Let’s hear it for this great service

ON JULY 5, 1948, Nye Bevan, Labour’s visionary health minister, strode into a Manchester hospital to launch a free healthcare service that has become the backbone of the United Kingdom.

As it approaches its 72nd birthday, Labour’s legacy and the National Health Service’s founding principles remain intact.

It continues to be funded from general taxation and remains free at the point of use.

Few would now dare meddle with the idea of a universal health service.

That is not to say that the NHS has not been a political football or been strained to its limits by crises like the one we are going through now.

Despite everything, the NHS has stitched, vaccinated, operated, counselled and cared for us all through our lives.

We are all touched by it, many of us owe our lives to it, and we all have a stake in the NHS.

As health expectations and technology have changed, the constant of the cradle to the grave service has been its staff.

The paramedics who scoop us up, the surgeons with the steady gaze, the cleaners with sterilisers, and the nurses who hold our hands in the middle of the night when the pain and loneliness are too much – they are the NHS.

If you’re able to join in the celebrations on Sunday, then it’s probably thanks to a minor or major intervention by the NHS at some stage in your life.

We applauded the bravery of NHS staff during lockdown. This weekend, let’s applaud the longevity and the resilience of the founding idea of an NHS.