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Sometimes a single idea can sum up a whole nation. For Britain, for all of us - it is the National Health Service.

The NHS - 70 years old next month - is compassion in action.

It is care with a human face, solidarity writ large and sympathy woven into the fabric of this land.

Here, we have made a patriotic and encompassing decision, supported by the overwhelming majority, to pool our resources and share the costs and miracles of health care.

All of us have experience of the NHS - of parents and grandparents cared for in their last days; of children saved because of the skills of midwives in childbirth; of men and women suffering previously inoperable and once-untreatable conditions now restored to fine health.

And in my own case - a young man aged 16, threatened with blindness because of an injury at rugby - whose sight was restored by the pioneering new techniques of a brilliant surgeon Hector Chawla - after three previous operations had failed.

The NHS certainly saved me and has saved someone in almost every family I know - now, I say it is time for all of us to come together and save the NHS.

Yes it has its critics but who would now return to a world where nurses had to leave the beds of patients and run charity flag days to raise funds for life saving equipment?

Who would revert to a time where the strongest and most brave of men and women were in fear of going to the doctor not because of their pain but because they could not afford the fees - a time when being sick too often meant becoming poor, too?

And who would relish the throwback to a society where a doctor would check your wallet before he checked your pulse and where being sick would make you feel fearful and alone with no guarantee anyone was there to help at the time when you most needed help?

On Monday, July 5, 1948, the NHS began working and transformed Britain. Today it is so much more than a local hospital, a local health centre or a local GP surgery.

You quickly understand its reach and its power when people talk about OUR hospital, OUR health centre and OUR GP surgery.

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It is the one place in Britain where you can go for help and it’s not the money you possess that matters but the need you have that counts.

It’s the one place where you cannot buy your way into getting to the top of the queue and it’s the one place where no matter how poor you are, you have exactly the same rights as the richest person in the country.

But, a bit like a patient at 70 years old, the NHS is at greater risk. Indeed, today it is in mortal danger.

It is £20billion short, will soon be £40billion short a year and will have to raise an extra £95billion by the 2030s.

By 2033−34 there will be 4.4 million over-65s and 1.3million over-85s; if it is to meet demographic pressures, technological needs and social care requirements.

Exactly 16 years ago we found a way to refinance the NHS with the biggest single tax rise raising £9billion a year from a 1p rise in national insurance allowing us to employ 30,000 more doctors 80,000 more nurses and the biggest hospital building programme ever.

Now in 2018, after eight years of austerity we must refinance the NHS again.

The maintenance backlog for hospitals is now more than £5billion.

Most worryingly, £3billion of this backlog presents a significant risk, related to clinical services and safety, so we cannot continue to meet current staffing needs by scything the capital budget.

Research conducted at 30 trusts by the health services management centre at Birmingham University and funded by the Health Foundation - shows major warning signs.

Ambulances are breaking down because they have been kept in service for too long, old scanners and archaic IT systems are being used with greater likelihood of errors and many hospitals in need of upgrades have had to scrap plans to bring in even the most basic electronic scheduling of operations.

There is a chronic shortage of nurses because of the almost impossible demands placed on too many loyal and dedicated staff who have reached breaking point.

There is also an alarming shortage of GPs with so many retiring and not now being replaced.

Add to that a dearth of surgeons and consultants as we threaten to restrict entry of trained staff into the country. The next decade is critical.

How 1p extra on National Insurance could fund the NHS An extra £11billion a year could transform the service you receive from the NHS. Around £1billion would fund the cost of nearly 40,000 new nurses for a year, while the same amount would pay for 167,000 hip replacements or 1,117 MRI scanners. That figure could also erase the £960million deficit racked up by NHS hospital trusts in England in 2017/2018. For £10billion, the NHS could pay for 20 new flagship hospitals or that would double the mental health care budget. Alternatively, you could use some of the money to cover the £534million saved by scrapping bursaries for student nurses. The Government could spend some of the money, £2.5billion a year, on plugging the gap in social care funding. How much more would you pay? Polls have shown people are willing to pay more in taxes to fund the NHS. But do they know how much more they would pay with a 1p rise in the 12% rate of National Insurance contributions? Accountants Blick Rothenberg says such an increase in the main and upper rates of NICs would see someone on £12,500 pay £40.76 more per year. This would increase to £165.76 for someone earning £25,000 a year, while someone earning £40,000 a year would pay an extra £315.76 a year. Anyone on £46,350-plus, the top rate of income tax, pays 1% on their salary in NICs. So someone earning £100,000 a year will pay £1,000 more and someone on £300,000 will pay £3,000 a year more.

One survey estimates we will need 70,000 more doctors and 170,000 more nurses by the 2030s and with technologies, new procedures, new methods of treatment, new prescription drugs, rising mental health issues and people simply living longer means the list of challenges is growing.

It’s difficult at any time to persuade people of the need for a tax rise but to refinance the NHS before it breaks down, it is better to have a tax rise now than an even bigger tax rise later.

At the last election the Labour Party proposed a boost to the NHS from higher payments by our richest five per cent.

One option would be to repeat the 1p rise in national insurance, announced in 2002, which in 2019 would raise £11billion.

With the NHS set to become even more important in the days, months and years ahead, the values and principles upon which it was founded in 1948 remain and are now more necessary than ever.

Ultimately, what really matters is that the NHS is always there for every one of us when we need it.