'NHS is taking a battering'
Tony Dyer, March 9, 2016
Last Saturday, I
was invited to give a speech at a rally of some 500 people who had turned out
to march against the on-going privatisation of the NHS.
The NHS has taken a
battering under this Tory government. A Conservative Party that had promised no
more “top-down reorganisations” of the NHS had, instead, initiated in 2012
probably the largest top-down reorganisation the NHS has ever seen.
Since then we have
seen the increasing privatisation of parts of the NHS with private companies
making 5-8 per cent profits from the public funding of our health services.
Money that could,
and should, be re-invested back in to the NHS itself for the benefit of all of
us. Instead it is being leeched out of the NHS into the hands of profiteers,
and often spirited away to tax havens to avoid paying the tax that the rest of
us contribute toward a civilised society – a civilised society that includes
properly funded health care, available to all, and free at the point of use.
The impact this
government has had on the NHS is there for all to see; 35,000 jobs lost from
the NHS, 10,000 less hospital beds, 66 A&E or Maternity wards closed or
under threat of closure, one in three NHS Walk-in centres closed or downgraded,
student nurses' bursary abolished forcing them into debt.
And outside the
NHS, the number of people working in health and social care has plummeted by
over 100,000 – almost a third – and as a result even more people are turning to
the NHS with its increasingly stretched and stressed staff. In a single year
alone, visits to hospital increased by 10 per cent.
It is in this
context of over-worked staff and increasing privatisation that we should look
at the junior doctors strike. Jeremy Hunt, probably the worst health minister
this country has ever seen, is not concerned about patient care. If he was, he
would heed the voices of the very people operating at the front-line of patient
care, the junior doctors themselves.
What Jeremy Hunt is
concerned about is making the NHS more palatable to the private healthcare
companies which fund and provide a source of income for so many Tory MPs. This
is a government of private healthcare, by private healthcare, for private
healthcare.
That is why I will
be joining the junior doctors on their picket lines today. And that is also why
many of my Green Party colleagues, and colleagues from the Labour Party will
also be on that picket line.
But it is not just
about the junior doctors' strike. The NHS is under-funded and is faced with a
funding gap of over £20bn a year. When you compare the proportion of GDP spent
on the NHS and compare it with other countries, you find that the UK spends
about eight per cent of its GDP on health services, in Germany the figures is
10.5 per cent, in France 12 per cent, and in the United States, the country
with the most privatised health system in the world, the figure is a whopping
16 per cent!
Despite the
disparities in funding between the UK and the USA, international studies
repeatedly show our NHS topping the tables in terms of the quality of the
services it provides – whilst the US is usually propping up the bottom. And
yet, politicians continue to pursue the course of privatisation that the US has
taken.
How long before
this government forces the NHS down the league table in pursuit of its
obsession with the power of market forces?
The NHS is not a
natural environment for market forces – as a result a series of artificial
internal markets have been created. The cost to the NHS is considerable – about
£4.5bn a year is spent to maintain these artificial markets, with some
estimates rising to £10bn a year. Add to that the profits being taken out of
the NHS by private companies.
This is why we need
to gather support for the NHS Reinstatement Bill which is being presented for
its 2nd reading on Friday by Green Party MP Caroline Lucas. The bill calls for
the health secretary’s direct accountability for providing a comprehensive
health service to be reinstated, ending of the internal market in the NHS and
excluding it from the transatlantic trade deal TTIP.
The bill has been
backed by Labour, Green Party, SNP and Lib Dem MPs, including now-Labour leader
Jeremy Corbyn and shadow chancellor John McDonnell, whilst they were still
back-bench MPs.
MPs often return to
their constituencies on Thursday nights but we need them to stay in London for
Friday, March 11th, to do everything they can to make sure the bill is debated,
and to vote in favour of the Bill so that it proceeds to the next stage.
Please write to
your MP - whatever party she/he belongs to - stating your wish and urging
him/her to back the Bill to bring back our NHS in England.
You can find out who your MP is, how to write your letter and get more
information on the NHS Reinstatement Bill Group’s website: http://www.nhsbill2015.org/
Please help to
ensure that we have a properly funded NHS, free at the point of use, available
to all and paid for by progressive taxation where any savings are reinvested
back into the NHS.
Tony Dyer is the Green Party candidate for Bristol mayor.
acknowledgements to http://www.bristol247.com/ & william quick
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