Defending our most beloved national institution

By Alex Smith/ @alexsmith1982

UPDATE: Join the Facebook group We Love the NHS.

The outpouring of affection for the NHS has continued today, after the #welovetheNHS hashtag was one of the biggest trends online yesterday.

Gordon Brown and members of the cabinet have been Tweeting, and the normally foaming Fox News is reporting the fightback against vicious right wing rumours and myths on the front page of its website.

It’s not surprising there’s been such support. The Healthcare Commission has praised consistently high patient satisfaction results in the NHS. Their last annual national inpatient survey showed that 92% rated the care they received as “excellent”, “very good” or “good”.

In Accident & Emergency departments, the Commission found that 88% of respondents said their care had been “excellent”, “very good” or “good”.

Meanwhile, overall satisfaction with the running of the NHS has risen from 60% in July 2007 to 73% in December 2008, and the British Social Attitudes survey showed the highest level of satisfaction with the NHS in 25 years.

Those are the numbers, but some of the personal stories on Twitter are equally powerful, if not more so. The hashtag was started by Graham Linehan, the television comedy writer who created Father Ted and The IT Crowd. Some of the Tweets are below, and at #welovetheNHS:

From @Downing Street:

Andy Burnham: Over the moon about strong support for NHS – an institution I will defend to my dying day, 2nd only to Everton FC #welovetheNHS.

PM: NHS often makes the difference between pain and comfort, despair and hope, life and death. Thanks for always being there #welovetheNHS.

Elsewhere:

@SarahBrown10 #welovetheNHS – more than words can say.

ashleytmasonRT @mintsauce Stephen Hawking: “I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the NHS” – http://bit.ly/wBnvQ – #welovethenhs

BrendOTron #welovetheNHS because in a medical emergency, your 1st thought should be “where’s my ambulance?”, not “where’s my credit card?”

slummymummy1 #welovethenhs Because they spend their advertising budget on health awareness and promotion, not lobbying to protect profit.

TomGreenhaugh #welovethenhs I prefer the UK system to the awful American model. It may be not be perfect but at least it is there for all.

SteveFieldsend #welovetheNHS my Grandad had a brain aneurism and two heart attacks and would not have survived if it wasn’t for the NHS.

DowningStreet RT @NHSChoices #welovethenhs …and here’s all you need to know about it, its history and what you can get from it http://bit.ly/2mpYjK

lilmishap RT @wilmotatkins: #welovetheNHS I’m so annoyed at American right & so proud of our NHS that I stopped studying, got on twitter& posted this