In a perfect world the NHS would not be run down to sell it off for a quick sale and immediate readies? Or in contemporary Britain a farmer would not bring to market a prized bull that the farmer had starved, you'd want to get the best price for it by fattening it up ! So in an imperfect world the privatizers would either starve or overfeed it as an excuse to privatize?
But perhaps I'm looking at de-regulation of part of the public sector in the more conventional 'nightmare' for the NHS? What if the private sector restored the NHS by being its ally and junior partner? Perhaps people who can afford even better care than from the NHS should be offered all the luck in the world for maintaining their payment of high taxes without bed-blocking or dumping their crises by 'fly tipping on the NHS' with what may be trivial and cosmetic? Imagine if appointment blocking and surgery blocking was a private health issue instead of a NHS issue? Over to you?
Here's the bottom line: no one should impose health inferiority especially by running down the NHS! In fact, in an ideal world, if privatization is inevitable (and it is not) most NHS people would want a wealthy benefactor like the Sainsbury family etc to revolutionise the private sector, not the public sector. How? By an extension of a health care system into new private terrain, making the NHS more, and not less! Imagine if the NHS could explore how to invent new procedure's, new technological treatments that could be fast-tracked to go to a 2-year trial in order to introduce a new treatment or medical intervention by a vast injection of financial backing alongside and made accountable to the NHS? Could the NHS handle that future proofing of the more expansive delivery of such health targets? Or, renting and loaning skilled specialists from the public sector or the other way round, or just a mutually stimulating exchange of technology? In a perfect world the NHS could have nothing to fear from being overhauled by a trusted private benefactor who could stretch resources to supply to a more health-conscious UK? Perhaps with the same passion of a certain Vet who has pioneered vet science without losing his passion for veterinary healthcare meets the pragmatic BeeB, who sell programmes and their rights around the world to make the BeeB more self-financing, and bring necessary financial and commercial skill sets to a great British institution? Or is this just a pipedream?
What we do know is that globally there are many wealthy individuals who rate the NHS and its modus operandi so highly they want to destroy it! The saying goes "if it’s not broke do break it!". But we must understand that it isn't the Labour Government of 1945 that loyal supporters of the NHS from both sides of the Commons feel so strongly about! What? The NHS is a great British institution because it was established as a prize for defeating Hitler, Stalinism, and Marxism! It is a medal of gallantry that, in gratitude, the British people fought for and deserved! So, it is no surprise that it bridges Churchill and Thatcher who defeated the Nazi's and the Soviets respectively, but also connects them ideologically together- Churchill's safety-net and Thatcher’s default position on privatisation. This is their unique ideological bridge! But it is more, it is our deterrent and our early warning system for a recurrence of our latest war...........Covid 19! It is our national wealth that we have in common, and it is an international magnet for excellence in a post-Imperial Britain! In the next 25 years, most of us will need access to the NHS, whether it be for cancer, Alzheimer’s, mental health issues, GP services, maternity wards, by-passes etc; and most of those demographics will be supporters of the NHS as Tories!
So, it is not out of post-colonial guilt or shame but to serve all those who need treatment free at the point of delivery! It is the opposite of both Imperialism and statism! How? Let me try and not be too long-winded: It doesn't take - it gives! It is restorative and trail-blazing ! It has contributed to end the social deference of upstairs/downstairs that prevented mobility in society and the economy, unless you're a daughter-in-law of a male Peer of the realm who has a butler whilst then sending her kids to exclusive public schools and yet now claims to be a 'Communist'? How does that work? But overall, the NHS has rid Britain of its Dickensian 'Poor Houses' and replaced Victorian Asylums, and it is not free of controversy! Should staff strike or not be legally allowed to strike? Or will would be strikers stage legal more hours, more overtime more exercise of highly specialised technology, to prove to the public its worth and its cause that this 21st century form of staff demonstrating for better conditions and reasonable pay rises could use as 'shift-demonstration', and integrate with a strike? Is it possible to get public support and retain it?
Here's the bottom line for most of us beginning to see our 60's is not far off: Most Britons want to die of natural causes knowing the health of generations that they leave behind are in good safe hands! A good and full life well lived, from cradle to grave will be continuing to be made by the NHS! So, save your investment money for something else other than expensive items on the shelf of the private health sector, and provide for your children, and grandchildren etc They will need all the support they can get in a competitive and brutal world! Indeed, perhaps we have to prioritise the NHS staff for a high wage increase this year and the next! But we have to remind the NHS staff that it may have to be at the expense of the Teachers or civil servants, who will have to swallow the bitter pill of patience for NHS staff caring for their patients? That will need an internal dialogue within the whole of the Public sector, but basically the country is almost broke but not broken by Covid, independent but not separated from the EU and with a massive inflation bill to pay! It is no laughing matter that people who spend 3-18 hours waiting at A and E at the local hospital are warmer there than in their unheated homes! But it does symbolise that the NHS is like a local community, a place there to comfort and welcome...it acts like the same harbour, the same refuge as the local church of yesteryear!!? Or not? You decide.
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