TY - JOUR T1 - The NHS: have the rivets popped? JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 309 LP - 309 DO - 10.3399/bjgp17X691385 VL - 67 IS - 660 AU - Gervase Vernon Y1 - 2017/07/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/67/660/309.abstract N2 - When the Titanic struck an iceberg in 1912 the popular account has it that, because the ship veered to the left to avoid the iceberg, it was gashed all down its right side. As a result water flowed into five of the separate watertight compartments and the ship sank. In fact, Robert Ballard’s submersible Argo, in 1985, found that the source of the ship’s catastrophic failure was not a gash. Rather, the force of the impact distorted the hull so violently that, as it buckled inwards, many of the rivets holding the steel plates of the hull popped, leading to flooding of the compartments.1Am I comparing the present state of the NHS to that of the Titanic shortly after it hit the iceberg? By no means. I cannot foretell the future and I do not know how long the NHS will … ER -