National Health Service

Pat Glass Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Pound]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and may I place it on record that, as I am sure virtually everybody in the House would agree, she has brought enormous expertise in this area to the House, for which we are extremely grateful?

The NHS cannot be disaggregated. It has to be a national health service, not a notional health service, a postcode health service, a better-in-some-parts-than-others health service or a good-for-Kensington-bad-for-Kidderminster health service. It has to be for the nation, and why? Because Beveridge did not just produce a one-point proposal for the NHS. There were actually five evils that he wished to slay. It was an integrated proposal that addressed want, hunger, ambition and other issues.

The NHS is not just an agency to patch people up; it is part of providing a healthy, productive nation and increasing the good and the good life within this country. At so many levels, we have to look beyond the bottom line and beyond, as the hon. Member for Southport said, the bean-counting philosophy. The NHS should not be about the click of the abacus in some cobwebbed recess, or about constantly seeking whether things can be bought cheaper here or commissioned for a lower price there. It should not be about container-loads of cheap goods being shipped in from Shanghai because some GP commissioning group somewhere has discovered it can get a discount on Tubigrip. It should be about the recognition that the health of a nation is utterly crucial, basic and intrinsic to that nation’s hope and future. Without health, we have no future.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

I am sorry to break my hon. Friend’s flow, but is it not the underlying principle of this country that we take care of one another? That is the principle behind the NHS and what the NHS stands for.

[Stephen Pound]

It has been said—not by me, but by some—that the NHS has almost become the national religion. They say that as Christianity has faded, as it has in some places—not in my constituency, and certainly not in my home—the NHS has become more important. The NHS is the perfect example of what Galbraith called the “gift relationship”, when we look out for one another. We should not constantly look for the bottom line, but instead look to be our brothers’ keepers. That is the principle—