The good, the bad, and the ugly of England's universal health-care system

The NHS may have saved my son's life. It also left me emotionally traumatized.

A sign.
(Image credit: ANDREW WALTERS / Alamy Stock Photo)

The fire alarm in our hospital room is blaring. Despite our attempts to stifle the sound with a towel, it is deafening. My husband sits on one side of our room in a stiff vinyl chair cradling our newborn baby boy in his lap, cupping his tiny ears to protect them from the noise, which has been unrelenting for 10 minutes now. He is weary. I am weary. This is our sixth day in a London hospital, and the third consecutive day of fire alarm "testing" on the postnatal ward to which we've been assigned. Babies are screaming. Haggard, sleep-deprived new parents like us are losing their minds. But in the hall, the medical staff march on, unfazed. They smile at one another, make small talk, and generally ignore their patients' complaints. To them, this living hell is normal. It's just another day in a National Health Service hospital.

The National Health Service, or NHS, is the United Kingdom's public universal health system. It was established in 1948 after World War II, and has since grown to become a massive operation: The NHS sees a million patients every day. It employs 1.7 million people, which makes it the fifth biggest employer in the entire world. And of course, it is free at the point of use for U.K. residents. If you walk into an NHS hospital with a broken arm, you'll walk out with a cast, a few x-rays, and zero bills to pay. That's because people who live in the U.K., myself included, contribute to the NHS through taxes and national insurance payments (the U.K.'s version of Social Security).

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Jessica Hullinger

Jessica Hullinger is a writer and former deputy editor of The Week Digital. Originally from the American Midwest, she completed a degree in journalism at Indiana University Bloomington before relocating to New York City, where she pursued a career in media. After joining The Week as an intern in 2010, she served as the title’s audience development manager, senior editor and deputy editor, as well as a regular guest on “The Week Unwrapped” podcast. Her writing has featured in other publications including Popular Science, Fast Company, Fortune, and Self magazine, and she loves covering science and climate-related issues.