To start with, the good news: the British public does not want the NHS to be replaced with an insurance system. Of those questioned for the latest British Social Attitudes survey, 94% support the existence of a health service that is free at the point of delivery and 86% think it should be funded mainly through taxes. But beyond this striking support for the principles that are the service’s bedrock, there is little or no comfort to be found in these results. At 36%, overall satisfaction with the NHS is at its lowest level since 1997. A 17 percentage point fall between 2020 and 2021 in the number who are satisfied is the steepest ever.
Troubling though it is to be confronted with such numbers, and the painful reality to which they point – of people not getting the treatment that they need, including for cancer – the crisis now facing the country was not only predictable but predicted. With 7.4 million people on waiting lists for treatment in England, Scotland and Wales, a huge proportion of the population is now being directly affected by delays. Coupled with the publication of Donna Ockenden’s distressing report into failings in maternity care by the Shrewsbury and Telford hospital NHS trust, the research is rightly prompting widespread alarm.
