NHS is best at tea time

It’s true. NHS has its shortcomings.
There are more productive health care systems out there, providing more while wasting less. Survival rates of breast cancer are higher elsewhere, while numbers of hospital-acquired infections are lower. Precious NHS-time is excessively gobbled up by paperwork and electronic box-ticking, pulling staff away from patients. It’s strained by financial difficulties, limited by rigid hierarchical structures and generally challenged by an ever-growing population.

Still, it’s best in the world at serving cuppas.

Scientific papers on the subject are sparse, but nevertheless it’s a fact. It’s quite obvious if you think about it. To even try imagining a national healthcare system that’s better, more efficient and happier about serving cups of tea seems quite absurd, frankly. We might run out of local anaesthetic or have the equipment stuck in the sterilisation department. Vast number of staff may be off on long term sick leave for back pain, depression and stress. But there will always, always, be tea bags in the box in the cupboard and there will always be milk in that fridge. And if, and God knows we’re talking crisis here, there’s none, you can be sure as hell someone will go out and get some with their own hard earned cash. A proper brew is, when every swab is counted for, what really matters.

It’s good if the surgeon does more or less what’s been agreed. And it’s equally helpful if, as the patient enters the unknown where both dreams and breathing pauses, the anaesthetist is on the ball. But as the patient comes around and cheers -Yes, I made it! – the main thing on their mind is the all-important Cup of Tea.

Nervous voices ease and tense faces smoothen, as the cup, made to order, is handed over with a smile. Peacemaker, icebreaker and healer, its properties are infinite. A habit and a way of life, shared by a nation, yet personal and subject for individual specifications, often impressively detailed. To respect it is the key to a successful recovery. Every nurse knows this.

Would you care for a cup of tea at all?
Oh, that would be lovely, ta!
How do you take it?
Weak please, but not too much milk, and one sugar, yes?
Strong, with two sugars.
Oh, as it comes, with a drop of milk.
Could I have it rather milky please, with no sugar.
It must not have too much milk! And two and a half sugars, please.
No sorry, this is not the right colour – Do you have more milk? Ah, that’s much better, thanks.
Mate, could I have another one?

Where else than in London will you get specialised professional nurses from literally all over the world ready to give you a cuppa, as free as the operation you’ve just had, delivered with a smile? On this page, there are seven of London’s thousands of nurses, ready to make you a cup of tea, as you like it, when you want it. Enjoy!