Doctors’ orders

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[/audioplayer]On a radio discussion show shortly before the general election I made the not terribly original point that the NHS had become our national religion. The first caller immediately objected. ‘No, it’s not,’ he said. ‘The NHS is far more important than a religion — it’s about life and death.’

Ignoring the theological presumption for a moment, this view is common enough. Even when not ‘in crisis’, the NHS is now perennially said to be ‘under pressure’ and so becomes an ever-larger part of what government does and the public expects. George Osborne refuses to seek savings in its budget and promised an unbudgeted further £9 billion during this Parliament. And as the NHS becomes the dominant and only untouchable force in the state, so its enemies (the eaters, the drinkers, the old, the infirm) become enemies of that state. This was always one of the perils of a socialised medical system. And today it is not just the government’s problem. Increasingly we are all expected to put our shoulders to the task of assisting the great effort of permanent NHS rescue.

If you doubt that, consider the limitless amount of sermonising we are willing to put up with when it comes from the NHS. What used to be matters for the church, family or what we used to call ‘free will’ are now cast in the language of the NHS as matters that affect us all.

Ordinarily, if you told a member of the public when they should procreate, what else they might or might not put into their bodies and what body-type was ideal, you would be invited to go and procreate yourself. But when it comes from the NHS and is expressed as being for the good of the nation, then even the most intimate details of your life can be transformed.