Health service is in ‘critical condition’ but public support is ‘rock solid’, say three thinktanks in letter to political leaders
Good morning. The NHS is celebrating its 75th anniversary today, but “celebrating” might not be the most appropriate word. There are strong grounds for believing it’s in a grim state, and they have been set out this morning in a powerful letter to political leaders from three leading health thinktanks.
In the letter, the King’s Fund, the Nuffield Trust and the Health Foundation say the NHS is “in a critical condition”. They acknowledge that public support for the institution is “rock solid”. But they say that, unless it gets investment and reform, it faces “managed decline that gradually erodes the guarantee of safety in place of fear it was designed to create”.
The NHS has endured a decade of under-investment compared to the historic average, and capital spending has been well below comparable countries. As a result, the health service has insufficient resources to do its job: fewer hospital beds than almost all similar countries, outdated equipment, dilapidated buildings and failing IT. Despite long-term objectives to reduce reliance on acute hospitals and move care closer to people’s homes, spending continues to flow in the opposite direction. Long-term thinking is essential to meet the challenges ahead – from responding to changing health needs to harnessing AI and new technology …
Long-term political action is also needed to address the fraying health of the UK population. The NHS was not set up to go it alone. Protecting and improving people’s health depends on a wider system of services and support that includes local government and social security. Yet people are falling between the cracks of public services and the NHS is often left to pick up the pieces …
To patients, what matters is how long they’re waiting. They’re not really worried about who else is on the waiting list. They want to know when their procedure or operation is happening, and we’ve significantly reduced that delay. We’ve virtually eliminated a two-year wait.
That probably will go up higher because we are offering more procedures.
