The eco-fanatics were at it again yesterday, slow-marching mostly with impunity through the streets of central London, causing maximum disruption to the lives of ordinary, law-abiding people.
Yet just two days earlier the cops proved they were happy to make any number of arrests if there was the slightest risk to the King’s big day.
We cannot have entirely different policing of public order offences depending on whether the targets are royals or working people.
The law should be applied equally.
And if the current laws are not adequate to deal with extremists walking at a snail’s pace down our road network, let’s hurry through some new ones.
Very Big of you
YESTERDAY’S Big Help Out, which saw millions volunteering up and down the country, was a great finale to the Coronation weekend.
But why should it end there?
During the pandemic The Sun’s wonderful Jabs Army demonstrated the nation’s remarkable appetite for helping others, and anyone getting involved for the first time yesterday will have discovered the camaraderie and the fulfilment to be gained from volunteering.
An annual Big Help Out would be a fitting legacy from a Coronation weekend that was all about service to others.