LONDON (AP) — It’s unusual to throw a birthday party for a health care system, but that’s exactly what the U.K. did for the National Health Service, a beloved but increasingly creaky institution that turned 75 on Wednesday.
The date was marked with charity tea parties, royal visits and a service of thanksgiving at London’s Westminster Abbey complete with hymns and prayers. It was a fitting tribute for an institution that is often likened to Britain’s secular religion — though one in which some people are losing faith.
Backlogs, treatment delays, funding gaps and an unhappy workforce have created an increasingly threadbare and overstretched system. Three respected health think tanks warned Wednesday that the NHS is “in critical condition” and won’t make it to 100 without more money and better long-term planning.
Britain’s affection for what politicians call “our NHS” is striking, and at times puzzling, to outsiders. Dancing nurses pushing children on hospital beds formed a key part of the opening ceremony for the 2012 London Olympics, to the bemusement of many non-British viewers.
Founded in a country determined to build a fairer society out of the ruins of World War II, the NHS provides free health care to citizens and residents, funded through taxation.
Its anniversary is also the 75th birthday of Aneira Thomas, the first person born into the new health service, just after midnight on July 5, 1948.
