Happy Birthday National Health Service - 60 Years Old Today

The British National Health Service (NHS) is 60 years old today.

As a major party of the welfare state established after the Second World War it has been a great achievement to continue to give unrestricted access to healthcare, free at the point of access, to everyone.

I still think the principle of public service is relevant to the 21st century. It inspires people to give their careers to an institution that is different and part of the wider public sphere. In an increasingly commoditised era, it is essential to retain these values and also our connections to our past.

I am very proud to be a small part of the NHS as a non-executive director of Bexley Care Trust.

It is when I work abroad that I most become aware of how unique the NHS is. Having just returned from Switzerland where you have to pay for your own private health insurance it helps me remember that this is the norm in most parts of the world.

How did I celebrate the birthday? Well we had some young people spend the day with us to explore the local history of the NHS in south east London. And then we worked with them to look at ways young people and other service users can participate in modern day health commissioning. They will be coming back to us for three days in later July to design a young person's council and do some real commissioning. Exciting stuff.

Here is the link to the story on the BBC website

Participation and Citizenship - Contributions from Political Economy

Whilst reading around issues of the media and political economy I came across this very interesting definition of citizenship from the works of Murdock (1999 and 2005 - no, not the Australia chap) on the political economy of communication.

He defines citizenship as "...the right to participate fully in social life and to help shape the forms it might it take in the future..."

To make this a reality Murdock (quoted in Murdock and Golding, 2005, pp.65-66) argues that people need access to a range of communicative resources that support participation including:

1. Access to information, advice, and analysis that enables them to know their rights and to pursue them effectively

2. Access to the broadest possible range of interpretation and debate on areas that involve political choices

3. The right to have one's experiences, beliefs and aspirations represented without distortion or stereotyping

4. The right to participate in public culture by speaking in one's own voice - registering dissent and proposing alternatives

I think this is a really useful model that could be adapted to many different dimensions of communication and participation. It resonates with my own feelings about the value of peoples life stories and experiences and the expertise they have in living their own lives in their local communities.

How well does our local community measure up to these four points? What do we need to do to get closer to these standards?

Communication is a vital part of making participation real - I think the focus on difference and the possibilities of appreciating and valuing dissent and alternative viewpoints is really powerful.

It is also a real challenge to the limited range of views that are usually portrayed in the media and in organisational communication.

How do we make communication a part of the participatory process and not a tool of limited interests or groups?

I think that face-to-face (or situated) communication still retains a lot of power and is something we need to do more of. It is when people are able to engage directly, build rapport and trust, and work together to understand and appreciate each other that participation becomes something active and life changing.

So how do we build more face-to-face communication in this increasing fragmented society? And what is the role of social networking including its limits?

Reference: Murdock, G. & Golding, P. (2005) Culture, Communications and Political Economy in Curran, J. and Gurevitch, M. (2005) Mass Media and Society. Hodder Arnold: London