That.The NHS has been undermined by civil service reclalctrance, not by governments. Insisting on excess layers of administrators starves the hospitals of front line staff and any reasonable budget for medical equipment.
The nhs is an inefficient and blundering behemoth. The efforts of the dedicated front line workers stymied time after time by the layer upon layer of recalcitrant and overpaid management that purposely delay, hold up and hinder purely in order to protect their own little mini fiefdoms and ultimately prevent government policy and the needs of the clinicians being implemented.
The problem is not underfunding, the problem is the wastage of adequate funding by management and its total lack of accountability.
And that goes for the civil servant in the department of health too.
I worked in the NHS for many years, under both tory and labour governments. Wasted many hours attenending family practitioner committee meetings and listening to the bleatings of the ashen faced jobsworths as they denied us the facilities to do our jobs properly. Nothing to do with money, all to do with face, bloody mindedness and the wielding of power. The patients come last, thanks to the pen pushers.
The actions of government, both tory and labour are honourable. The actions of the middlemen that lie between whitehall and the coalface, less so.