The coronavirus pandemic means that the NHS, and the country, has been through a year like no other. It has been an extremely challenging time for the NHS, and the country as a whole, but also a year of hope.

The birthday present the NHS deserves is a fair pay rise not a real terms pay cut for health care workers.

73 years ago today, Labour created the NHS. This meant, for the first time in UK history, that healthcare would be free of charge to all who needed it. This fundamental principle should remain as important today as it did then.

Let’s celebrate the NHS’s 73rd birthday and hope we still have an NHS to celebrate after the Tories incrementally strip it out and sell it off.

Labour in power will always protect the NHS.