The former chancellor Nigel Lawson once memorably described the NHS as “the closest thing the English have to a religion”. If so, in recent years it has frequently tested the faith of its devotees. Many patients will still attest to exemplary levels of care and kindness from individual NHS staff.
But far too often they are also exposed to the frustrating, even dangerous, fall-out from a creaking system which is failing to adapt to the demands placed upon it. Long waiting lists and the last-minute cancellation of operations are now a common feature of UK patients’ experience. The run-of-the-mill stresses on our health service, too, have been sharply exacerbated by the recent wave of junior doctors’ strikes.
In the past, an oft-heard response to such
