28 April 2006
Doctors, managers, nurses, therapists and pressure groups have joined forces to back the principle of a tax-funded NHS, 60 years after its creation.
To mark the sixtieth anniversary of the second reading of the NHS Bill, 12 organisations, including the NHS Confederation, the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing, Unison and the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, co-signed a letter to The Times committing their support to the current system of funding the NHS.
In early April, a group of 900 doctors called for tax-funding to be replaced with a mixed system — in which limited Treasury funding would be complemented by a social insurance scheme.
But in the letter, published on April 27, the organisations said the UK was fortunate to have the fairest system in the world, where no-one feared going bankrupt because they needed to pay for their health care.
A social insurance-based system would increase bureaucracy and leave the most vulnerable patients with the greatest financial burden, they added.
NHS Confederation chief executive Gill Morgan said: 'In these financially challenging times, with so much attention rightly focused on the NHS, it is crucial that the service constantly improves.
'But its core values should remain. We believe a social insurance system would be a step back, not forward.'
Unison general secretary Dave Prentis added: 'It is that inherent fairness and equality that attracts many people into working for the NHS in the first place and that gives them a sense of pride in working as part of that team.'
PFapr2006
