Nhs

In this week’s issue, the Spectator reveals that the government is planning a significant yearly increase in the NHS’s budget. But, Lara Prendergast asks in the podcast, isn’t this the £350 million a week bus pledge? And how will the government pay for this (00:40)? We also talk about the difficulties in modern adoption with Prue Leith (15:30), and finally, we talk to Martin Tyler and Mark Palmer on whether this year’s World Cup, held in Russia, is set to be the most political ever (26:35). One of the most infamous images of the EU referendum campaign was that bus. The one which promised £350 million to the NHS each

Nigel Lawson once wrote that ‘the National Health Service is the closest thing the English have to a religion’. It’s a justly celebrated line because it rings so true – though the second half of the sentence, even more uncomfortably true, is invariably left out: ‘… with those who practise in it regarding themselves as a priesthood’. This summer, adherents of our national quasi-religion are marking the 70th anniversary of its foundation by St Aneurin Bevan. The ceremonies – less preposterous but just as intense as Danny Boyle’s tribute to the NHS in Britain’s Olympic opening ceremony – have the unqualified blessing of our actual religions. For example, Liverpool’s Catholic

James Delingpole is right, of course, to extol the virtues of capitalism (‘We don’t deserve capitalism’, 5 May) but wrong to imagine that if only we stuck to strict capitalist principles we could cure problems like the allegedly system-clogging bureaucracy in the NHS. The United States probably has the most ‘capitalistic’ health service in the world; but it has seen an even greater rise in numbers of bureaucrats than the NHS, contributing to its ranking as the world’s most expensive healthcare system. Or take US universities: they too operate on a very capitalistic model which has seen student fees rise steeply over the past three decades and has burdened the

Would it really be fairer, in an inter-generational sense, to whack an ‘NHS levy’ on pensioners while giving every 25-year-old £10,000 to help them buy a first home or start a business? These are recommendations by the Resolution Foundation, chaired by former Tory minister Lord Willetts, to address what it sees as a breakdown in the ‘contract’ between young and old. That contract allegedly says that each generation should expect to be better off than its parents — but in the current economic climate, many of our delicate ‘millennials’ believe they’re going to end up worse off, unable to afford their own homes and saddled with the ever-rising cost of

Last week there was an exclusive in the Times – widely followed up – revealing majority support for NHS-linked tax rises. ‘For the first time in more than a decade, a majority of Britons say that they are personally willing to pay more to increase spending, according to the respected British Social Attitudes survey’. It followed this up by a leading article to this breakthrough, saying: ‘Ministerial hearts may be gladdened, therefore, by a new poll published in The Times today. It suggests that 61 per cent voters back higher taxes to fund the health service, with 25 per cent saying that the government should raise existing taxes and 36

Who is the most powerful person in government at the moment? In normal times, the automatic answer would be the Prime Minister, but things are rather more complicated at the moment. Theresa May’s stock has risen in recent weeks, thanks to her confident handling of the Salisbury attack – and partly because Labour is in a terrible mess. But today we learned a little bit more about quite how influential one of her ministers has become. The Prime Minister spent this afternoon giving evidence to the Commons Liaison Committee, the powerful group of select committee chairs who grill the Prime Minister periodically. She was in her usual defensive mode of

Is there really a cross-party consensus on tax rises for the health and social care system? A group of MPs from across Parliament has written to Theresa May calling for a year-long parliamentary commission on funding for all branches of the health system. Meanwhile Jeremy Hunt is calling for a ten-year settlement for the NHS, attacking a ‘feast or famine’ approach to funding it. ‘There’s no doubt that NHS staff right now are working unbelievably hard and they need to have some hope for the future, but their real concern is this rather crazy way that we have been funding the NHS over the last 20 years,’ he told ITV’s

Last week, the New York Times ran a very un-New-York-Times-y article, ‘Resentment Grows Over Who Gets Health Care Aid’. It contrasts two women in New Hampshire. Married with one child at 30, last year Gwen Hurd paid more than $11,000 for her family’s health insurance, purchased through the Affordable Care Act exchange. They had to shell out $6,300 per person — $18,900 — before the insurance kicked in. Both parents were working. Their pre-tax earnings just exceeded the $82,000 cut-off for government insurance subsidies. The couple dropped date night, and couldn’t save for retirement. A few miles away, single and living at home, an aspiring opera singer of 28 is careful to

Donald Trump recently disparaged Britain’s National Health Service for “going broke and not working,” leading Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt to express his pride in a system “where all get care no matter the size of their bank balance.” But the news has been filled for months with stories of people unable to access care they need under the NHS, regardless of their efforts or financial resources. Beyond the nationalistic pride and defensiveness of politicians both sides of the Atlantic, how do British and American healthcare really compare? Are both sides as crazy as the other imagines, or do they each know something the other can learn from? Sweeping generalizations regarding

The NHS is in dire straits. I never thought I’d say this but as a doctor, and having seen the extent of the current crisis, I’d be scared if a family member had to go into hospital. Despite the best efforts of staff, the pressures are such that it’s all too easy for mistakes to be made. Doctors and nurses are going to work fearful of the situation they will find. They know how unsafe it is, and yet they are utterly powerless to do anything about it. The predictable response is to call for more money to be hurled at the NHS. It’s all because of cuts, they say.

Donald Trump has found himself in the midst of another international spat, fuelled this time by his attack on the UK’s national religion. In an attempt to verbally jab the opposition in his own country, the President has managed to rile up many thousands, if not millions, of people who have deep reverence for Britain’s National Health Service: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/960486144818450432?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw I’m rarely on the side of Trump’s Twitter provocations, but this one, I’ll admit, isn’t half bad. While Trump is wrong about the protestors’ motivations (giving the tweet ‘top troll’ status), he is right that they march in the wake of a ‘broke’ system. Only extreme ideological dedication to those three little