PMQs sketch: Shouldn’t ‘preventable deaths’ really be called ‘homicides due to negligence’?

David Cameron was grilled today on plans for a ‘7-day NHS’. This is his attempt to iron out a slight kink in the NHS schedules. The trouble is that although our heroic doctors and nurses keep regular hours our deadly diseases are hopelessly unpredictable and like to smite us down whenever they feel a bit grim and reaperish. Perhaps we should write to them about it. In practice this means that NHS efficiency varies widely over the ‘7-day cycle’ or ‘week’ as it’s known. Get ill on a Tuesday and you’ll probably be at a party on Friday. Get ill on a Saturday and you’ll probably be at a funeral on Wednesday. Your own.

The party leaders clashed tepidly over a disputed figure – six or eleven thousand – compiled by some statistical freak in Whitehall. The digit is irrelevant. What matters is the scandal it refers to. The NHS is busily orchestrating thousands of ‘preventable deaths’ each year.