The National Health Service in the UK was established in
1948 to deliver health care to all, funded by taxation, rather than paid for at
the point of use. In other words delivered according to need, and paid for
according to means. This was a remarkable achievement of fairness, good sense
and practical socialism. Inevitably, with the shifting political culture of the
last 25 years, this service has been steadily privatised and eroded, covertly
and overtly, in the name of “efficiency savings”, to the point where the
current government are presiding over a service which is so efficient it is deemed
to be breaching the human rights of elderly people being cared for (ref).
Ironically, 1948 was also the year in which George Orwell
wrote his brilliant dystopian novel 1984.
The recent bizarre introduction of a continuous video loop of Health
Secretary Lansley asking patients to thank their nursing staff for their care (unless
they pay £5 to turn it off) would have fitted seamlessly into Orwell’s vision (ref).
To be fair, many aspects of the NHS remain excellent,
despite the predations of financial managers and market-driven politicians, but
the prognosis is not good.
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