Defend Our NHS Wirral' (DONWirral) announced 'The end of the NHS', reporting that in April 2021 the NHS would be replaced by 42 regional 'integrated care systems' (ICS). 1 In June 2021, with the NHS continuing to see patients, do operations and pay staff, DONWirral's prediction was updated: 'In April 2022 our NATIONAL health service will disappear, to be replaced by 42 ''integrated care systems'', each under the accelerating control of giant corporations (including American health insurance companies)'.The death of the NHS as we know it has been predicted for decades, starting with Bevan's fears in 1951 that the NHS would be mutilated by legislation. In the 1997 general election, the Labour Party claimed variously that there were only seven days or -24 hours -left to save the NHS. 2 Imminent death was also forecast in 2001, in 2012 with the Health & Social Care Act, and during the 2015 general election when Labour claimed that the NHS would become 'unrecognisable' if the Conservatives won; they did and it didn't. An entire industry has been built around doom-laden prophecies yet neither death nor mutilation have occurred.When ideas become accepted as facts even though they may not be true, they become factoids. Factoids are assumptions or speculations repeated so often that they are considered true. 3 The imminent demise of the NHS is one such factoid.