'At breaking point or already broken?’ – was the question posed by Professor David Hunter (2023) concerning the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) in July 2023. Already struggling with treatment backlogs from over a decade of underfunding, the troubles for our dearly beloved NHS were exacerbated by the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. At the same time, economic inactivity is growing in the UK, with a record high number of people unable to work due to long-term sickness (Powell, 2024).

The UK, therefore, is increasingly sick, and demand for health care and treatment far outstrips the availability of services. But we cannot rely on the NHS to solve this. Important as the NHS is in treating and curing disease when it arises, it is not built to address the underlying factors contributing to the UK’s increasingly sick population.

Can we cure this?

The NHS is premised upon a biomedical approach, designed to identify disease with a view to offering treatment and, hopefully, a cure. However, many of the chronic long-term health conditions affecting the UK population today cannot be ‘cured’ in this simplistic way. In 2023, 36 per cent of working-age people had at least one long-term health condition, whilst nearly two-fifths of those economically inactive due to ill-health reported having five or more health conditions (Office for National Statstics, 2023). These are complex, multifaceted comorbidities. Cuts in preventative public health measures such as health visitors (Institute of Health Visiting, 2023), Sure Start, early years and youth support (Wise, 2021), closures of libraries, playing fields, and swimming pools have also all contributed to a decline in population health and wellbeing (McNally, 2024).

A model of care rooted in biomedicine and a system overwhelmingly designed to treat illness – rather than preventing it in the first place – is inevitably going to struggle. There are, however, other models of care. Models underpinned not by a search for cures, but by a desire to care.

Anyone who has ever looked after a small child will be familiar with the natural human instinct of laying on of hands to soothe an injury. Whether it’s the distraction of a cool or warm hand placed on the hurting site, or the powerful placebo of love and attention, it’s usually a calming thing to do that has some beneficial impact. 

The idea that the human touch can heal is something which stretches right back in time, from Bible stories about Jesus to modern day evangelical faith healing. But did you know that ‘spiritual healing’ isn’t just a religious thing? Across the UK, a number of NHS hospitals now offer ‘therapeutic touch’ or ‘healing’ to alleviate pain and symptoms for chronically ill patients. Patients have reported better sleep and less daily interruption from their symptoms (Soundy et al., 2015).

The popularity of healing (and other hands-on therapies such as Reiki or acupressure), not only amongst spiritually minded people but the wider population as well, is testament to the fact that such therapies often involve more time, care and attention being given to the individual than with standard medical appointments. The basic features of compassion, individual attention, and a genuine sense of being cared for in themselves have beneficial therapeutic impacts (Pierce, 2007).

Research conducted at The Open University revealed that it is not just patients who are choosing the healing touch. Health practitioners too attend weekly healing services at Spiritualist churches, not because they are practicing Spiritualists, but because it makes them feel better and more able to cope in high-pressure roles. Though hands-on healing is a core part of Spiritualism, the whole religion is centred around a healing model of care, with the recognition that for many people, chatting, having a cup of tea, and simply listening are themselves healing acts, providing a sense of community and feeling cared for (Bartolini et al., 2019).

Can we heal the NHS with more care?

The NHS is in dire need of healing, but if it continues to be thought of predominantly in terms of a biomedical curative model, the potential contribution of other models of care will be overlooked. These models could supplement and enhance clinical care, and even prevent progression of some chronic conditions.

The unspoken subtext in any medical encounter is, fundamentally, the desire for it to be healing on some level, not simply curative, or treatment-based, but for it to have at its heart a sense of having been cared for. Is this what is missing in our cash-strapped, time-poor NHS?