A clip of Johnny Vegas defending the National Health Service is a must-watch on its 75th birthday.
Leading health think tanks have today warned that public support for the NHS remains “rock solid”, but that it will not be around to celebrate its 100th anniversary without investment.
The King’s Fund, the Health Foundation and the Nuffield Trust said the NHS is the “jewel in the country’s crown” but the organisations warned that the service faces “huge challenges”.
In a letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and the leaders of the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties – Sir Keir Starmer and Sir Ed Davey, the organisations said the NHS has “endured a decade of underinvestment” and criticised politicians for an “addiction to short-termism and eye-catching initiatives” which will not help the service in the long run.
“Unachievable and unrealistic” fast improvements without long-term planning will “doom the service to failure”, they said.
Speaking on the Last Leg in 2018, Vegas passionately defended the health service and those who work in it.
“It’s like buying you a tricycle and then buying your brother a brand new Mercedes. Its private healthcare vs health they don’t care, they never have,” he said.
“They want to privatise it and they can’t make money off it.”
He added he didn’t want to go “mad” on TV but that the issue of privatisation “really offends me”.
“The people who work within it work so hard,” he continued. “If we don’t fight for the NHS we lose ourselves as a country.”
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