DAN MACKAY: Grown-up plan needed for NHS, not short shrift from ministers
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Today I am chiefly thankful to the NHS. I write this from first-hand experience.
Despite the unprecedented stresses and strains it must face each and every day on our behalf it still continues to deliver life-saving healthcare just as it was intended when it was first set up in 1948.
We read that it has weathered two now three monarchs, 15 prime ministers and 29 health secretaries. It has certainly faced its crises, controversies and challenges but it remains the bedrock of British society – more popular than the royal family, the armed forces and the BBC.
Read more: DAN MACKAY: What would Louis have made of the changes over time?
It was born, as Churchill put it, from a ‘bankrupt nation’ and represented a ‘revolutionary moment in the world’s history’ according to its visionary creator Sir William Beveridge. It was the then Labour government’s health secretary Aneurin Bevan who was charged with delivering a universal health service, available to all and free at the point of delivery.
But that national health service has grown exponentially year on year and is creaking with the pressures and demands being placed on it.
I was given my own insight recently when I underwent life-saving surgery at Raigmore hospital. I was so in awe of the medical staff at Raigmore. I think I am right in saying that they have nine operating theatres kept busy each and every day. Their skills, dedication and commitment to their patients is so inspiring. Without that huge healthcare workforce who, at every level, are contributing to effective running of the hospital we would all be stuffed. They all deserve far more credit than they get.
That’s why I was so appalled to hear the chairman of the Conservative Party, Nadhim Zahawi, claiming that striking nurses were playing into Putin’s hands! He has revealed that the British army is being trained to take on the roles of striking nurses and ambulance staff despite calls from the Royal College of Nurses for the health secretary, Steve Barclay, to sit round a table with them to negotiate a satisfactory deal. The government says it is happy to talk but won’t discuss money!
So, the British army is being prepared to fill-in for striking nurses who, for the first time in their history, have resorted to industrial action! Yet no word of boots-on-the-ground being deployed to a war zone, like Ukraine, to defend the west and confront Putin’s atrocities? Just who is the enemy?! No wonder political opponents have reacted sharply to Zahawi, describing his allegations as “ludicrous and insulting”.
The NHS has become something of a ‘sacred cow’ that we can scarce debate without frenzied and bitter disagreements. But it is under-resourced, needs more investment, more staff, more hospitals and, yes, even more reform.
The social care system is on the verge of bankruptcy and is struggling to alleviate hospital bed blocking. Vulnerable people can’t get the care packages they need to live at home. But it wasn’t the nurses who ruined our economy and brought this country to its knees after years of failed growth and Tory austerity.
We need a grown-up, long-term plan – ‘in place of fear’ – to progress our most valuable national asset. The NHS has some great people working in it, at all levels. They face tough daily challenges and I, for one, truly applaud them.
