Welsh valleys created NHS - Brown

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Gordon Brown salutes the south Wales valleys for giving Britain the national health service, as it celebrates 60th anniversary

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has hailed the Welsh valleys as the birthplace of the National Health Service.

Mr Brown said the NHS, which was founded 60 years ago by Ebbw Vale MP Aneurin Bevan, was inspired by the experience of 1930s valleys.

He told BBC Wales that the NHS was "the jewel in the crown of any legislative achievement in the last century".

He also defended devolution's role in letting the Welsh Assembly Government set its own health priorities.

"It was a deliberate decision, a political decision, made by that post-war Labour government and made by a government that was inspired by the experience of Wales," Mr Brown told BBC Wales' Dragon's Eye. "And I think it's true to say that the National Health Service was born in the valleys of Wales."

Mr Brown said it was a result of such experiences as watching nurses running charity flag days to raise money for hospitals, and watching people go without the care they needed.

It was an original idea in our country that people all over the world look at Prime Minister Gordon Brown

That idea, Mr Brown said, was that the country could "share the risk" and "pool the cost" of healthcare, so providing a system where everyone could access healthcare they needed irrespective of wealth.

He said: "It was an original idea in our country that people all over the world look at, and even in America today you see the debate in the presidential election: it's about exactly that.

"One of the big debates is about creating a health service which is available to all."

Life expectancy

When asked why, 60 years since the founding of the NHS, there were still health inequalities in society, Mr Brown said the health service could not be expected to compensate for other problems in society.

But he argued that thanks to the NHS life expectancy had grown substantially.

Mr Brown also noted that it had been at the forefront of "curing some of the most difficult diseases" such as tuberculosis, and of progress in the battle against cancer.

He admitted the NHS could do "a great deal more", for example in helping people address diet, obesity and other conditions caused by social as well as medical factors.

Mr Brown was asked for his response to claims earlier this year by UK Health Minister Ben Bradshaw that devolution had created longer waiting times in Wales.

"You've got to decide your own priorities in a devolved system and it's up to the Welsh assembly to make its own priorities clear," he said.

"In some areas of the country there has been more investment in some things than in others.

"In Wales, of course, eliminating prescription charges or car parking charges has precedence over some other things.

"The whole point of devolution - I'm not going to make a judgement on what Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland does - is that each assembly or parliament makes their own decision".

You can see more on Dragon's Eye on BBC One Wales on Thursday, July 3 at 2235 BST.