{"id":3787,"date":"2015-04-20T17:37:32","date_gmt":"2015-04-20T16:37:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=3787"},"modified":"2015-04-20T17:37:32","modified_gmt":"2015-04-20T16:37:32","slug":"on-the-critical-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=3787","title":{"rendered":"On the critical list"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Who would have ever thought that pathologists would be locked out of their own lab? That ambulance workers would go on strike? That a private equity group would run a hospital?<\/p>\n

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And yet these are just some of the things that staff have had to fight under the Coalition government.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThere was a clear commitment from the last Labour government to develop and modernise the NHS, which was achieved,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 explains Unite national officer, Barrie Brown. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThere had been the highest levels of patient satisfaction ever recorded. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what the Coalition inherited.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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And how that inheritance has been recklessly spent. A&E departments in meltdown with the worst performance since records began. Over three million patients waiting for operations. And NHS staff suffering work-related stress is up by 40 per cent.<\/p>\n

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Speech and language therapist Frances Ridgway sees how the cuts affect her colleagues. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe pressure is to see new patients. This means people wait longer for treatment. Staff are trying to juggle all this and as a result, some are leaving or taking early retirement or having to take sickness retirement as they get burned out.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Frances is not alone. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIf staff are off sick, then they bring in other colleagues who are also stressed, or they bring in agency staff,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Barrie Brown reports. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe use of agency staff itself does not provide the best service and it costs hundreds of hundreds of millions.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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And staff are not just off with the musculo-skeletal problems you might expect. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe second reason for ill-health related retirement in the NHS that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen more of in recent years is mental health,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 adds Barrie.<\/p>\n

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The Coalition has been a disaster for the NHS \u00e2\u20ac\u201c staff and patients both.<\/p>\n

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Before the 2010 election the Tories made the NHS a central part of its strategy \u00e2\u20ac\u201c promising to protect it from cuts and \u00e2\u20ac\u015bno more top down reorganisations.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Yet without any mandate the government forced through the largest top down reorganisation in NHS history.<\/p>\n

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It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s estimated the reorganisation from the Health and Social Care Act 2012 has cost \u00c2\u01413bn.<\/p>\n

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The number of NHS organisations has doubled. Chaos has ensued with rising waiting times, overcrowding in A&E and failure to meet targets such as those for cancer treatment. Patient satisfaction has plummeted to just 58 per cent in a year.<\/p>\n

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Worse still the Act introduced the need for compulsory market tendering to virtually all areas of the NHS \u00e2\u20ac\u201c with increasing swathes of the service contracted out to private providers.<\/p>\n

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Even costs for areas not privatised have soared as organisations were forced to spend millions bidding to run services they already provided.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bLansley presented the act as a way to give patients choice,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 says Barrie. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bBut patient choice is in no way at all dependent on giving opportunities to hundreds of private organisations to bid on and run services.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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And some of these private providers are quickly showing their true colours. Scandals are mounting \u00e2\u20ac\u201c cases so far have included falsifying data, providing poor quality care, patient safety fears and unnecessary deaths.<\/p>\n

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Scandals<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 
\nEven the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s flagship private hospital, Hinchingbrooke, has come under scrutiny after the private equity-owned Circle group decided to pull out of the contract following criticisms from the care quality commission.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bCircle was brought in as a sort of cavalry to save that hospital,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 reports Barrie.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bFour years later, in January, they pulled out. They weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t making money, which is what they expected to do.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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The government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s response, rather than rolling back these contracts, has been to push on regardless including plans to entrench their market system in the international TTIP trade agreement with the USA.<\/p>\n

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Barrie is rightly concerned. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThere is still no unequivocal statement from the government that the NHS will be excluded from TTIP. If it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not excluded the health service will become completely fragmented.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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The government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s multi-million pound shake up, coupled with an unprecedented \u00c2\u014120bn of so-called efficiency savings has put our NHS at grave risk.<\/p>\n

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The NHS has been losing money in real terms under the ConDems \u00e2\u20ac\u201c with funding expected to decrease back down to a level significantly lower than most comparable countries.<\/p>\n

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With the NHS now \u00c2\u014130bn short of funds, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a limit to how much more any service can do with less money.
\nDespite everything this government has thrown at them, NHS staff are working harder than ever \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a truly heroic achievement.<\/p>\n

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But our health workers are under unprecedented attacks and criticism from this government.<\/p>\n

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After four years of the Coalition most NHS staff have lost around 15-20 per cent of their real terms basic pay with thousands of NHS staff being pushed into poverty, earning below the living wage level.<\/p>\n

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So it was absolutely no surprise that last October staff took the difficult decision to take strike action over pay. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d simply had enough. As we go to press members are voting on a pay deal.<\/p>\n

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Hope?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 
\nBut is there any hope? Probably not if the Conservatives return. As for Labour? Labour has pledged to repeal the Health and Social Care Act \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a major step forward.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bAn incoming Labour government needs to do two things \u00e2\u20ac\u201c they need to ensure NHS funding reflects the additional costs that have arisen that haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been met by this government,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 believes Barrie.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bSecondly, to restore confidence in staff morale, there should be a genuinely independent pay review body that can make recommendations to restore the value of our members pay.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Jackie Applebee is an inner London GP. She believes, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIf there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a Conservative government the NHS will be history.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThey will quickly move to finish the job, parcel it up and sell it off. Many people don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t realise what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happening to the NHS because it still looks to them, more or less, the same as it did in 2010.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhat they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t realise is the foundations are being dug out under their feet and they won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t notice until it collapses.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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*This feature first appeared in Unite Works magazine, Spring 2015 edition <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who would have ever thought that pathologists would be locked out of their own lab? That ambulance workers would go on strike? That a private equity group would run a hospital?     And yet these are just some of the things that staff have had to fight under the Coalition government.     \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThere […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[224,29],"wps_subtitle":"The Coalition has all but killed the NHS \u00e2\u20ac\u201c now it needs intensive care","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3787"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3787"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3789,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3787\/revisions\/3789"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}