Senior medics are calling for ministers to introduce charges in the NHS and they are right, argues Herald columnist Alan Simpson.

It was launched on July 5th 1948 by Labour Health Secretary Aneurin Bevan and went on to transform millions of lives across the UK.

The NHS was first recommended in the 1942 cross-party Beveridge Report and the Labour government implemented the principles when it was launched outside Park Hospital in Davyhulme near Manchester.

Of course, a founding principle of the NHS was providing free healthcare at the point of use, one which still exists today some 77 years later.

In the intervening years the basic principle of the NHS has not changed very much except for the annual cost.

It is the second largest single-payer healthcare system in the world after the Brazilian Sistema Unico de Saude.

The budget for NHS England alone is £190billion rising to £246billion in three years while in Scotland, the annual cost this year is £21.7billion.

These are eye-watering sums indeed but is it value for money?

Well increasingly the answer to that is a resounding no and now senior medics are asking politicians to think the previously unthinkable and consider charging to use some NHS services.

A group of senior clinicians has recently said that Scottish ministers must have an honest debate with the public about urgent reorganisation and reform of the health service which include the possibility of charging.

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Medical meltdown........

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