The number 10 spokesperson (and by extension, Sunak) is talking rubbish. The NHS blatantly doesn’t have the funding it needs – nothing could be more obvious – it has been underfunded for years. And while covid is adding unusual pressures, along with the usual winter pressures, the long-term underfunding is the major cause of both the immediate crisis and the long-term issues.
A and E and the ambulance service is a disaster, it has been bad and getting worse for years – there is no excuse for the government letting it get to this state, it is not a surprise. The underfunding has lead to lack of capacity, lack of staff, enormous backlogs, 300-500 unnecessary deaths A WEEK, lack of investment in preventative care, lack of capital investment, the list goes on.
The government has failed to recruit and retain doctors and nurses over many years. They stupidly got rid of the bursaries for nurses, making nursing less attractive (indeed impossible for some). They messed with NHS pensions, making a career in the NHS less attractive. We now have a staffing crisis in the NHS in many areas. Tens of thousands of unfilled positions, leading to inadequate staffing in departments throughout the service. Inevitably, quality of care suffers.
Yes, we have an ageing population requiring more care. But these people have paid taxes for decades, on the understanding that when they reach old age, their half-century of work (!) will be respected and the system will pay them back through necessary health and social care. This has been a major part of the UK’s social contract since 1948 and the current bunch of ideological idiots have no right to tear it up. Especially as their ideology and economics is such garbage. The government is a disgrace, as is it’s local representatives. They deserve no sympathy, pity, or, frankly, politeness, for the shocking state they have reduced healthcare to. The government and the entire modern tory party is a shambles and a disgrace.
And then they lie and dissemble. They talk of “record investment” endlessly – but in real terms it’s cuts and underfunding year after year after year..
And they’re rubbish at just about everything else as well!
David Stakes 