AH, Captain Tom. Last April, just after completing the hundredth lap of his garden, the sprightly veteran of the Burma campaign, who until days before had been living in obscurity, found himself called upon to deliver a message to Britain at the peak of its anxiety. In words that were reminiscent of the most famous song of World War Two, We’ll Meet Again, he reassured those finding life a struggle that "the sun will shine on you again, and the clouds will go away". He was a grandfather offering comfort and hope, and wow, what a response he got.

When news of his death broke, very many people felt the loss. Zoom meetings were interrupted as colleagues shared the news, deadlines were forgotten and homeschooling parents lost their focus.

In this house, I went through to tell my husband. He’d already seen the story and we stood in silence together reading the screen. We’d never really talked to one another about Capt Tom Moore before but I was moved almost to tears to read of the frail centenarian who had radiated such optimism and fortitude, succumbing to the very illness he had tried to help the NHS overcome. Extraordinary, that the death of a man in his 101st year can seem so premature.

READ MORE: Obituary: Captain Sir Tom Moore, who showed quiet fortitude in the face of the pandemic

There are very few public figures in the UK who are held in affection and respect across the lines of party and class, but it’s striking how that distinction so often falls on those in their very old age, such as Capt Tom or Sir David Attenborough.

It may be because these individuals are seen as being above politics, but is also, I suspect, because they are of the unshowy wartime generation, a breed raised on the maxim “don’t make a fuss”.

In the current shouty, narcissistic age, when every opinion and experience is on display, the understated dignity of those who subordinate themselves to a cause, shows a different way. Capt Tom, stoical, modest, measured and kind, fundraising cheerfully for the NHS, represented a mode of behaviour that many of us associate with our parents and grandparents. With his passing, something precious has been lost.

Should he be commemorated with a statue? Why not; our towns and cities are littered with stone tributes to much less worthy figures.

But there is a more meaningful tribute we could pay, not just to Capt Tom but to the tens of thousands of others who have died in this pandemic. It would be to reckon with our long-term failure to tackle problems in the NHS, made worse by austerity. One way might be to establish a commission to consider new approaches so that the NHS never again enters a crisis in such an overstretched state. We need one for Scotland, certainly, but I would argue the same should go for each of the nations of the UK, given the interconnectedness of the public finances.

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If we're not prepared to face those questions now, then how bad do things need to get for us to do so?

The good news is that there are signs resolve is hardening about the need to tackle long-standing inadequacies in health and social care. This week, the independent review of Scotland’s adult social care sector recommended that a National Care Service be created to be on the same footing as the NHS. This does not amount to nationalising social care (though the review notes its unease at a significant part of the care sector being run on a profit-making basis) but means having it managed under one umbrella, to make sure people are getting equitable access to good quality services wherever they live.

It follows years of glacially slow progress on health and social care integration in a number of places and heightened scrutiny of care homes during the pandemic. Critically, it envisages more public funding being ploughed into social care, with one effect being to make it free at the point of need like health care, with only accommodation costs to be covered separately. Let’s see what ministers make of it.

But we can’t look at one aspect of the system in isolation. The NHS is set to devour £16bn of the Scottish Government’s latest budget, a record sum. In many ways, it is fortunate compared to other areas of the public sector, with its budget having been protected and increased over successive years while the squeeze has been on elsewhere.

And there have been improvements, such as using digital technology to consult a GP. Everyone is trying their best, including politicians and civil servants; no one wants the NHS to fail. But there is no escaping the difficulties it still faces.

Prior to the pandemic, in autumn 2019, Scotland was wrestling with its greatest ever number of nursing vacancies, at over 4,000. Consultant posts were going unfilled. Delayed discharge, which improved social care provision was supposed to tackle, amounted to 542,000 bed days in 2019/20.

A lack of capacity – specialists, appointments, social care provision – was causing problems throughout the system, with staff at all levels prioritising the most urgent cases and hoping the dam would hold. The health service, as one GP put it to me six weeks before lockdown, was like a badly maintained car: “Every day you’re more likely to get a problem and finally, you get a catastrophic breakdown.”

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Post pandemic, the health service must also cope with the backlogs.

It’s depressing this endless mantra, God knows it is, particularly with NHS funding growing like an inkblot, subsuming budget that’s needed elsewhere.

But money is only part of the problem. Planning in advance so there are enough trained staff coming through to fill posts, longer term financial planning to improve efficiency and speedier integration of health and social care – it can all help.

And we need honesty from politicians. Having “record” numbers of doctors and nurses sounds great until you realise there still aren’t enough.

We have to do better. We just have to.

The front line in this pandemic has run through hospital wards, care homes and people’s houses. Covid has claimed the lives of 6,322 Scots and more than 100,000 people across the UK, including Capt Sir Tom Moore. Let’s give him a statue but let’s also try, once and for all, to sort out the NHS.

Our columns are a platform for writers to express their opinions. They do not necessarily represent the views of The Herald.