National Health Service: 75th Anniversary

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, exactly 75 years ago today, I was as a child ill in Stockport infirmary, and I am totally taken by the memories of that day. In the morning, the consultant came by with his entourage of doctors, matrons, and so on. Consultants were very important in those days; they still are, but in those days, one did not speak unless one was spoken to. I said to him, “Excuse me—I have a question to ask”. He turned around. “What is it?” “Are we having a party today?” He asked, “What for?” I said, “The hospital is ours—it’s a great day”. He was not very impressed and walked on. Later on, they asked me at the other end of the ward, “What’s going on?” and I explained how the hospital was ours and what a great day it was. It was a privilege to be ill on the day the health service started.

Since then, I have served on an area health authority and on a mental health trust. It is no secret that I spent two months in Charing Cross Hospital earlier this year—the danger is that anybody in this House who is asked how they are can spend 20 minutes telling people about their health conditions. I am going to resist that, except to mention it in passing. There I was in intensive care at three in the morning, it was noisy and one could not sleep. The doctor came up and looked with interest at the books I had my table—which I could not read—and she said to me, “We know who you are”. I hope I had the presence of mind to say, “Yes, but please don’t tell anybody”. This is a good moment to thank the brilliant staff, nurses, doctors, nurses, physios and cleaners of Charing Cross Hospital, who are absolutely first rate. I was delighted to remember that when the Government threatened to close Charing Cross Hospital some years ago, I had gone on every demo imaginable to save it. Little did I think that I would be the beneficiary of that campaign.

The NHS, for all its weaknesses and faults at the moment, still works well once one is in the system—I was in the system, and it looked after me brilliantly. There was also excellent follow-up; physios and OTs came home, and so for another two months I had great support. That was pretty good, and I am grateful to all those who helped. I am also grateful to the many organisations who sent excellent briefings, which are helpful for the debate today.

There is one fundamental problem, among others, for the health service. It is too vulnerable to a Government who want to cut the service and save money. It is a real political difficulty with the health service that one decision by a Government can damage it. We have to find some way around that. Perhaps having a Government who do not believe in cutting the health service is the simplest answer.

There is another problem: the imbalance between those of us who are lucky enough to be ill in London and those who are unwell in other parts of the country. We are so lucky, if we are ill in London, to have excellent hospitals very close. In other parts of the country—I know the Lake District pretty well—it is a long way to a hospital and the quality is perhaps not quite as good as it is in London, where we are pretty fortunate.

Social care has been mentioned by my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley, who has spent a lot of time campaigning for better social care. In my experience, the people getting discharged are the ones who have family support in their homes. People who do not have family support are taking up hospital beds because there is not that much social care support. We cannot say enough about voluntary carers, the millions in this country who work for a pittance—I think it is £75 a week—and who keep this country going. We owe them such an enormous debt.

My son has MS. That has made me clear that MS needs far more focus. We need more neurologists. In France and Germany, there are seven neurologists for every two in the UK. We have a paucity of experienced neurologists and we are way down the list of countries. There is therefore a legitimate claim that there should be a neurology task force, as many NGOs working in this field say, to pull all this together: the NHS, social care, professional bodies and the voluntary sector. I also make a plea for MS nurses or neurological nurses. I believe they would not be an extra cost burden but would save money, because they would provide one place where people suffering from MS could go to get help, probably reduce the pressure on GPs and might be good value for money.

I say very clearly, in case there is any misunderstanding, that what I am about to suggest is not Labour Party policy—they are all sitting up on the Front Bench. It is certainly not Conservative policy. We are obsessed with saying that we must reduce taxes. I am obsessed with improving public services. We cannot have the two together. For all the propaganda that taxpayers want the money in their pockets because it is their money, it is also our health service and our public services. My living standard, my quality of life, probably depends much more on public services than it does on whether the taxman takes a bit more money from me or not in a particular year.

I repeat that this is not Labour Party policy, in case anybody starts hitting it on the head with this one. I do not see how we can deal with the difficulties in the NHS without providing more money for it. One obvious way is to have an increase in income tax, hypothecated to the NHS and social care, so that we can say to people, “Yes, we want you to pay a bit more, but every penny of that extra money will go to the NHS and social care”. We would all benefit much more from that than from this obsession with cutting taxes. That is my suggestion.