THE savage Tory-led coalition’s cuts programme to smash the NHS is now well under way!
Figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) show that among 23 European countries, the UK has the second lowest number of hospital beds across the whole of Europe!
The figures also show that the number of hospital beds has gradually fallen in Britain since the year 2000 when there were 4.1 beds per 1,000 people. By 2014 the number of hospital beds per 1,000 people in the UK fell further to just 2.95.
This is far behind the majority of other countries on the continent, with Germany having 8.3 per 1,000 people, Austria 7.7, Hungary 7.2, the Czech Republic 6.8 and Poland 6.6.
The just published Quarterly Monitoring Report from the King’s Fund charity said that two thirds of NHS finance directors were concerned that their hospitals would go into deficit in 2015-2016!
The directors fear that on top of the £20bn cuts programme that is in operation currently, ‘the implementation of the £3.8 billion Better Care Fund will see an additional £1.9 billion transferred from the NHS to support joint working between health and social care from April 2015. To compensate for this, NHS England has estimated that hospitals will need to reduce emergency admissions by 15 per cent.’
The Fund adds: ‘Meanwhile, pressures on hospital waiting lists are growing, with more than 360,000 additional people waiting for treatment in January 2014, compared to the same month last year.’
Huge cuts and closures will be necessary to balance the books, because of the savage cuts.
Health Secretary Hunt has been preparing for this moment. He has just pushed through parliament the Care Bill, which gives him the power close any hospital that is ‘in debt’, allowing just for the minimum of objections, before the deed is done.
The stage has been set for those who want to introduce charges for NHS treatment and they are beginning to come out of the woodwork.
The South Warwickshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) wants patients to be made to pay for their own crutches, walking sticks and neck braces which are at present free.
Its patient and public participation group last week was asked what it thought of its ideas about reducing its annual £421,000 bill for orthotics. The CCG revealed that it wants people to be made to contribute to the cost of orthotics, aids and appliances.
To help with the exercise, 15 different types of aids or devices were listed to which charges were to be applied. They were: ankle foot orthoses, i.e. foot drop splints; wrist splints; trusses, e.g. for hernias; spinal supports; knee braces; hip braces; lumbar/sacral/abdominal supports; spinal support, e.g. for fractures; cervical support – collars; helmets; toilet aids & equipment; perching stools; walking aids – walking sticks, crutches, frames; bed mobility aids – sticks, beds, grab handles; and bath seats.
For the sick and the elderly, real care and help with their conditions is to become a cash question. As far as South Warwickshire CCG is concerned, these aids will be for those who have the cash to pay for them!
These proposals were met with great hostility, reports the anti-cuts group False Economy. The CCG is now refusing to answer questions about what it called a ‘very early-stage’ proposal. It would not even reveal whose idea it was. It is keeping quiet but its moves are obviously bang in line with the plans to privatise the NHS, and they are not alone.
Two recent reports from the Reform and King’s Fund organisations, advocating charging for GP visits and hospital appointments or a £10 monthly fee to help the NHS cope with increasing demand for healthcare, have prompted a debate about whether the NHS should abandon the key principle that it is free at the point of use.
Obviously these plans are not going to go away. The NHS must be defended and the privateers driven out of it. What is required is that the BMA and the RCN must form an alliance with the TUC to bring the coalition down with a general strike. This must bring in a workers government that will greatly cut costs by nationalising the drugs industry.