In 1946 when the NHS was first introduced it was essential to secure the health of our nation and the future prosperity of our people. I believe the NHS is our shining light to the world and highlights the generosity of our spirit as a nation towards one another. If we were to ever lose it I believe we would be doing ourselves a great injustice and would be moving in the wrong direction as a nation.
We have an incredible capacity as a nation to look after one another. I think the NHS embodies this more than any other national institution, however we have changed in many ways since the introduction of the NHS, and it many ways because of the NHS. We as a nation have improved life expectancy and greater access to healthcare than many people in the world. This can be a double edged sword. As we survive in greater numbers to ever older ages, many systems will come under increasing strain to provide services in quantities they were never intended for.
I believe that many problems we may face in the future provision of healthcare could be alleviated by establishing a National Care Service. The establishment of the NCS would have the potential to relieve some already apparent issues within the care sector as well as addressing issues that are going to become increasing more complicated in the future.
The NCS would help to set national standards for care and help to regulate the sector that is undergoing major expansion. There would also be the potential to have more personalised care offered through the integration of medical information and services. The service could also be accessed by community care and other parties to centralise their efforts and be more efficient in their use of resources.
The future demand for the NHS to provide care is something that I cannot quantify as cost and demand is difficult to forecast. Some estimates predict that by 2050 we will have between 12 and 15 million people in the UK over the age of 70. This number is set to keep increasing and the pattern does not look likely to change. The cost associated with caring for such a demographic is going to be larger and larger without the provision being addressed ahead of time.
Care in our old age is growing to be as big of a concern as healthcare was before the introduction of the NHS. Our elderly population are owed great debts by this nation and in the same spirit as the NHS was founded, the fair access to care in old age should not be a lottery nor should it be a problem left to addressed individually as we get older. Aneurin Bevan once said that “discontent arises from a knowledge of the possible, as contrasted with the actual.” In the coming years there will be a growing discontent as people realise the quality of life awaiting them in old age may not be as they thought. Providing care for this body of people will head off these issues and give us as a nation a new light to show the world in how we care for one another still.
I imagine cost will be the main factor to detract from the concept of the NCS. I have thought of some ways that this may be reduced. Many in the care of the service will be recipients of government pensions. It may be possible to draw on some of these funds to finance the service. I also believe the service would offer considerable potential for operational savings for the NHS. If the NCS was adopted and implemented, hospitals could work in partnership with care providers to allow their capacity to be better used. Equally care providers could work in partnership with hospitals to help better care for the users of their services. The two services would form a symbiotic relationship and help to improve one another and provide greater quality of care all round.
Additional benefits of the NCS would be its huge potential for job creation and training. Many nations are facing the same issue over increasingly older populations in the future. If we were able to capitalise on this and develop our service we may be able to provide training and help the development of services internationally. This would offer prestige as well as offer some possible income for the service and help to encourage the sharing of new techniques in care.
Ultimately, the provision of care is a crisis on the horizon of us all. How we address it can be tackled by us as a nation rather than individuals. We will all get old one day, but how we get old and what happens to us in old age is something we can have a hand in. we can work as a nation to ensure we are all able to grow into old age with dignity and without becoming too much of a burden to those we love or our nation.
1983-11