I will just say though, before clocking off for now, that our system is by no means perfect, and I really cannot stress that enough. We Brits may have a bit of a gloat about it, but at the end of the day there are some pretty big problems facing it at the moment, and a lot of it is down to mismanagement and funding shortages...not to mention the potential for staff shortages post-Brexit (depending on what particular flavour Brexit we get).
That being said, I think that it is a part of the British national identity and if anyone made an overt attempt to privatize it, or attempt to implement some form of fee at the point of service there would be a large uproar over it.
