Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	73/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
BBC Music	favourable
Clash	4/10
Daily Star	8/10
The Fly
The Guardian
The Independent
musicOMH
NME	8/10
This Is Fake DIY	5/10

The National Health is the fourth studio album by English indie rock band Maxïmo Park. It was released in the United Kingdom on 11 June 2012 by V2 Records. The album was the first by the band to feature a title track. The one-minute opening track, a ballad with piano and strings, has been noted by the band as a deliberate move to disorientate the listener (previous albums have all begun with a fast-paced track, like the title track, The National Health).

The first single released from the album was "Hips And Lips" in June 2012, The album is driven by Smith's increasingly frantic mayday call: "England is sick and I'm a casualty … the daily grind, the moral wealth – a portrait of the national health!" he screeches. The song joined BBC Radio 1's 'C' list, but only reached No171 in the UK Charts. This could be simply to do with decline in popularity of Guitar Music and Indie Rock in the late 2000s and early 2010s.

"The Undercurrents" was the 2nd single released from the album in August 2012.

It received mainly positive reviews, The Guardian gave it 4 stars out of 5 calling it "energised and good fun".

NME rated it 8 out of 10, saying "The National Health', you see, is a fully ticked-off shopping list of everything that's unashamedly ace about this band, and it's all been bought from Waitrose – a change from the Tesco Value offerings of 2007's 'Our Earthly Pleasures’ and 2009's 'Quicken The Heart'. Maxïmo Park take themselves so seriously, and every song strives for heads-down greatness. 'The Undercurrents’ is the one moment they achieve it, transcending everything around it (including Smith's slightly clunky "I won't forget the way you forgive me" hook). It builds, storm-like, into something that might protrude proudly from a catalogue of the Bunnymen, of The Verve, of latter-day Manics, of any Great British Band aware that they are indeed a Great British Band. Maxïmo Park obviously aren’t, but for these brief moments the possibilities are there. It's the peak."

All lyrics by Paul Smith, all music by Duncan Lloyd, except where noted.

– Limited Deluxe Edition with additional 4-Track-Bonus-EP:

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