By Jitendra JOSHIDeeply loved but wracked by crisis, Britain's National Health Service (NHS) on Wednesday marks 75 years since it was founded as the Western world's first universal, free healthcare system. In a secular age, the NHS is the closest thing Britain has to a national religion -- devoutly cherished, with levels of public support higher than the royal family or any other British institution. "The government (ministers), they may use private health care but the ordinary citizen in the UK uses the NHS, relies on the NHS." But the service needs to be modernized via better use of digital technology including artificial intelligence, he said on Friday. "Right now, as a functional, universal public service, the NHS is failing," geriatrics consultant David Oliver wrote in The BMJ, a medical journal.

Source: The Guardian July 04, 2023 12:17 UTC