5th July 1948. That’s a date that should be etched firmly in the soul of everyone in our country, to remember when health care became free at the point of delivery, the birth of the National Health Service. And today we celebrate 75 years since Clement Attlee’s post war Labour government handed it to the nation. It remains our greatest institution, a symbol of how Britain used to be Great. Today, we celebrate, but what of tomorrow?
You can tell it’s an important day for the country when the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh are attending a special service at Westminster Abbey to celebrate its birthday. I admit that I was a little confused when I read this news because the Duke of Edinburgh died two years ago and his widow, Queen Elizabeth II, died less than a year ago and I never once saw her referred to as a mere Duchess. It turns out that a new Duke and Duchess have been appointed in a ceremony I must have missed and they are, no less, and I mean no less, than Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones.
Oddly, and there is nothing more odd than the royal family, the Edinburghs will be in Westminster today, leading the cheers for the NHS whereas King Charles – I still think that sounds so weird – and his wife Camilla Parker-Bowles, who you might think would be in Westminster, will actually be in Edinburgh at a special ceremony to receive the Scottish Crown Jewels at – you guessed it – a national thanksgiving service. Priorities, eh? I’ll bet Charles was livid when he found one of his diary operatives had manage to double-book him but something had to give and it was the NHS was that something.
I am slightly puzzled as to why everything seems to require a ‘service’. In 2018, not that you’d remember it, the NHS celebrated its 70th anniversary and the Archbishop of Canterbury thanked God for the NHS. This struck me as strange since the architect of the NHS, the visionary health minister at the time, Aneurin Bevan, was a proud atheist and humanist, something as rare in 1948 as it is common in 2023. Still, let’s not be too churlish about it because any service is better than no service, particularly when the government that has been running the NHS into the ground since it came to power in 2010 – a government, lest we forget, run by the Conservative party which opposed its setting up tooth and nail – daren’t not turn up.
The NHS website’s introduction to today’s event is priceless. Here are the opening three paragraphs:
Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh will be joined by NHS staff, senior government and political leaders, health leaders and celebrities at a service at Westminster Abbey to celebrate the NHS 75th birthday next week.
The service, to be held at 11am on Wednesday 5 July, will include an address by NHS Chief Executive Amanda Pritchard.
Guests in the Abbey paying tribute will include around 1,500 NHS staff, as well as famous names including Mel Giedroyc and other supporters of NHS Charities Together, the national charity caring for the NHS.
There are five words that leap out at me: ‘famous names including Mel Giedroyc’. Without wishing to appear unnecessarily heartless, my response has to be something like, was no one else available? I am vaguely familiar with Ms Giedroyc’s work – I believe she once presented a popular TV bakery show, which I have never seen – but she is not exactly an A lister. She’s not exactly Gary Lineker or, I don’t know, Carol Vorderman, is she? Maybe Mel was the only star left as everyone else will be in Edinburgh, enjoying the sight of King Charles being handed the Scottish crown jewels?
Whether I can be bothered to tune into Sky or BBC News (in that order, these days), I’m not sure. I’m never very good with choirs or groups of ageing religious chaps dressed in frocks at the best of times. But on the subject of God, I very much hope that the organisers ask him to avoid hogging the limelight by sitting quietly at the back of the pews and therefore allow the actual NHS workers to get the praise they so richly deserve. Too many national events have descended into a prayer fest, something which often means we forget what the whole point of the event was supposed to be.
It’s certainly a tale of two institutions, today. One the greatest statement a nation could possibly make on behalf of its citizens that when they are sick they will receive the exact same treatment, the other a dysfunctional ‘royal’ family worth some £21 billion which performs the vital function of cutting ribbons, waving and shaking hands with people. Rishi Sunak will be in Westminster, too, a man so rich he uses a private GP and, I’ll wager, has never lowered himself to seeking out health care with the lower orders, rather like the royal family, then.
I have an old fashioned view that the very existence of the NHS represents the best of us. It is a living illustration of our care and compassion towards our fellow human beings and, in my humble opinion, the best possible example of socialism at work. We need not just to celebrate the NHS but also to fight for its future, to demand it is properly resourced for now and forever. In a country increasingly ravaged by inequality it also provides a glimpse of how a fairer world might look like.
Happy birthday, NHS. Here’s to the next 75.
