Public opinion on the NHS. Is it all that it seems?

Elliot Bidgood, 18 March 2013

With the recent heightened focus on the issue of care quality and overall standards in the NHS in recent months, it is important to examine whether the public continue to feel that Britain’s health service is “the envy of the world”, as Tony Blair’s first health secretary Frank Dobson thought it should be, and where they stand on the idea of a more pluralistic and European approach to health provision. Public debate has intensified with Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s recent focus on accountability in care and by numerous other stories relating to standards in both the NHS and the social care sector. Based on this, we at Civitas thought it would be worth asking people what they thought.

On this core question the result of ICM was perhaps surprising in a respect, as more than half of people think the NHS is indeed the “envy of the world” despite the poll coming fairly soon after the Mid Staffs report. Some 56% agreed with that description, up from the 51% who said as much when asked the same question in 2008. The public’s attachment to the NHS, despite some of the revelations in the Francis report, appears to remain strong. But there is something else going on here, as our poll demonstrates. Presented with the suggestion that “it should not matter whether hospitals or surgeries are run by the government, not-for-profit organisations or the private sector, provided that everyone including the least well off has access to care”, 83% agreed.

So despite the negative rhetoric in the last three years about the increasing role of private providers within the NHS, the public remain supportive of the use of independent sector provision, so long as access to all is guaranteed. What the public prize about the service seems to be that care is ultimately accessible to all regardless of ability to pay, rather than whether it is provided by NHS organisations, third sector providers or for-profit companies. It is time for politicians to stiffen their spines and challenge the perceived taboo against criticising monopoly provision.

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