There’s little to celebrate on the NHS’s birthday

Birthday celebrations for the NHS this year are relatively quiet. In recent years the health service has received multi-billion pound top-ups from the taxpayer, not to mention high praise from politicians across the political spectrum. This may be in part because the government has already seen to the big NHS pledges, including the 2.5 per cent National Insurance hike, split between workers and employers, which is bringing in roughly £6 billion to pay for Covid catch-up. But no doubt this year’s notable silence is also linked to just how bad that catch-up is going.

It’s never been credible to claim the NHS is the ‘envy of the world’; the health system is in fact an international laggard, ranking in the bottom third of developed countries for patient outcomes long before the pandemic hit. But it is only becoming harder to make this bold claim, as the NHS’s 74th birthday is simply drawing attention to the increasingly perilous state of the health service.

NHS England’s waiting list has hit a record 6.4 million in March, following leaked modelling that shows the list reaching 9.2 million by March 2024, revealed by The Spectator earlier this year. Meanwhile, the number of patients waiting more than 12 hours to be admitted to A&E sat at just over 19,000 in May this year: a fall from a peak of 24,138 in April, but nowhere near the 695 reported (admittedly during lockdown) in May last year.

Meanwhile those waiting for an ambulance to arrive for a Category 2 ‘emergency’ (incidents like strokes, chest pains etc) are experiencing an average wait time of nearly an hour. For those who don’t need access to emergency treatment, more and more are seeking out private healthcare as a way around the multi-million person backlog, as evidenced by data from the Private Healthcare Information Network published in April. Their figures show the number of patients paying out of pocket for treatment is up 35 per cent from pre-pandemic levels.

Of course the obligatory tweets are doing the rounds today, including one from the Prime Minister which includes a thank you video aimed at NHS staff. Health Secretary Sajid Javid has announced a new scheme to trial delivering chemotherapy drugs via drone, to speed up access to potentially life-saving drugs: no doubt a good thing to do.

Most of us have never known a world without the NHS, and while much has changed in 74 years, one thing has remained constant – the skill, dedication and professionalism of its staff.

To everyone in our NHS, thank you for all you do. #NHSBirthday pic.twitter.com/0FUR83wKhE

— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) July 5, 2022

And they just can’t help to introduce some pomp and circumstance into the celebrations: next week the NHS will be presented the George Cross by the Queen. We’ll wait eagerly to discover how this will help to tackle record patient waiting lists.

But there has been a notable chilling effect on NHS celebrations this year. With more patients now ‘very’ or ‘quite’ dissatisfied with NHS services than satisfied, it’s not exactly the time for politicians to be singing the health system’s praises: not least because they know there is ever-growing evidence out there to push back on the ‘envy of the world’ narrative.

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