Fight for a fully funded, fully public health service

Christine Asher

I am one of the 6.23 million people on an NHS waiting list. At every stage since my symptoms started, I’ve felt the weight of a system under strain. The NHS hasn’t met its 18-week treatment target since 2015. When I was asked to select which hospital I wanted to be referred to, one had an average wait for a first appointment of 564 days (80 weeks). Because some people are waiting for multiple appointments or operations, the total number of cases on the waiting list is actually 7.3 million.

I’ve been told my case is urgent, yet miscommunication between the overstretched GP surgery and the hospital department means that, at present, I haven’t been offered an appointment or any diagnostic testing until January 2026. At best, it feels like my life is on hold. At worst, it feels like I’m losing what could be precious time if treatment is delayed further.

It doesn’t feel safe, and for some, it isn’t. £14.7 billion a year is spent by the NHS treating people who have been harmed by mistakes made during their care, according to a report by Imperial College London.

Immigration, disabled people, an ageing population, all are used as scapegoats by capitalist politicians of all shades.

But the NHS isn’t in the state it is because too many people are using it. It’s in the state it is because of scandalous, chronic underfunding and privatisation. Decades of political choices made in the interests of allowing the super-rich to get richer, instead of investing in the services all of us need.

The UK has less medical equipment and fewer beds than any other comparable country; Japan has ten times more CT scanners and MRI units than the UK. We also have fewer doctors and nurses than those same comparative countries, with 1 in 5 doctors thinking of leaving their profession and 1 in 8 considering leaving the UK to work abroad.

Big businesses, including the pharmaceutical industry, want to make a profit out of our health system. They lobby for more privatisation, arguing not for funding but instead to argue for a private health system, so they can rake in the profits.

No health system dominated by capitalist interests delivers for those who use and work in it. Free at the point of use is something hard won and to be defended. Yet, in and of itself is not enough – we need a fully funded, and democratically controlled health service so everyone can have access to quality health care. 

Wealth in Britain is heavily concentrated – the top 1% of households have significantly more wealth than the bottom 70% of the population combined. Just 50 families have as much wealth as half of us combined. That means the majority of us using and working in the NHS are in the same boat, while the super-rich are not.

We need to unite and demand the funding for the services we need, paid for by the super-rich. Our fight would be strengthened if the working class had our own political party, that could be putting forward the policies we need instead of policies in the interest of profits for big business.