‘Vandalism’ of our NHS

Yesterday (January 7) the pressure on 15 hospital trusts meant that they had to declare major or significant incident status so that they could cope with this crisis.

It’s not as if the government wasn’t warned. In 2012 Unite told the then secretary of state Andrew Lansley that just such a crisis in our NHS would result from his health and social care bill.

This coalition government promised there would be no top down re-organisation of the NHS. But within weeks the coalition broke that promise.

NHS failed

The coalition has totally failed the NHS.  The crisis in A&E departments is a microcosm of what is happening in our national health service. The coalition government has acted like vandals with our NHS.

It has cut NHS Direct – run by health professionals and replaced it with the call centre 111. This act of vandalism has meant people don’t have confidence in the call centre and are turning instead to A&E.

Privatisation of GP services leading to poor out of hours cover has exacerbated the crisis, but we didn’t need a crystal ball to see it coming. Serco in Cornwall attempted to run the service with only one GP on call to cover the entire county.

It is no wonder that people dial 999 – a number they trust, or go to A&E themselves. This intense demand placed on doctors, nurses and NHS staff generally is intolerable.

Dysfunction

It has become a cycle of dysfunction. Cuts in social care support networks have meant older people can’t go home and beds can’t be freed up. Ambulances queue up outside the hospital.

The whole system becomes jammed. At times there have been 20 ambulances queuing outside some hospitals. In York for example, this situation meant that a patient was taken to hospital by fire engine.

It’s a depressing litany of mismanagement, with funding cuts to ambulance services along with the private sector stripping out the high volume, low risk work to make easy profits leaving intensive care and A&E to face intense demand.

And that’s not all. Cuts to mental health services are further contributing to a health service already under pressure.

David Cameron can try and air brush away this crisis away but he won’t succeed.

Andy Burnham the shadow secretary of state for health wants the integration of health and social care. Unite believes this is the right way forward to bring about a NHS that works for all of us.

Unite is determined to continue the fight to protect our NHS.