I'm not a great TV watcher; the news and Newsnight and that's about it.
When I watch something it's mainly on the iPad and almost never watched at the time it was in the schedules. I'm not unique, I'm sure. TV habits have changed; drives the schedulers barmy and the advertising industry into a conniption.
More recently my telly habits have changed a bit. I've discovered BBC Four. Wow, it is very good. Really thoughtful interesting and entertaining. Well done the commissioning editor.
Given the financial constraints the BBC struggle with, how they produce an output of this quality, plus all the other stuff they do, is little more than a miracle.
Why then, have they wasted their money on a web-tracker, telling us, what we already know; the NHS isn't reaching its targets.
Embarrassing the NHS is always a good old editorial fall-back. We're getting bored with Brexit, nothing much else happening, let's invent some more news.
Yes, it's something else for insomniac web-scourers to play with. Put in the post-code and see how their local hospital is doing on the hamster-wheel.
It won't make your operation come any quicker.
The NHS is very busy, doesn't have enough staff, premisses that are too small, budgets are shrinking - thanks to the BBC for picking the scab.
Or, is there another way to look at this?
Targets were invented by Tony Blair; not by the BMA or the Royal Colleges, or any other doctor. When they were introduced, they were almost universally condemned.
The NHS has come to terms with them. They have little in the way of clinical significance other than to say; it's better to be treated for, pretty well, everything, sooner rather than later.
The NHS knows it can't do the targets and in a sense, has stopped fussing about it. They are doing their best. They used to be important to the politicians. Now...
Instead, the peerless Peter Homa, at Nottingham told us his A&E was treating 700 people a day, in facilities designed for 350, max. And, he was having trouble recruiting staff.
NHSE wheeled out Keith Willett who tried to bring a sense of perspective and told us all to get a flu-jab. Given that the issue is a provider-side problem... where was NHS Improvement? They are the regulators for the Trusts.
Are targets important? No. Waiting for treatment is the important thing. In the last 12 months the NHS started treatment on 16 million people, that's 5% up on last year.
If seeing 95% of people in A&E in 4 hours is important, why did it used to be 98%. If it is the target to hit why, in Sweden is the target 80% in four hours, in New Zealand it's 6hrs and Canada 8hrs.
Targets are a choice made by politicians.
I hate to bring it up but Edwards Deming, the godfather of modern management thinking, has something to say
about targets:
'Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.'
The NHS has 40k nurse vacancies, 93% drop in applications from EU nationals to work here. Two GP practices a week closing, one care home a week shutting up shop, social care budgets stripped, 900,000 frail, elderly people in the community no longer getting support, rota gaps and becoming a GP, less and less attractive.
How the NHS gets close to targets with this quality, plus all the other stuff they do, is little more than a miracle.
Miracle...
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