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We never fully appreciate anything until either it has been taken away from us, or we find out the hard way how valued the service is. When the National Health Service was created, people fought hard to create something that would not only be the envy of the world, but which might inspire other countries, other politicians and leaders, to actually care about their citizens’ health, it has been a long struggle, and in Britain it seems that it is always under threat, targeted by groups of people who wish to see it dismantled and torn apart, delivering medicine and care for a price which many cannot simply afford.

For the vast majority of the nation, the sight of Danny Boyle’s homage to the N.H.S. being given centre stage at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games was one of pride, memories of mothers and aunts, fathers and uncles, sons and daughters who may have been nurses, doctors or other staff, personal visits to accident and emergency, a loved one’s major operation, the care received, all captured in a moment to which we should have been overjoyed at the success of the greatest achievement of British politics in the last 100 years; however we understand deep down, that what it boils down to, this act of faith, is money, our money, not business and like the utilities and the railways, such symbols of the people should always be held by the people, not as brokerage deals for few.

The vast majority love the N.H.S. and rightly so, but few are prepared to put their money where their mouth is and go and work there, even for a month, shadowing, questioning, having their open mind widened further by experiencing it on the front line, the edge of the precipice, few would be willing to witness and question properly, thankfully there is always one who will go down that avenue, and for Mark Thomas: Check Up Our NHS @70 is not just a way to agitate or educate, it is a crusade to remind each one of us exactly what we rely on, from birth to our final breath, we need hope, one that transcends class and the ability to pay over the odds, we need to know we are valued as human beings, as citizens of our country and the will to help others so less fortunate than ourselves.

You would expect nothing less than full commitment from Mark Thomas as he proceeded to show how he spent a month at the front line, a certain sense of war correspondence mixed with the dark humour one needs to survive each day on such a position of life and death, of broken bones, of blood screening, of diseases and exhaustion prevails throughout, the glee of a doctor who tells him all that can now go wrong with his body, the obesity crisis, the mental health of our young, make no mistake, it is a war, a conflict against those that would have us sign away such a privilege, who would use hope against us in terms of making a profit.

Mark Thomas: Check Up Our NHS @70 is the perfect combination of pathos and delight, humour is a great medicine, being treated as a human being without having to worry about where and when the bill will fall is a treatment, prescription we all deserve.

Ian D. Hall