HEALTH Secretary Steve Barclay did the rounds of the TV studios on Sunday to declare an all-out war on doctors, nurses and patients, as the Tories steam ahead with their plans to smash the National Health Service.
For the nurses and doctors, Barclay arrogantly declared that there was no chance of the Tories backing down from imposing a 5% pay increase, thus putting them on a collision course with the Royal College of Nursing who are currently balloting their members for further strike action over pay.
Barclay attacked junior doctors who are planning to strike for 72 hours from 14-17 June, followed by three days strikes each month for the next six months, condemning them for demanding a 35% pay increase to return their take-home pay to the levels of 2009.
What is clear is that the Tories are not going to negotiate anything with the RCN, BMA or Unite unions whose health service members have all rejected the insulting 5% pay offer on the grounds that their demands are ‘unrealistic’ and unaffordable for a bankrupt British capitalist system.
In fact, the entire NHS is under attack on the same grounds of unaffordability, with Barclay refusing to give a deadline for the release of the Tories’ long-awaited NHS workforce plan.
This plan is supposed to set out a commitment by the government on funding the NHS, including setting out the number of training places for nurses and doctors and the overall number of staff the NHS needs over the next decade.
Tory Chancellor Jeremy Hunt committed to producing this fully-funded plan to recruit and train the staff required by the NHS to address the chronic shortage of staff in his budget statement last year.
This solemn pledge has turned out to be as hollow as the Tory election manifesto pledge to build 40 new hospitals by 2030.
On Sunday, Barclay admitted that this was yet another promise that had been abandoned, to be replaced by projects involving ‘a range of things’ including refurbishment of existing hospitals.
The Sunday Telegraph revealed that one plan drawn up by the Tories and health officials that will be implemented immediately is to axe half a million hospital appointments every year in an effort to clear the NHS waiting list backlog.
According to the Telegraph, health officials have drawn up a list of ‘58 procedures and treatments that should no longer be routinely provided, under plans to save at least £250 million a year and get priority patients to the front of waiting lists.’
NHS England officials say streamlining services for conditions including glaucoma and mini-strokes will stop ‘unnecessary’ hospital visits.
Under guidance issued this week, GPs and community clinics will be instructed to carry out more advanced tests on patients before making any referral to a hospital. It also calls for patients to weigh up ‘the pros and cons of procedures with their GP’ before being referred to a specialist.
This is the Tory solution to the massive waiting list crisis – axing 58 conditions requiring hospital visits and piling even more pressure on GPs.
Dr Margaret Ikpoh from the Royal College of GPs said: ‘Any plans to reduce pressures on hospitals cannot be implemented in isolation without considering the impact on general practice and the huge workload and workforce pressures GPs and their teams are facing.’
With no extra funding for GPs to take on these new demands, the Tories are just shifting the pressure around the NHS while denying any adequate funding.
This, along with the point-blank refusal to negotiate with nurses or doctors over pay, is all part of the Tory plan to pauperise the NHS, declare it a ‘failing’ service and then throw it open to privatisation.
The Tories have thrown down the gauntlet to the trade unions and the working class.
Defending the existence of the NHS, the most precious gain made by workers in the past, means forcing the TUC to drop all useless appeals for compromise, and call a general strike to bring down the Tories and bring in a workers’ government and a socialist planned economy.
This is the only way to defend the NHS.
