Sixty years ago on Saturday Britain’s National Health Service opened for business. It was launched with the glorious aspiration that it should be “comprehensive” and “free” and provide everyone with “equal opportunity to benefit from the best and most up-to-date medical and allied services available”.

It has never quite lived up to that noble ambition. Bits have fallen off the edges. Britons now pay heavily for dentistry, even when they can find it within the NHS. The standard optical service is now a voucher for the poor. In England there is a modest prescription charge. Equal access for all has still not been achieved in reality.