Patriotic Devotion to the NHS Hurts Both Patients and Staff

A new poll for NHS Charities Together – the organisation that Captain Sir Tom Moore raised almost £33 million for – found that two-thirds of the British public say that the hard work of healthcare staff during the coronavirus pandemic makes them ‘proud to be British.’

This is unique. While doctors and nurses are almost universally lauded professions, Britain stands out for the emotional baggage it attaches to the NHS. It is one of the few countries in the world which ties its national identity so closely to its healthcare system.

Such patriotic devotion is not always productive. It can limit important criticism. Under these pandemic conditions, devotion to the NHS has muted frank discussion about the service’s limitations. Staying home to protect the NHS is, after all, a bizarre inversion of the normal everyday realities of healthcare services. Shouldn’t the NHS protect us? Isn’t the backlog of cases, now estimated to take five years to clear, a sign of dysfunction?