Comment on Britain’s State-Funded Health System Must ‘Reform or Die,’ Prime Minister Says

Britain’s State-Funded Health System Must ‘Reform or Die,’ Prime Minister Says

LONDON — Britain’s much-loved but overstretched health system is in critical condition and must “reform or die,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Thursday, claiming that years of neglect and botched restructuring had made the United Kingdom an increasingly unhealthy nation. Starmer promised a 10-year plan to fix the state-funded National Health Service, which in recent years had gone from a source of national pride to a symbol of a state and society under growing strain. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “We are becoming a sicker society,” Starmer said during a speech in London, pinning blame on the Conservative Party that was in power for 14 years until July. “The last government broke the NHS,” he said. A national icon on life support Founded in 1948 in a country determined to build a fairer society out of the ruins of World War II, the NHS provides free health care to citizens and residents, funded through taxation. So critical to the national identity that its 75th birthday was marked with a thanksgiving service at London’s Westminster Abbey, it has been dubbed Britain’s secular religion — though one in which some people are losing faith. Even its most ardent supporters acknowledge the NHS is an unwieldy behemoth that has struggled for years to cope with an aging population and rising demand.

 

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