Pandemic has given us new optimism for future of NHS
The NHS turns 72 today. That might seem elderly, but you don’t really get my attention as a geriatrician at that relatively youthful age. However, if there was ever a chance to properly reflect on the NHS, as Scotland tentatively emerges from the midst of a global pandemic might be the right time to do so.
And while birthdays can be a time for nostalgia this year’s events should also make us look more to the future.
Those events have made plain, once again, that Scotland’s people cherish the NHS and its staff.
The challenge we faced was huge and the long journey back to normal is no less daunting. The rapidity with which the NHS – and the NHS is those who work in it – responded over a few short weeks in March to fundamentally change how we delivered healthcare was nothing short of amazing. Those who so visibly and audibly said thanks at 8pm on a Thursday understood that and the contribution of the whole NHS.
We can now dare to hope we have the virus under increasing control here in Scotland, but the pandemic will clearly impact the NHS for many months to come.
While it’s clearly a time to be even more grateful for a health service fully funded by taxation with no additional costs at the point of access, it is also a chance to ask what the long-term future holds.
We cannot afford to go backwards. Let me set out precisely what I mean by that.
In many places, and in particular during the early stages of the pandemic, we’ve seen a genuine renewed sense of teamwork, co-operation and respect where it had badly faded, a breaking down of managerial hierarchies, and the voice of healthcare professionals listened to, enacted upon and above all valued. A focus on the patients in front of us, not the targets set for us. Not everywhere, and not all the time, but often enough to give us hope, and doctors have told us that. Moreover, we have seen more focused attention to the physical and mental wellbeing of NHS staff that so often we’ve only seen lip service paid to before.
Could it be the deeply flawed culture that fostered the inappropriate and unacceptable behaviours that Sturrock’s report on NHS Highland illustrated so starkly could be put on the road to recovery by a pandemic?
Maybe, maybe not, but the flicker of hope is there. So, happy birthday NHS Scotland. Maybe you aren’t old, you’re just approaching your prime.