Intended for healthcare professionals
NHS at 70
NHS at 70
The BMJ is running a series of articles and opinion pieces reflecting on the health of the NHS as it approaches its 70th birthday on 5 July 2018. As well as looking at what the NHS has achieved over the 70 years it has been in operation, The BMJ's coverage will also consider how the NHS might need to change to face the challenges that lie ahead.
Key articles
What is the NHS’s greatest achievement?
Since launching in 1948, the NHS has won an admiring audience the world over, and its endurance should be celebrated. In April, The BMJ called on readers to nominate what they think is the NHS’s most important achievement and we received a huge range of responses. Those ideas were compiled into a shortlist and to help readers decide, we asked some experts to make the case for why each of these nominations deserved to be in the running.
And the winner is . . .
“Providing care based on need and free at the point of delivery” was voted by readers as the NHS’s greatest achievement in its 70 years.
The NHS at 70: Loved, valued, affordable?
How is it possible to sustain the NHS and retain its core principles? John Appleby and Kamran Abbasi discuss 10 questions on the future of the NHS
“Doing better, but feeling worse”: doctors’ relations with the NHS
Nicholas Timmins looks at how the medical profession’s relationship with the health service, and the different governments that have run it, have evolved
The NHS can fly the flag in post-Brexit Britain
Raising productivity in the NHS will spur economic growth, says Mark Britnall
Medical leaders have their say on NHS’s greatest achievements
Medical leaders from a range of specialties put forward their suggestions for the NHS's most important achievement
The NHS at 70: the power of individual stories
Public passion for the NHS has built up defensively, in response to perceived threats under successive governments, says Jennifer Crane
Doctors need to give up professional protectionism
As the radius of practice has decreased, so more and more gaps have appeared in the fabric of healthcare. In filling these gaps the boundaries of practice must be clearly defined, says Clifford Mann
The consultant on-call system is an extravagant waste of money
Consultants make less of a difference out of hours than is generally thought, says Louella Vaughan
The NHS at 80? How it might look in 2028
Jan Filochowski imagines what the future NHS might look like and where it is heading
NHS’s greatest achievement after 70 years: The BMJ shortlist
The NHS turns 70 on 5 July 2018, and The BMJ wants your vote on the health service’s biggest success story to date. Tom Moberly reports
GPs must embrace technology
Patients will expect a “new normal” in their interactions with general practice, argues Clare Gerada
Nursing—the wave of the future
Medicine will be enhanced by nurses taking on greater responsibility, says Nigel Crisp
The migrant care law and its implications for the NHS
Locally trained doctors tend not to want to work in areas of high deprivation and need, and we continue to rely on foreign trained doctors to fill massive gaps. Medicine should acknowledge this historical trend, writes Julian M Simpson
The NHS owes doctors who trained abroad an apology for racism
Racial abuse was ubiquitous but the NHS offered a total lack of support, writes Rajgopalan Menon, reflecting on a 40-odd year career as a GP
Bring outpatients into the 21st century
Give patients a say in the design of new services
70 years of NHS funding debate: how much is enough?
Although taxation is the most efficient funding mechanism, NHS expenditure is a political choice, say Anita Charlesworth and Karen Bloor
What models of funding are best for a healthy and just society?
Mark Hellowell and colleagues assess the options for achieving an adequately funded NHS
The NHS’s slow decline is a preventable disease
And it’s staring us in the face, says Margaret McCartney
Five minutes with . . . Harold Ellis
The surgeon, who qualified the same month as the NHS started, talks about the early years of the health service and how things have changed
The NHS is nowhere near crisis point yet
But there is still much that it could do better, says Ben Page
Providing care based on need and free at point of delivery is NHS’s greatest achievement
The BMJ conducted a poll to mark the NHS’s 70th. Tom Moberly examines the results
Jennifer Crane: Whose needs? Histories of “need” in the NHS
This concept of need is a historic one, embedded in the very inception of the NHS
The NHS at 70: many happy returns?
Perhaps the NHS's greatest achievement is its sheer survival
Mass medicalisation is an iatrogenic catastrophe
Profligate prescribing has brought a hidden epidemic of side effects and no benefit to most individuals, says James Le Fanu
Back to the future: aspects of the NHS that should never change
Not all change is good, writes Iona Heath, pointing out the aspects of the NHS that should be preserved
Healthcare outcomes and quality in the NHS: how do we compare?
Azeem Majeed and colleagues examine what the NHS needs to focus on to achieve better health outcomes
