Letter: We all need to act now to save our NHS and here's how

OnTheWight always welcomes a Letter to the Editor to share with our readers – unsurprisingly they don’t always reflect the views of this publication. If you have something you’d like to share, get in touch and of course, your considered comments are welcome below.

This from Maggie Nelmes, Ventnor. Ed

Time is running out to stop the Health and Care Bill, but we still have a chance. The Bill is now being debated in the House of Lords, and the many members not affiliated to a political party could be open to persuasion.

Below are details of two campaigns, just launched, that everyone is invited to take part in. Just go to the Websites of the organisations I mention and sign up for mailings.

Just Treatment
I have just sent hand-written letters to several members of the Lords, a campaign orchestrated by online organisation Just Treatment. It is fun and interesting to do. You spin a wheel and it stops on the name of a lord or baroness.

You scan their online biography, speeches or voting record for any interest in the NHS, support for welfare charities, etc. to personalise your letter. If you don’t like their politics, you can spin the wheel again.

Just Treatment suggests your letter’s layout and content, and how to address your lord, asks you to write in your own words, and advises you to include a paragraph about why the NHS is important to you.

Widespread concerns about the impact of the Health and Care Bill are as follows:

Representatives of private companies will be allowed to sit on regional healthcare boards and, with limited funds allocated, can influence decisions as to which treatments will receive funding and which will not. Many patients will have to go private, or suffer, untreated, if they cannot afford to pay. Insurance companies in the United States will not fund very expensive or long-term treatments. It is those on low incomes who will suffer the most.
Central government will have greater control than local communities over how the NHS is run. This will enable government to make changes with which staff and patients disagree.
By removing the requirement for transparent tender processes, there will be no scrutiny of the awarding of NHS contracts to private companies. The Government allegedly took advantage of the pandemic to award contracts for test and trace and PPE supply to inexperienced cronies, wasting public money, which a judge has ruled illegal. See below. This would no longer be illegal under the H&C Bill.
The new regional boards will set NHS staff pay rates, allowing cost-cutting and even more pay differentials across the country.
No longer will there be a requirement to provide emergency care to everyone in the UK. Patients are likely to receive differing standards of care, making this a postcode lottery.

SOS NHS
SOS NHS, a coalition of some thirty campaign organisations, is demanding government action to save the NHS.

They are launching their campaign with an online rally this Tuesday evening, 19th January.

Keep The NHS Public has details of all the speakers on its Website and will send the webinar link to those who sign up.

NHS was the envy of the world
Before 2010, the NHS was the envy of the world, the blueprint for other countries’ healthcare systems. Since then, it has been starved of funding by successive governments, paving the way for privatisation.

More and more services have been outsourced, costing taxpayers far more and providing poor value for money. The pandemic has exacerbated the crisis, but the extra government funding promised has all gone to social are, which is also in crisis.

Strengthens central powers and further reduces any local control and accountability
A coalition statement reads:

“Billions have been wasted on failed, privatised test and trace and useless PPE: we need investment to expand our NHS, not line the pockets of private shareholders.
“But the Health and Care Bill going through Parliament won’t stop privatisation. Instead, it strengthens central powers and further reduces any local control and accountability.”

Last Wednesday, a judge ruled in favour of The Good Law Project and Every Doctor’s case brought against the Government for awarding almost £600 million worth of NHS contracts to a pest control firm and a hedge fund during the first wave of the pandemic. Justice O’Farrell said that the use of the VIP lane was unlawful.

These are SOS NHS’s demands:

Approve emergency funding of £20 billion to save lives this winter;
Invest in a fully publicly owned NHS and guarantee free healthcare for future generations;
Pay staff properly now: without fair pay, staffing shortages will cost lives.

Since the 1970s, the gap between rich and poor in our society has been ever-widening. Most government ministers come from wealthy backgrounds, and I believe that many neither understand nor care that millions of families in this, one of the richest countries in the world, are struggling to make ends meet, even though the parents or guardians are working full-time. It is a national scandal that so many people have to turn in desperation to food banks.

These people are constantly at the mercy of politicians who draft increasingly draconian laws, whether it be state welfare or NHS reforms, as cost-cutting exercises.

“NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it”
I agree with Aneurin Bevan, Labour Minister for Health in the 1940s and credited with founding the NHS, who is reported as saying: