Well ever since Thatcher i get the impression that the UK has been trying to dismantle the NHS. Supposedly one of the first things done in Scotland after getting more internal autonomy was to reverse the changes from back then.
There's a lot of talk about privatisation of the NHS, but personally I'm really not ideologically attached to the idea of a state-owned health service provided coverage is still universal and free at the point of use.
We see a lot of private provision via the NHS (NHS patients going into private hospitals) in mental healthcare, and it's almost all lousy. (Even worse than the NHS MH care, and that's saying something.)
When you have 1 million patient contacts every 36 hours the gap between "good enough" and "good" is a lot of people and a lot of harm.