YESTERDAY both the RCN nurses and the Royal College of Physicians made it perfectly clear that the time has arrived when action to defend the NHS is both vitally necessary and unpostponable if this greatest gain of the working class is to be saved.
Janet Davies, Chief Executive and General Secretary at the RCN, said: ‘How long does the government think the NHS can survive on the dedication and goodwill of staff who are at breaking point?
‘We have heard from frontline nurses who want to give the best care they can for their patients but are being told to discharge patients before they are fit, just to free up beds. It’s a vicious circle with community health and social care also struggling to cope with demand. We do not say we need more staff, funding and resources as a matter of routine. We are saying the health and well-being of the nation needs an NHS which is fit for purpose.
‘There are already 24,000 vacant nursing posts in the country and we can only expect the situation to worsen. Since the government announced the withdrawal of student funding for would-be nurses, there has been a 20% drop in applications for graduate nursing courses, with some universities reporting around half the usual numbers.
‘And the 1% pay cap on salaries is not helping to encourage people into nursing and is making existing nurses reconsider whether they can even afford to continue. Nursing staff make up the biggest proportion of the NHS workforce. They are the backbone of the health service.’
The Royal College of Physicians sent PM May a letter signed by its 50 council members. The letter declared: ‘Your 2015 manifesto stated that “patients, doctors and nurses are the experts on how to improve people’s health”.
‘As the members of the Royal College of Physicians’ Council, representing 33,000 doctors across 30 specialties and 750 physician associates: we agree. This is why we are compelled to speak up. We are fully committed to the NHS, which has seen extraordinary clinical advancements over recent decades, but we need urgent investment to continue to provide the quality of care people deserve …
‘Our NHS is underfunded, underdoctored and overstretched. The ambulances queuing outside emergency departments are a visual testament to the crisis in social care and the NHS. Our hospitals are over-full, with too few qualified staff, and our primary, community, social care and public health services are struggling or failing to cope.
‘Patients are waiting longer on lists, on trolleys, in emergency departments and in their homes for the care they need. Pressures in social care are pushing more people into our hospitals and trapping them there for longer. An increasing number of people, although clinically ready to go home, cannot safely leave hospital as the care system is unable to cope. People’s lives are being put at risk or on hold, affecting families across the country … Promises of future investment will not address the very real challenges we face going into 2017: the time to invest is now.’
The nurses and physicians have made the call to save the NHS and the trade union movement must respond, since the destruction of the service by the Tories will be a death sentence to a very large numbers of trade union members and their families. A bit of baiting of May at parliamentary questions, may help Labour MPs live with the reality that Labour helped to create with the marketisation of the NHS under the Blair-Brown governments, but it will not resolve the crisis of the NHS.
The time has come when the trade unions must take action! They must declare that they will stop all NHS cuts and closures with a policy of occupation of the threatened NHS hospitals and facilities, to keep them fully functioning and saving lives.
This action will be the stepping stone to the calling of a general strike to bring down the Tories and bring in a workers government. This will finance the development of the NHS by nationalising the banks and the profiteering drug companies. This is the action that the present crisis of the NHS demands must be taken.
This action will be discussed and organised at the ATUA National Conference on February 11 (see advert page 2). Make sure you are there, and make sure that you bring a delegation from your trade union and workplace with you!
