The NHS is 63: Many happy returns?

By Jos Bell

Nye Bevan probably enjoyed the sound of his own voice – and so he should, for with his vocal harmonies came a cadence of reason, words of wisdom and a vision for a safer future. Powerful thoughts for difficult times, when people were either sick or satiated with global violence, and desperate for a better way of living with a real will to save life and to save families from the desperation of the grinding poverty of preceding decades.

Thus was our treasured NHS and beneficent statist ethos born.

Now, 63 years later, far from celebrating the best of these achievements we find ourselves surrounded by those who call into question this approach and despite so much evidence to the contrary, accuse the 1948 seachangers of negligent governance. Why would this be? Due to the significant improvement in the nation’s health? Due to the 1% of benefit recipients who are fraudulent? Due to Frank Field’s socio-economically ill-judged comments on ‘serfdom’ equivalance? He is fortunate to be able to allow himself such delicate sensitivities.

One time welfare recipient JK Rowling has revealed that she has no time for a government that favours tax dodgers over the needs of wider society. She makes it clear that as a multi-millionaire who has emerged from straightened circumstances, far from shrugging off her previous struggles, she prefers to act as strong voice of concern and empathy for the poor and the dispossessed:

“I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major’s government, was there to break the fall.”

So on this anniversary day – as the combined pending national tragedies of the Health & Social Care Bill, the Welfare Reform and the Localism Bills progress through parliament in their horribly synchronised timeline waltz, are we simply to stand by and reduce ourselves to the party of hand-wringing regret?

The end of the Second World War brought with it a huge national debt – and yet we were able to slowly haul ourselves out of it, through a considered policy of investment which enabled us to go for growth whilst setting up our treasured National Health Service and continue building up a welfare system. The Bevanite aims of creating a society free from fear simultaneously provided added economic impetus to the whole country. As the man said “no society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means.” (In Place of Fear)

Now, over 60 years later, as Marmot has shown – a healthy population makes for a healthy society. 2010 was the year that the World Health Organisation assessed the NHS as being the most efficient in the world and the most appreciated in its’ history, and this report showed us the real worth of the NHS to our economy and to the stabilisation of our society. This should surely take precedence over letting the bankers run away with our assets and our life chances.

Dilnot on the last chance for care surely comes as a wake-up call – and leader Ed has rightly called for an immediate all-party exploration of potential solutions to the aging populus time bomb. Lansley meanwhile LaLaLa fiddles for time whilst he barnstorms his chaotic Health and Social Care Bill through the Bill Committee.

Faced with this onslaught, we need a clear and counteractive policy framework based upon an understanding of the interrelationship between the extreme level of peril to which those at risk are being subjected, and the long term threat to the overall economy and stability of the country if the economically in-exchangeable are abandoned.

Otherwise, whilst we indulge ourselves in blue mood introspection, and micro meets macro in a high speed train crash, we shall ever be seen as mere bystanders.

In a stark back to the future statement, on this unhappy birthday, I leave the final word to Nye:

“Soon, if we are not prudent, millions of people will be watching each other starve to death through expensive television sets”