The British Medical Journal has taken the somewhat extraordinary step of calling on the next UK government to declare a “national health and care emergency".
The first report of the BMJ Commission on the Future of the NHS calls for the declaration of a national health and care emergency and an urgent reset for the NHS
Just before the National Health Service began in the UK, Aneurin Bevan, the minister of health in 1948, wrote in The BMJ : “On July 5 there is no reason why the whole of the doctor-patient relationship should not be freed from what most of us feel should be irrelevant to it, the money factor. The picture I have always visualized is one … of a nation deciding to make healthcare easier and more effective by pooling its resources each sharing the cost as [they] can through regular taxation and otherwise while [they are] well, and each able to use the resulting resources if and when [they are] ill.”1
Since Bevan outlined his vision, health, healthcare, and wider society have vastly changed. Life expectancy has improved from 70 years for females and 66 years for males in 1948, to 83 years and 79 years respectively in 2020.2
The vision of a comprehensive health service is as relevant today as in the 1940s, but new and different societal challenges require a rethink on how to deliver the NHS as it faces a national health and care emergency
The NHS is currently experiencing the gravest crisis in its history. While much excellent treatment and care is being delivered, too many people are not receiving the care they or their relatives need. Staff, patients, and the public are experiencing a loss of hope, confidence, and trust which must be reversed.1 Austerity, the covid-19 pandemic, and major financial and staffing problems, have left the NHS in a weakened state.23
Radical change is needed in the way services are designed to make better use of the technologies available and to provide more services in homes and communities. These changes should be led by the professionals and communities directly involved. They can build on the UK’s world class biomedical science and professional education,4 the skills an
This analysis uses claims and electronic health records from 2021 to examine racial and ethnic variations in immune-mediated inflammatory diseases in the United States.
Prof Nyirenda is currently Deputy Director at the MRC/UVRI & LSHTM Uganda Research Unit, Professor of Medicine and Global Non-Communicable Diseases, and Head of the Unit’s Non-Communicable Disease Research theme.His prominent career has ranged from molecular medicine to clinical and public health research, including investigations into non-communicable diseases, particularly around diabetes, obesity, and hypertension. He also has a strong interest in capacity building across Africa.