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NHS Staffing

I beg to move,"That this House has considered the matter of NHS staffing." This July, we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the national health service. As the Prime Minister said in a recent speech, it is not only a great institution but a great, unique and very British expression of an ideal. Health care is not a privilege to be purchased but a moral right secured for all. Over the past six decades, the NHS has cared for tens of millions of people and saved many hundreds of thousands of lives. It has been at the forefront of innovation in health care, pioneering advances in medical treatment, such as triple therapy for TB; in surgery, such as artificial hip replacements; and in imaging, with the development of MRI scanning. With its unique offer of health care free for all at the point of need, it has liberated us all from the fears of unaffordable treatment and untreated illness. As we begin to celebrate the achievements of the NHS over the past 60 years, it is right that as new technologies emerge, as expectations rise and as health care needs change we look ahead and continue to reform and renew the NHS for the future. Indeed, the birth of the NHS was not easy. Aneurin Bevan had not only to persuade his colleagues in Cabinet that all hospitals should come under the umbrella of the new national health service but to fight to establish the NHS in the face of concerted opposition in Parliament from the Conservatives, who voted against its establishment at each turn, and outside from the British Medical Association, I am afraid, which was equally opposed to the idea.