THE ARCHIVES

Happy 60th birthday, NHS

by  Stuart Jefferey

This week marks the 60th anniversary of the NHS.

While its younger, formative years saw ground breaking strides in healthcare provision despite gross underfunding, its middle age has been marked with wastage as it has lurched towards the bloated US system of privatised healthcare and health markets.

For the NHS to survive into old age, it must make lifestyle changes, get fit and start to look after itself.

The Tories skirted with the market in the 1990’s and Labour, despite its pledges to “cut costs by removing the bureaucratic processes of the internal market” in their 1997 manifesto, rushed headlong into the market approach to health emulating the US system. With the US spending around 30% of its entire health care budget to administer their health care market, it is clear that billions are now being wasted in the NHS on our market.
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