DrOne of the big stories in British politics over the last two years has been the way in which bloggers have progressively broken the all too cosy relationship between the lobby correspondents and the politicians. All too reliant on politicians for their stories, too many mainstream journalists ended up pulling their punches and failing the public. In opening up completely new avenues of information and discourse, the old guard of the BBC and the national press are slowly giving way to a new players such as Guido Fawkes who are increasingly becoming the key agenda setters. In the world of blogging and tweeting Westminster reporters could no longer sweep the expenses scandal under the carpet or fail to expose questionable political characters such as Damien McBride. No, the mainstream and established media are under real pressure now.

However, as in Westminster, UK healthcare journalists have for far too long also been guilty of the same sort of complicity. Reliant on politicians, civil servants, trade union leaders and other NHS types for their stories, very little real thinking or criticism has been leveled at the idea of state healthcare and socialised medicine. Indeed, most UK healthcare journalists are now so co-opted and ill-informed on the basic facts of health policy NFR believes they are setting themselves up for a fall.

In the last couple of weeks I have been interviewed by the Nursing Times and the Nursing Standard. I have talked to journalists on countless other health and professional publications. However, in all cases, I find that I am dealing with people who do not understand the basics.

Tell a UK health journalist that in America the US government now spends more on Medicaid, Medicare and S-Chip than the Pentagon does on the military and you will be met by uninformed disbelief. This, from journalists who believe that the US has a free market health system!

Tell a UK journalist that in Britain 7 million people have private medical insurance; 6 million have private health cash plans; 8 million pay annually for private complimentary treatments; that 200,000 self fund for surgery in private hospitals; that more than a quarter of people pay privately for their nursing and residential care home places, or that nearly 40 per cent of people are now going private for their dentistry and you will be greeted with the words “I had no idea about those numbers”.

Ask a UK journalist what they think about health savings accounts, or what health censorship is, how it came about in this country at the beginning of the twentieth century and why it might be bad for patients and you will hear “I no nothing about any of this”. Yet, these are the people who endlessly report that patients ‘lack information’!

Now, I like journalists and some of them ‘are my best friends’. Charlotte Santry of the Nursing Times was charming on the phone and I very much hope we will stay in touch. But all too often they are lazy, ill informed and unquestioning. Often unconsciously co-opted by old myths and elite interests they, like their friends in Westminster, will surely loose ground in the more competitive age of open communications.

For NFR, UK health journalism is due a good hard kick up the bottom. The idea that the NHS is great and that America somehow represents a free market is a non-starter when you know your subject. We can and we will do better than this.