Of course we can pay for the NHS. We can’t afford not to

“You’re always playing catch-up, from the minute you start. What we used to consider a busy day 10 years ago … is now quite nice. You worry you’re not giving people the care they deserve. You’re giving [them] the bare minimum you can … It’s not what you go into nursing for. If somebody said to me now that they wanted to go into nursing, I would say don’t.”

That’s the view of one nurse with over 10 years’ experience working in the NHS. Spring is upon us, but this year’s winter crisis – officially the worst on record – is still fresh in the minds on NHS staff. Operations cancelled, queues outside A&E, and people waiting on trolleys in corridors for treatment. Experts such as the British Medical Association suggest that this is “the new normal”: pressures on the NHS during the summer are set to equal those of winters in years gone by.

Critics of the NHS are quick to use this tough reality to suggest we need a change: “Whatever the National Health Service receives … is never enough.” They contend that a growing population and an ageing society exert pressures on the NHS that make its underlying principles – in particular, care free at the point of need – fundamentally unsustainable.

On the face of it, the interim report of the Lord Darzi Review on the NHS, published yesterday, could be seen to fit this narrative. It finds that the NHS will need year-on-year increases in funding over the next decade, with the overall budget hitting £173bn – up from around £123bn today – by 2030. Even with this level of funding, the NHS would have to become more efficient than it has been so far. That’s a big ask.

But dig a bit deeper and the arguments of the naysayers begin to crumble. They point to insurance-based systems – like those operated in the US and some European countries – as a solution. But the evidence is clear that these alternatives end up costing more money. The reality is that all advanced countries are facing similar pressures on health and care systems, and ours appears to be managing these as well – if not better – than many others.

These same sceptics say that our system is selling us short by failing to deliver the best possible care. But Lord Darzi finds that over the last decade – despite being the most austere period in its history – the quality of care delivered by our health and social care system has improved. Cancer survival rates are up. A stroke or heart attack is less likely to be fatal. People are more satisfied with the social care they receive.

That’s not to say that we can’t do better. But the NHS has demonstrated that it is a proposition worth sticking with. It is a fundamental error of logic to say that something is unaffordable, so we should move to something more expensive. Likewise, it is surely flawed to argue that the NHS is failing to deliver good enough outcomes, so we should starve it of the resources it needs to improve. Instead, we need to reaffirm the founding principles of the NHS.

Rather than asking whether the NHS is sustainable, we should be asking how can we afford not to sustain it. Surely there is no more important investment than in our health. Good health is key to people’s quality of life, and the NHS and social care are important parts of our economy: both services employ millions of people across the UK to ensure that the rest of the country remains healthy for as long as possible, which is crucial for economic growth.

The Darzi review’s message is clear: politicians must stop approaching the NHS and social care system as a liability to be managed, when it is in fact an asset to be invested in. And, crucially, voters seem to agree. Recent polling by the Kings Fund finds that 61% of the public would support a tax rise to fund the NHS, including the majority of Conservative voters. The NHS isn’t yet on life support but it’s heading in that direction. We don’t need more consultation from government, it’s time to just get on with it.

• Harry Quilter-Pinner is director of strategy at SCT, a homelessness and addictions charity in east London. He is also a research fellow at IPPR, the UK’s progressive thinktank. He writes here in a personal capacity