In your special supplement marking 70 years of the National Health Service (23 May), the article on the advances that have helped the NHS along the way missed an extremely important point. The NHS has been of huge benefit to the UK population but its skills, innovations and associated research have hugely helped medicine worldwide.
You mention scanners (CT, MRI, ultrasound), all invented and developed in the UK in association with the health service. But what about joint surgery, modern cataract surgery, the idea of drug combinations to treat cancer (chemotherapy)? The Medical Research Council with Sir Peter Medawar laid the foundations for controlling organ rejection and the basis of most modern anti-cancer drugs. The list goes on: the health risks of smoking (the most important public health finding of the last 60 years); palliative care; the British birth cohort studies system – the only one in the world that can produce true health statistics for an entire population.
All this was achieved in the public sector with public money, and with no thought of monetary gain or profit – a fact missed by the privatisation free-marketeers.
Dr Peter Estcourt
South Chailey, East Sussex
• The brief timeline of the history of the NHS in your special supplement gives no mention to the Highlands and Islands Medical Service, established in 1913 to cater for the needs of people remote from centres of medical care. This scheme was an important influence on the subsequent development of the NHS as the HIMS came to include all the elements of the comprehensive medical service for every citizen covering all treatment.
Dr Kenneth Macaulay
Dunfermline, Fife
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