(left to right) Michael Foster, Margaret Searle, Nurse and Sheila Adams

The NHS turned 60 on Saturday 5^th July and local MP Michael Foster organised a ‘Birthday Bash’ at the Conquest so local residents, patients and healthcare professionals could enjoy the occasion with Champagne and Birthday Cake.

“I’m very pleased to be here celebrating something so special - a health service available to all based on need - not ability to pay. We should all be incredibly proud of the NHS and the dedicated professionals who look after us when we need care and attention.

“This little birthday party is in honour of our most treasured institution. I’m pleased to have provided the bubbly and I’m grateful to the 1066 bakery for supplying such a wonderful cake” said the MP.

The NHS was born on the 5th of July 1948 after the Labour Government of Clement Attlee passed the National Health Service Act in the teeth of fierce opposition from the Tories and GPs. Since 1997 Labour has tripled investment in the NHS to over £100billion per year – it now employs over 400,000 nurses and 138,000 doctors carrying out nearly 8million operations per year.

Michael Foster said he was impressed by the progress the service had made over the past 11 years “Since becoming MP in 1997 I have been amazed at the real advances made in our NHS, not just in terms of waiting times but thanks to the skill and ingenuity of NHS staff, properly resourced, all manner of new procedures are now available.”

Hastings resident Margaret Searle, whose 60^th Birthday falls in the same week as the NHS, was also at the event “My parents always used to tell me how they simply couldn’t afford to get ill – that they simply didn’t have the money to go to a doctor. Thanks to the NHS no one has to worry about that anymore.”

Retired Nurse Sheila Adams who was working as a young trainee nurse on ‘changeover day’ said how smooth the switch had been “all that happened was that on the 5^th of July 1948 we stopped sending out bills to patients. Soon we started seeing really sick people who had not previously been able to afford treatment. It was truly wonderful they could now see a doctor.”