You vote. You get the government.

Was anybody expecting anything else?

Lower your expectations and feel happy when they manage something good or something good happens despite them. I have in the past been a policy advisor, not a political advisor but nuts and bolts policy. If you knew the contempt that senior civil servants and ministers hold each other in, you might have something to worry about.

Al. I respect where you are coming from but NICE guidelines are based on cost effectiveness not cost. The decision would be the same regardless of country coffers. In the same month, they committed The NHS to new chemotherapy drugs which make the meningococcal vaccine seem cheap. NICE do take cost into account but not in terms of what the NHS can actually afford, but to set priorities. Political decisions on drugs haven't been tried since Patricia Hewitt's appalling weighing in over Herceptin for early onset breast issues.

The last time I was on the telly defending refusal to treat, the cost of what our medical people refused was peanuts compared to the cost of ongoing care. The operation the patient asked for would not help and nobody was willing to carry it out. The successful one off in The USA they read about in the news didn't reveal all the facts. Needless to say we asked the relevant Royal College to investigate before refusing on risk not finance.   Look North however concentrated on showing me turn up in my Jaguar. Considering that was mine and as a chairman I wasn't employed by The NHS and that was my car from my day job in industry. ... You see truth being shafted from all sides.

All rather sad but media don't always let truth get in the way of a good story.