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Prime Minister Gordon Brown seen through the Dragon's Eye
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Prime Minister Gordon Brown has given his first ever interview to Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Wales's political programme Dragon's Eye (Thursday 3 July, Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ One Wales), to praise the achievement of Aneurin Bevan in founding the National Health Service.
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The PM, who was interviewed in Downing Street by Dragon's Eye presenter Rhun ap Iorwerth, said the NHS was "inspired by the experience of Wales – I think it's really true to say that the NHS was born in the valleys of Wales."
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And in his only full-length television interview on the eve of the NHS's 60 birthday, he insisted the founding principle that underpinned the NHS was still there, despite problems such as finding an NHS dentist in Wales and discussions on paying for "top-up" treatment.
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Mr Brown said: "What Aneurin Bevan pushed forward was that you could share the risk, you could pool the costs and have a healthcare system where everyone, regardless of wealth, could get help based on their need.
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"If you think back to 1948, there was a limited amount of health interventions that a surgeon or a doctor could make.
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"In 2008, if someone has got a very difficult form of cancer or a chronic illness, the cost of treating that illness could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds – in some cases the bill over a number of years could be over a million pounds.
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"And most families, even middle income families as well as lower income families, can't afford that cost.
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"In an age when we have big costs for surgical intervention, a lot more that medicine can do, it's more relevant to have a comprehensive insurance policy, which I believe is the best in the world."
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The Prime Minister said: "What [Bevan] said was, in place of fear [the NHS would] remove avoidable suffering to give people what he called security – he used the word serenity.
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"I think that's what the health service has actually done. You couldn't predict in advance which family was going to suffer but you could insure yourselves against the cost."
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The Prime Minister batted away claims that the NHS had become fragmented because of devolution, as different parts of the UK brought in different health policies.
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He said: "You have to decide your priorities in a devolved system. It's up to the Welsh assembly to make its own position clear.
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"Aneurin Bevan said you take power to give it away. We brought the health service into the public sphere – to give it back to the people.
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"At a local level, more and more the patient will have more say and should have more say."
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Gordon Brown said that despite doubling the expenditure on the NHS since Labour came to power in 1997, there were still problems to be faced.
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But he vowed that more emphasis would be put on prevention and dealing with inequalities of NHS provision into the future.
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But he still believed the success of the NHS over the past 60 years owed everything to the vision of one Welsh man back in 1948.
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He said: "I don't think you can underestimate that the idea that started with Aneurin Bevan and the Welsh miners of the 1920s and 1930s is the idea that inspired 60 years of health advances in this country."
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Gordon Brown is interviewed on Dragon's Eye, Thursday 3 July, Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ One Wales, 10.35pm.
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