Keir Starmer today marks the NHS’s 75th birthday by pledging: “The NHS was my family’s lifeline; now it’s my job to get it off life support.”
The Labour leader tells movingly of his family’s experience of the health service, with his mum a nurse before she was hit by crippling Still’s Disease.
Mr Starmer is expected to speak at a special service at Westminster Abbey today celebrating the founding of the NHS under Labour in 1948.
Writing exclusively for the Mirror, he stresses that of the five missions he has forged for his premiership, “the one closest to my heart is building an NHS fit for the future”.
Telling how he “spent many long days and nights in hospital with my mum”, adding: “The health service changed from being her livelihood to her lifeline.”
Revealing how the “experience shaped me profoundly”, he says: “It’s why I now see it as my job to get the NHS off life support and back to a clean bill of health.”
The health service’s anniversary comes three years after it was gripped by the coronavirus pandemic.
The NHS is still picking up the pieces, with a record 7.4 million people in England waiting to start treatment as of the end of April.
The health service is estimated to have 100,000 staff vacancies and bosses are braced for junior doctors in England to strike for five consecutive days this ,onth - the longest walkout in NHS history.
Up to 47,600 members of the British Medical Association are due to walkout between 7am on Thursday, July 13 and 7am on Tuesday, July 18.
The landmark anniverary triggered fresh calls for more cash to be pumped into the service.
Trades Union Congress general secretary Paul Nowak said: “Most of us have a story about how the NHS saved the life of someone close to us.
“We owe this to several generations of NHS workers who run this remarkable service.
“But as we celebrate the 75th birthday of the NHS, the workforce needs us to care for them too. “Underfunding and staff shortages are causing burnout and the loss of experienced staff.
“It’s time to deliver long-term sustainable funding for our NHS, and to raise the pay of its workforce, so that our health service is fit to care for our families and communities for many years to come.”
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said: "The best birthday gift of all would be to put the NHS back on a stable footing, by increasing the number of available GP appointments, ending the long waits for ambulances and closing the growing divide between those that can access dental care and those who can’t."
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The Prime Minister will also be at today’s Abbey service where he is expected to give a reading.
Mr Sunak, who visited a hospital yesterday, said: “I believe in the NHS because it’s fundamental to my family.
“My dad was a GP, my mum was a pharmacist, so I feel a responsibility to make sure the NHS is there for our children and grandchildren, just as it was there for us.”
Former PM Sir Tony Blair called for an overhaul of the health service and much greater use of technology.
Publishing The Tony Blair Institute’s latest report into the NHS, the ex-Labour leader warns: “The NHS now requires fundamental reform or, eventually, support for it will diminish.”
Writing in the foreword to the study, he adds: “Change is never easy and requires brave political leadership.
“If we do not act, the NHS will continue down a path of decline, to the detriment of our people and our economy.”
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