[6 June 2017]
Keep Our NHS Public (KONP) is appealing to everyone not to vote Conservative because if a Conservative government is returned to power it will mean widespread destruction of the NHS [1] that will translate into a new era of almost universal suffering and fear over health. Based on plans which include selling off NHS property [2] and make healthcare another world-traded commodity [3] and which were implemented with NO public consultation or scrutiny by parliament.
The last government CUT funding per person for the NHS and the Tories will keep doing so if given the chance. Ignoring rising demand and presiding over the selling off of the NHS, contract by privately won contract, to more private suppliers. There are also plans to sell off NHS land and estate to private development [2] as services are cut but with no capacity in the community to take over.
The plans behind this destruction, Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs), were developed in secret with no public consultation and are designed to cut services to match hacked budgets, cloaked in the bland deceit of terms like ‘centralisation’ and ‘patient choice’ or ‘community care’. When the reality will be that people will wait more, suffer more, have to travel more – or pay more. This will be about choice of patient – those who can choose to pay – while others languish waiting for the remnants of an NHS that will be little more than a logo for private companies to hide behind.
Dr Tony O’Sullivan is a recently retired NHS consultant paediatrician and is co-chair of Keep Our NHS Public:
“We have countered the untruthfulness of Government statements for years and it has never been more important for people to know the truth.
“The Government has NOT put in more money to the NHS relative to need. NHS funding per person will fall in real terms next year. We have lost 15,000 hospital beds in 7 years – heartlessly they have included cuts of 6000 beds in mental health and learning disabilities; 5000 GP vacancies and 30,000 nurse vacancies.
“If a school gets 20% more pupils but only 3% extra money, then funding has gone up but resources per pupil have gone done. The NHS is similarly suffering a cut in needed funding of over 20%. And billions are wasted on privatising our services.
“Please, we are pleading to people, DO NOT VOTE CONSERVATIVE if you want the NHS to survive.”
[Ends]
Editors’ Notes
[1] Donnelly, L. (2017) ‘NHS told to ‘think the unthinkable’ on cuts and closures’ Daily Telegraph 6 June [online] Available at http://bit.ly/2rZtwwn
[2] Naylor, R. (2017) NHS Property and Estates (The Naylor Review) [online] Available at http://bit.ly/2s4i16x
[3] Player, S. (2017) ‘The truth about Sustainability and Transformation Plans’ London: Socialist Healthcare Association [online] Available at http://bit.ly/2qzqQA9
Keep Our NHS Public was formed in 2005 and has a broad-based, public membership. There are over 75 local groups, and over 30 affiliated organisations plus a national association. It has the explicit aim of countering marketisation *§ and privatisation of the NHS by campaigning for a publicly funded, publicly provided and publicly accountable NHS, available to all on the basis of clinical need. It is opposed to cuts in service which run counter to these principles. Further details: www.keepournhspublic.com
KONP’s Campaigns and Press Officer is Alan Taman:
07870 757 309
Twitter: https://twitter.com/keepnhspublic
Facebook: Keep-Our-NHS-Public
* Davis, J., Lister, J. and Wrigley, D. (2015) NHS For Sale. London: Merlin Press.
Leys, C. and Player, S. (2011) The Plot Against the NHS. Pontypool: Merlin
Lister, J. (2008) The NHS After 60: For Patients or Profits? London: Middlesex University Press
Owen, D. (2014) The Health of the Nation: The NHS in Peril. York: Methuen, Chapter 4.
Player, S. (2013) ‘Ready for market’. In NHS SOS ed by Davis, J. and Tallis, R. London: Oneworld, pp.38-61.
- ‘Competition is always best’ as a governing principle does not work when applied to healthcare. A comprehensive and universal health service is best funded by public donation, which has been shown to be far more efficient overall than private-insurance healthcare models
[Davis, J., Lister, J. and Wrigley, D. (2015) NHS For Sale. London: Merlin Press. Chapters 2 and 8.
Lister, J. (2013) Health Policy Reform: global health versus private profit. Libri: Faringdon.
Pollock, A. and Price, D. (2013) In NHS SOS, ed by Davis, J. and Tallis, R. Oneworld: London, 174.]
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