Proud to be celebrating the NHS

I was proud to take part in the recent celebrations of the NHS’ birthday. Given what all that our nurses, doctors and other staff do for us, and how they have helped us endure the coronavirus pandemic, they deserve far more than just some applause.

I believe it’s past time to give them a pay rise, writes cllr Shaz Nawaz, leader of the Labour group on Peterborough City Council.

Nigel Lawson reportedly said that the NHS is the closest thing the English have to a religion. I believe this statement is overcooked; there are many people of faith in our country.

Nevertheless, it’s worth remembering what life was like before the NHS was launched in 1948.

One of the most powerful advocates for the NHS in recent years was the writer Harry Leslie Smith. Regrettably, Harry is no longer with us. However, he described the world prior to the NHS’s inception. His sister suffered from tuberculosis; she could not be cared for as his parents didn’t have the money to afford a doctor. In the end, she died in a workhouse hospital.

Harry also described the cries of people who were suffering from late stage cancer echoing in his ears; people could not afford morphine to ease their pain. It was in this context that the NHS was launched; suddenly, medical treatment was available to all, and for free. It was a game changer for our society.

It also prefaced a period of unprecedented growth and economic progress in our country; after all, a healthy workforce is by definition a more productive one. A healthy workforce buttressed by universal education and stable employment is more likely to be a prosperous one. As we are discovering now, without health, one has little.

I do find it more than a little ironic that our Conservative colleagues have decided that the NHS is worth celebrating. It is a bit odd to watch Boris Johnson stand on the steps of Number 10 and applaud a health service that he and his colleagues historically have been trying to privatise. This is nothing new. The Tories voted 22 times against the creation of the NHS.

More recently, they have tried to push portions of it into private hands or consortia. The profit motive, in their view, can be utilised to serve the public. As the 2016 collapse of the Uniting Care partnership showed, this is not necessarily so.

Tinkering with the NHS began almost the moment after the Conservatives took power in 2010.

The service has been subject to a series of “reforms” which have tried to restructure it, to do more, despite not getting enough funds to keep up with demographic changes. This is a rather peculiar calculus, the idea that only the most abstracted from reality can justify to themselves: that somehow less can be made to do more, despite the necessity of more being made clear.

It took the pandemic for the government to realise that less cannot be more. Reports vary, but it has been said the NHS is receiving the funding it requires to cope with the pandemic and beyond. I am glad to hear this. However, this is not the same as a long-term commitment.

Let’s not forget that many NHS staff have died in the service of others: there were unforgivable shortages of PPE for NHS staff, some wore bin liners before going in to treat infected patients.

Let’s also not forget that we still must remain vigilant: the outbreak in Leicester indicates that coronavirus is not yet fully under control.

The NHS has been there and will continue to be there to heal the sick; its staff will walk straight into danger to do so.

Let’s reward them properly: let’s make a long-term commitment to the service’s wellbeing; let’s pay the staff adequately.

Let’s make sure that shortages of PPE never happen again.