The Germans have ways of making you walk

• Text settings

  Text size

  • Small
  • Medium
  • Large

  Line Spacing

  • Compact
  • Normal
  • Spacious
• Comments
• Share

  Share

  William Wolff

  The Germans have ways of making you walk

  Copy link

  • Linkedin
  • Messenger
  • Email

Already a subscriber? Log in

This article is for subscribers only

Subscribe today to get 3 months' delivery of the magazine, as well as online and app access, for only £3.

• Weekly delivery of the magazine
• Unlimited access to our website and app
• Enjoy Spectator newsletters and podcasts
• Explore our online archive, going back to 1828

Most popular

Alexander Larman

What happened to the Rishi Sunak I knew at school?

As it was with this doctor, so it is throughout the German system. It knows little or nothing of waiting times and waiting lists — they are dismissed as NHS inventions. With one exception, I have been seen within five minutes of every appointment I have had in three years. Just once I had to wait eight minutes. Care is not only available free at the point of need, it is instant at the moment of need.

One recent Friday morning a blood vessel burst in my right eye. As it did not obscure my vision, I carried on working. The following morning I was still in discomfort, and rang every eye specialist in town to see who was working. None was. In desperation I range the local hospital. ‘Our ward rounds finish at 10 a.m.,’ I was told. ‘Come in then, and we’ll look at you.’ At five past ten a young woman specialist from Yugoslavia was shining beams down both my eyes. ‘Your eyeball will be clear of blood again in nine days,’ she announced. ‘I can give you drops and they may clear it up in seven, or they may not. Up to you.’ I decided to do without the drops. Normally that hospital charges E10 for a weekend emergency to discourage abuse. My E111 NHS form covered that.

The German system not only has incentives, it has formidable organisation. Every doctor does only the work for which he alone is qualified. As my accident doctor talked to me after the X-rays, he proposed a painkiller. A secretary, with fingers poised on keyboard, was sitting by his side and tapping the prescription into the computer as he spoke. As he finished talking, it was already coming off the printer.

Gordon Brown keeps assuring us that the NHS is the best system in Europe. It is, if you know no other. If you have ever crossed the Channel, you find out, without a moment’s waiting time, that he is either joking or deceiving us.