So here’s to you Mr. Bevan. The NHS is 60 years old today… July 5, 2008
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
An intensely moving and remarkable documentary on BBC2 this evening which celebrated the 60th anniversary of the NHS, and demonstrated how close it came to not being initiated due to intransigence from the BMA, the Conservatives and others (and curiously how Aneurin Bevan, socialist, pragmatist and most left wing member of the LP cabinet in the government, was able to cut a deal with the Consultants that essentially saved it).
Most striking? The sense of wonder in the voices who were there at the beginning (an Irish nurse described how down to earth and elated Bevan was on a visit to a Manchester hospital the day it started), and also the sense that this shining example of socialism had been in a way forgotten or diminished.
While watching it the thought struck me that if I was a BLP member (as indeed I once was long ago over in London) that’d I be shouting from the rooftops not merely the existence and reality of the NHS, but the struggle waged to introduce it. But, of course, it’s not quite the same BLP.
And here in their own words some of those involved:
‘The NHS has a degree of altruism not found elsewhere in our society today’ and ‘It’s Nye Bevan’s NHS. We talk about National Treasures. What can be better than a National Health Service delivered free to you and your children and your children’s children…’
Isn’t this what it’s about?
Might get this via iplayer. Sounds really good. There were some good figures on the news during the week, about how the UK’s spending on health had fallen way behind that of comparable EU countries and is only now starting to catch up. Labour should be crowing about that, but the disaster of MRSA is preventing it. That should be made number one priority before the election.
Very moving documentary. And Tories are vermin….
I thought it was telling how that affected Bevan politically, D&C. I thought it was entirely understandable that he would react that way after what he’d been through.
Wasn’t Noel Browne’s unsuccessful “Mother
and Child Scheme” partly inspired by the example
of the NHS?
It’s probaby still, sixty years later, the strongest reason why many British people feel loyal to the Labour Party, regardless of what that party’s attitude in government may actually be. To my mind there should be statues of Bevan and Beveridge up in every town in the country – or at least streets named after these giants – and the fact that there are not probably tells you how much the wealthier classes have always hated paying for the NHS and the welfare state.
Incidentally, is BLP a common usage in Ireland? I can’t imagine anybody using it east of Dublin.
There’s a brilliant line in Peepshow – one of many – where Mark has just been mugged (or not, as the case may be) and in his head he berates himself for being such a wimp, and wishing he was like the crowd back in the forties who came back from the war, had a cup of tea, and built the NHS.
And when you think about it, that’s exactly what they did. Incredible.
ejh, I really don’t know re BLP. Just lashed it in with no particular thought. I think you’re right about the remarkable lack of visibility of those two…
Conor, that’s very true. What is so striking in that program was the difference between that generation and more recent ones who had suffered none of the problems they had and yet whinged about ‘cost’ etc, etc… too quickly forgotten.
I think the Mother and Child Scheme probably was inspired by the NHS’s creation in England. What is sad about the Irish case though is that Costello actually didn’t back his own Minister. If I recall, recent historiography argues that this wasn’t a classic Church vs State battle as Browne argued in his memoirs, but as more of a Browne vs Costello, much of the Government and the Church conflict. The only person advocating the scheme was Browne himself and here is the crucial difference between Bevan and him. Bevan had cabinet support to take on all those lobby groups and that ultimately made the difference.
Very much agree. In some ways what is remarkable is that Browne was willing to push the boat out almost at the same time as the UK. That soon some might ask? But… he couldn’t do it against both the medical profession and the Church. Bevan was more fortunate – and as you say had support.