Professor Deirdre Heenan:

I would say that it all seems a bit depressing when you listen to this. It is hard to find something that is going to put a lift into your step, but we can look at countries across the world and say that when they have decided something is a priority and they have had an unrelenting focus on it, change is possible. In the North, we went from having the worst breast cancer outcomes to the best because we decided that this was not good enough. Unfortunately, we have slipped back because the focus stopped, but we can look at countries across the world which have said this is what they want to focus on and what is important to them, which is health outcomes and not just living longer but the quality of life for people living longer and how we ensure quality of life. Change can happen but it is about communicating with the public, getting them on board and saying that, in the end, this is something we all own and we all agree on. Of course it is difficult for politicians to talk about change in healthcare because it looks like turkeys voting for Christmas. Why would they? Sometimes we are so insular in the North, or even as an island, that we do not look beyond and say how, for example, Denmark went from having the worst cancer outcomes to being among the best. It was because there was a political consensus that the cancer outcomes were appalling and unacceptable. There was a cross-party consensus that a ten-year plan would be drawn up and, regardless of who was in power, that plan would happen. They have completely turned their outcomes around. Those are the types of things we should be presenting to people to say not to lose heart and not to feel that here we are again bemoaning a broken system. Instead, show them the possibilities of political will and economic change.