Many Happy Returns, NHS

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 02 Jul 2008 - 1:00 PDT

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It's not just a happy birthday that the NHS Alliance wishes for the NHS. It's many happy returns too. Many more years of a national health service based on the principles and values of its founders.

Free at the point of need: so that no-one has to suffer or even die because they cannot afford the medical treatment they need.

Fair and equitable: no lotteries in health care, not for patients and not for staff either.

Tax-funded: the only way of ensuring there isn't a two-tier service where those who can afford better insurance get better treatment - and those who can't get second class treatment.

NHS Alliance chairman Dr Michael Dixon said:

"Those principles are more and more difficult to maintain. Think of the debate over top-up payments, for instance.

"However we should not forget that this country founded the national health service just after the second World War, when Britain was on its knees and next to bankrupt.

"It was possible because there was a consensus between all political parties and across society as a whole, that the NHS was an essential reform. Despite differences of detail, there is a similar consensus today. "But it was the vision that really counted and made such a huge undertaking possible.

"Perhaps now is a time to get back to the vision instead of focusing on the mechanics."

Notes

1. The NHS Alliance is a collaboration of clinicians, managers and board members who put patients first. It is the independent body that represents NHS primary care. Values based, it is the only organisation that brings together PCTs with GP practices, clinicians with managers and Board members, and NHS primary care with its patients. The Alliance membership and its hard working national executive is fully multi-professional.

http://www.nhsalliance.org