Academy Of Ideas

Podcast: listen to this debate from our Battle of Ideas archive. Recorded at the Battle of Ideas 2015 We all love the NHS, don’t we? Despite the ubiquity of platitudes about defending ‘our’ NHS, though, exactly what we are defending and why? The NHS has undergone significant changes since its inception in 1948. Shifts within patient demographics, combined with increased patient demands and advances in technology and medical care, have resulted in a system at breaking point. One million patients are seen every 24 hours, at a cost of £2 billion each week. The kind of care available and sums of money involved would surely astonish the institution’s founders. Indeed, although often perceived as one homogeneous care provider, high-profile scandals, such as those at Mid Staffordshire and at the Morecambe Bay Maternity Unit, have illustrated the variability in care across different hospitals – even within the same trust. And on many important measures – for example, cancer survival rates –