This is an emergency

The NHS as we know it is dying. It’s no longer a matter of if it will collapse, but when. Those of us who work on the front line have known this for some time, and it’s heartbreaking. Last week’s ransomware cyber-attack served to highlight how frail and vulnerable the health service is. While many tried to blame Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt for failing to prevent such a disaster, the archaic IT system is actually emblematic of how the NHS as a whole has struggled to keep up to date and adapt to the modern world with the necessary speed.

I trained as a doctor specifically because I was so proud of the NHS and the ideologies underpinning it. It is one of this country’s greatest achievements: a fair, equitable and cheap way of delivering healthcare. It worked pretty well for about 60 years, but its sickness has become terminal. The root problem is political: a systematic refusal by all parties to acknowledge the problem.

Max Pemberton and Lord Saatchi advocate for a Royal Commission on the NHS in the Spectator Podcast:

This election campaign has so far been marked out by the almost complete absence of any substantial discussions. Yes, Brexit matters — but so does the coming collapse of our health service. For years, money has been thrown into an antiquated, creaking system that can’t adapt quickly enough to keep up with the demands being placed on it. As a result, the NHS is a confused hotchpotch of short-term solutions imposed in a haphazard and uncoordinated way on an anachronistic model. And, if it falls apart in the next few years, it is the NHS, rather than anything to do with Europe, which will define Theresa May’s premiership.