For people of my father's generation, the creation of the NHS in 1948 was a seminal event. No longer would wealth determine access to healthcare; need, irrespective of ability to pay, would be the criterion. To a generation brought up with the jar on the mantlepiece for the doctor's fee and dread if a child fell ill, the NHS was an extraordinary act of emancipation.
For that reason, the NHS retains, in its essential values, huge public support. But over twenty years, it has struggled. Its funding has not kept pace with the healthcare systems of comparable countries. Its systems of working are often little changed from the time it was founded, when in the meantime virtually every other service we can think of has changed fundamentally.
So urgent was the need for extra money for the NHS that many of the failures of the system were masked or considered secondary. In March we took a profound decision as a Government. We had sorted out public finances. Debt repayments were down. Spending on unemployment benefits and other benefits associated with large numbers of people economically inactive, was down also. We decided to make an historic commitment to a sustained increase in NHS spending. Over five years it amounts to an increase of a third in real terms. Over time, we aim to bring it up to the EU average.
In doing so, we offered the nation and those in the NHS a deal. We would spend this money if, but only if, we also changed the chronic system failures of the NHS. Money had to be accompanied by modernisation; investment, by reform. For the first time in decades we had to stop debating resources; and start debating how we used them to best effect.
Over the past few months the NHS and its staff have risen magnificently to this challenge. Many have been working flat out in a system they never had the chance to question. There have been teams of NHS professionals and others analysing each part of our healthcare system and how it can be improved. Personally, I have been having four or five meetings each week, as well as seeing scores of people from every part of the NHS.
Together we have produced this Plan for the future of the NHS. At every level there will be radical change. It will, of course, take time to achieve it all. But, taken as a whole, it does offer the genuine opportunity to re-build the NHS for the 21st century, true to its priorities but radically reformed in their implementation. It is, in a very real sense, our chance to prove for my generation and that of my children, that a universal public service can deliver what the people expect in today's world. For all of us it is a challenge. But it is one we intend to meet.
Tony Blair
