Nye Bevan wanted the NHS to be there for us all "in place of fear". Thomas has set out to look at the state of Bevan's creation 70 years on from it's genesis. He's clearly spent a lot of time researching for this show, shadowing staff in hospitals, interviewing health experts and ex health ministers, accumulating the evidence that the fear may now be returning.
PFI debts, competitive tendering and the resulting privatisation of services, the massive loss of experienced staff in the face of the threat to leave the EU, the underfunding and cutting of other public health services, and a consistent pattern of government financial cuts has reduced the NHS to a state which is not allowing it to do the job it was designed for. (Thomas does make the point that things are a bit better here in Scotland, but all his research was conducted on London services.)
This could easily be dry stuff, but Thomas is very much the entertainer and there are plenty of laughs throughout. The show moves at a rapid pace, with Mark's traditional motormouth monologues mixed up with impressions of people he's interviewed (notably a GP who spent a long time telling him all the things he might die of....) and AV clips of others he's talked to. Most memorably Frank Dobson, Blair's first Health Secretary, admitting that PFI was his greatest mistake.
Thomas is rightly fierce in his defence of the concept of universal health care system and in his criticism of those who have sought to weaken it, looking to monetise the care and treatments that should be ours by right. This is an important show, a must-see show, brilliant in many respects, but also saddening to see what is being done to such an important institution. Highly recommended.
Mark Thomas - Check Up : The NHS at 70 is in the Traverse at 22.00 until 26 August.
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