The NHS is 65 on Friday.
Hang out the bunting. No doubt a few politicians will be wandering around wards for photo opportunities come the end of the week. And yet the institution, set up to offer "cradle to the grave" care regardless of income, has been looking a bit peaky of late. Setting aside the hugely controversial changes instigated by Andrew Lansley south of the Border, and now being carried on by Jeremy Hunt, the Mid Staffordshire scandal, in which 1200 people died after suffering appalling neglect, has dirtied the fizzy water.
That allied with the inevitable austerity narrative that surrounds all public services these days has prompted almost daily headlines about the impact of cuts on both sides of the Border. In April this year, the Royal College of Nursing warned NHS Scotland is facing a perfect storm of ward closures, scandals about waiting times and ongoing cuts to nursing staff. Ken Loach, whose latest film The Spirit Of '45 recalls the birth of the welfare state and, he believes, its destruction at the hands of the Mrs Thatcher, last week called for a new mass movement to save the NHS from politicians.
Is there anyone willing to light the candles then? Shall we just cancel the balloons and party poppers?
Let's not. For all the pressures of running a huge, free public service – in an age when we don't do free or public much any more – the NHS is still helping people every single day. In Scotland there are 66,068 nurses and midwives at work in more than 300 hospitals. There are more than two million people on the NHS Organ Donor Register in Scotland, more than 41% of the population – the highest of any country in the UK. The idea of a free national health service remains hugely popular.
And on this latest birthday it's worth remembering the birth pains of the NHS. It was introduced three years after the end of the Second World War, a war that left Britain victorious, but broke. In July 1948 rationing was still taking place, there was a dollar economic crisis and a shortage of fuel. The post-war housing crisis meant hospitals had to take second place to rebuilding homes and schools. And yet the post-war Labour government enacted its ideal in the face of all of these problems.
In the resulting 65 years it has, like any huge public body, been guilty of incompetence, cover-up and cavalier disregard of its patients. But it has also – every single day of every single year of those 65 years – helped someone to get better, live longer, enter the world or leave it in dignity. We are, most of us now, children of the NHS. That's worth a slice of birthday cake surely?
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