National Health Service patients are likely to be more vocal
as a whole than pre-1948 out-patients in hospitals, and in some cases it is proper that they should be. Having attended a large hospital at 2 o'clock on a particularly busy day this week to have a minor ill inspected, because I was told that the afternoon session began at 2 and that therefore there would be no one in front of me to keep me waiting, I waited for over half-an-hour, and was asked to wait "ten minutes more" because the doctor had only just arrived. I did not wait, so I cannot say what "ten minutes" might have proved to be. The wife of a colleague who had to take her small son to another hospital was kept waiting two hours. There may have been good explanations in these particular cases, but I observed twenty or thirty people waiting, waiting, indefinitely during my abortive visit. The total amount of time wasted must be immense. I am not ready to believe it is all inevitable.
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