Leader: We need a healthy debate on NHS funding

Healthcare that is free and universal at the point of need is the envy of the world and a source of immense national pride.

The NHS has become so central to Britain’s sense of itself that it took centre stage in the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games.

But today it is a service mired in crisis. Barely a week goes by without grim milestones reached and unwanted new records set on waiting times, bed blocking and staff wellbeing.

Dr Lailah Peel, deputy chairwoman of the British Medical Association in Scotland, said patients are dying because of the strain on the NHS and that colleagues are leaving the service “because they are just broken”. Scotland’s health secretary Humza Yousaf admitted: “People are not getting the level of care I would want for them, or indeed that I would want for myself or a family member.”

The NHS has arguably become a victim of its own success as life expectancy has lengthened and the population has grown

The NHS has arguably become a victim of its own success. When it was established in 1948, life expectancy was 66 for men and 70 for women. Today, UK life expectancy is 81.65 years. Meanwhile, the population has risen from 49.4 million to around 67.5m. As the population has grown, and grown older, the NHS has gone from receiving 11.2 per cent of government spending in 1948 to around a third today.

On the evidence of the crisis the service is in, even this high level of expenditure is woefully inadequate under the current funding model.

It is therefore now clear that there must be a public debate about how the NHS can best be funded, particularly in these straitened times.

Healthcare has already drifted into a two-tier system, with those who can afford to go private doing so. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is apparently a case in point, having been unable to answer a straight question on whether he uses the services of a private GP.

Reverence for the NHS has rendered it almost sacrosanct. Questioning the sustainability of its founding principle of free universal healthcare seems close to heresy.

But today’s society is very different from the one into which the NHS was born.

To protect and preserve the service for future generations, we must at least have a healthy debate on what lessons we could learn from other countries.