And, of course, the labour party isn’t trying to privatise the NHS, is it?
NuLab have done some very damaging things to the NHS – the extra investment (after years of underfunding) was welcome, but some of it was very badly spent. They screwed up GP OOH cover and hospital Consultant contracts, partly because they didn’t grasp/believe how hard many of ’em actually worked. They utterly screwed up medical training with MMC and MTAS – ask any rookie surgeon about getting in their “flying time”. They have seen an exodus of experienced and demoralised staff nurses leave for sunnier climates. **** PFI has been an outrageously expensive disaster, and was forced through despite prescient opposition from just about everybody at the coalface. When the local A+E is struggling to provide a bed for granny, just remember that the Trust is probably locked into paying thru’ the nose for a shoddy newbuild with leaking drains for the next thirty years (and mmm, providing lovely income streams for PFI consortia via refinancing deals). They hired management con.sultants and big firm accountancy wonks to help divvy up assets and cherrypick elective work (e.g. ISTCs paid over the odds for a lower volume of less complex work), even as elderly patients with C.Diff were crated up on understaffed, overstretched wards. They continued the Tory policy of outsourcing cleaning to the lowest bidder. They are happy for anciliary and back-up services to be run into the ground – be it the porters or the path labs. They have overseen a decrease in medical cover at nights and on weekends. They have reduced acute capacity to the point that many hospitals are now running at 100% – so there’s no precious slack in the system, which makes a nonsense of infection control. They have done little to address the absurd nurse/patient ratios on general wards (any more than 6 pts per RN = decrease in patient survival, believe it). They are desperate to sell off Primary Care to large corporate interests (e.g. UnitedHealthcare – who are jonesin’ for taxpayer-funded contracts). They spouted fatuous nonsense about [pseudo] “choice” in healthcare, when most people just want local, accessible services. They tried to bludgeon in market forces where they just don’t work (i.e. stuff like “Payment By Results” – which is **** nonsense in, say, major trauma or paediatric intensive care). They have continued to neglect Elderly Care – just as the WWII generation need our help (something that the dalek/demented headmistress & ex Health Minister Patsy Hewitt would do well to reflect upon, now that she “advises” the likes of Cinven[/url] on how to make money out of the NHS). Most of all, they have wasted goodwill – perhaps the greatest asset of them all. In short, the Tories won’t have to do that much to finish off the NHS.
My view: make any incoming health minister don scrubs at least once a week and work as an auxiliary nurse. Having to feed and wash actual patients would do wonders to remind the bastard politicians of their responsibilities. I won’t defend “the system” where there are problems, and I acknowledge the huuuuge challenge that is healthcare funding – but when it’s good, the NHS is very, very good (I hath seen it with mine own eyes). Don’t let it slip away.
And breathe – sorry for block-of-text-rant.
