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Save our NHS!

Disaster-looms-for-NHS_large-e1308062563878The crisis in the NHS has reached a new level in recent weeks, yet Teresa May and Jeremy Hunt are burying their head in the sand, even criticising the Red Cross for declaring a ‘humanitarian crisis’ in the NHS, with the Prime Minister saying the claims were “irresponsible.”

As Labour activists, we need to be clear that this Government has helped to create the crisis in the NHS, which is facing the biggest financial squeeze in its history, and by 2018 NHS spending per head will be falling.

The government is driving through £22 billion in cuts by 2020 and the NHS is already short of 50,000 front-line staff. Hospitals are underfunded, social care has collapsed, which puts more pressure on hospitals, staff are overworked and conditions are deteriorating.

Yet the Tories refused to find a single penny of extra cash for the NHS or social care in this winter’s Autumn Statement. And the Government are pushing through Corporation Tax cuts worth almost £15 billion by 2021 – the equivalent to the cost of employing 12,000 nurses, full-time, every year, for a decade.

The Government’s drive to privatise the NHS – following on from the disastrous and unpopular Health and Social Care Act – will only make this situation worse. But there is an alternative. Jeremy Corbyn has pledged Labour to secure our NHS and social care, committing that “We will end health service privatisation and bring services into a secure, publicly-provided NHS. We will integrate the NHS and social care for older and disabled people, funding dignity across the board and ensure parity for mental health services.”

Labour has been running #CareforOurNHS campaign days across the country, helping take this message to voters across the country on the doorstep. Whilst it is undoubtedly the case that the election of a Labour Government is crucial to saving the NHS, we can’t wait until 2020 – we must take action now to defend our NHS or risk losing it forever.

Please join with the Labour Assembly Against Austerity and the People’s Assembly Against Austerity in the growing movement to save the NHS from destruction, including through signing the Open letter supporting the Labour section on the #OurNHS National Demonstration on 4 March, and of course joining the march itself!

3 Comments

  1. John Walsh says:

    #wasthisintendedforFacebookandgotpublishedherebymistake?

  2. Mervyn Hyde says:

    Just in case people swallow the argument that we have suddenly been swamped with elderly people living too long causing increased demand, we can nail that lie, because it is the government reducing bed capacity that is responsible.

    This is a survey that we in Gloucestershire have undertaken of the hospitals closed over the last 20-30 years and where some have been replaced with new build, that new was only half the original capacity of the previous hospital.

    This is the list of hospital closures in Gloucestershire, but don’t think that this only applies to us, your areas have suffered the same fate for the same reasons:

    Hospital Closures, Gloucestershire area

    Hospital Name Type Comments
    Gloucester
    Over Hospital Closed 1991
    Horton Road Mental Transferred to Wotton Lawn – reduced capacity
    Manor House Nursing Home Closed 1977
    Coney Hill
    Mental Closed 1995
    Trans to Wotton Lawn – reduced capacity
    Maternity Rebuilt: planned 4 floors, 3 built
    Cirencester
    Maternity Closed 1975
    Watermoor Geriatric Closed 1975

    Berkeley Transferred to Dursley – equal capacity
    Bourton-on-the-Water Geriatric Closed – downgraded to clinic 2014
    Moreton in Marsh Community Replaced – reduced capacity

    Cheltenham
    Battledown Paediatric Closed 2006
    Maternity Closed 1982
    Delancey Geriatric Closed 2011
    Salterley Grange Chest Closed 1970
    St Paul’s Maternity Closed 1982

    Tewkesbury
    Holm Geriatric Closed 1980
    Tewkesbury Community Replaced 2013 much reduced capacity

    Stroud
    Cashes Green Geriatric Transferred to Stroud – reduced capacity
    St Mary’s, Painswick Mental/Geriatric? Closed 2001?
    Standish Closed 2004

    Winchcombe Cottage Closed

    Regional
    Frenchay, Bristol Acute Trans to Southmead 2014 – reduced capacity
    St Margaret’s, Swindon Acute Trans to Gt Western 2002 – reduced capacity

    New Community Hospital planned for Holly House, Gloucester November 2010, following the planned closure of beds in the acute hospitals, not realised.
    There are now no community hospitals, or hospital rehabilitation beds in either of the two major towns in Gloucestershire and District Nurse numbers have been cut by 40%.

    38 Degrees, Gloucestershire 2015 (revised 6-2-15)

    This is also a must see video where Professor Tallis destroys every illusion that this down to aging population. Please watch it and see how we have been betrayed by people like Alan Milburn, you need to see it all the way through to see what I mean.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oygl72LW26g

    His view of the NHS is just another industry is Neo-Liberal language for further privatisation.

    Finally this international OECD data sheet proves that the NHS the cheapest, most efficient, most comprehensive in the world, and this sheet was produced before Alan Milburn introduced the private sector into the NHS.

    http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/23/3/10/T1.expansion

    Lastly, if we are told we can’t afford the NHS, we need to ask, if we could afford to bail out the banking system to the tune of £375 Billion, then we should all know that we can afford our NHS and the rest of our public services, unless of course our sole aim is to privatise our public services.

  3. Bazza says:

    Yes The Tories as the Neo-Liberal Capitalist Champions PRETEND to rule for working people but things like Austerity were never meant for their class.
    The first things they did (with the Tory 2nd x1 – The Lib Dems) was to give tax cuts to millionaires & corporations, private landlords with multiple properties and later tax cuts for hedge funds of £145m (who gave the Tories £50m) but the Tories and the rich and powerful have used working people all their lives.
    And like their treatment re the NHS and adult social care, older working people are now surplus to their requirements but but not to us on the left!
    Oh and a significant number of Tory MPs including Hunt have private healthcare interests!
    As Jeremy Corbyn has said the Tories have found £70b for the rich between now and 2020 – so scrap stuffing the rich mouths with gold and give it to the NHS and Adult Social Care.
    Then regularly seriously tax the rich, corporations, have a financial transaction tax and use windfall taxes on big business when needed.
    And take pharmaceuticals into democratic public ownership – would save the NHS billions!

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