Analysis Breaking

Video: leading doctors – collapsing NHS faces ‘triple whammy’ and after years of underfunding COVID is only part of the problem

Leading doctors have warned that the NHS is facing a ‘triple whammy’ after years of underfunding that threatens the very integrity of our health service – and that the coronavirus pandemic is only one part of the problem.

BMA chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul told the BBC that chronic underfunding had weakened the health service so badly that even without the COVID-19 crisis it would be in trouble:

Honorary BMA vice-president Dr Kailash Chand agreed, adding that the NHS is 100,000 staff short of its proper complement – and pointing out that the vast majority of the Tories’ so-called extra ‘NHS funds’ are in fact going to private companies:

Winter crises in the NHS are not a new phenomenon – two years ago the Tories cancelled all non-urgent operations and before the pandemic bit this year, the NHS was already in yet another – and in recent years as underfunding has bitten ever deeper, they have become a year-round phenomenon.

And now, while the UK’s greatest achievement falls apart under the strain of a pandemic for which the Tories never bothered to prepare, they are using it as cover to enrich their mates and backers further still.

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9 comments

  1. Jeremy Corbyn warned that the Tories would privatise the NHS if they could . Underfunding over a decade meant it was run down and ripe for picking off at a knockdown price. Jeremy Corbyn was belittled and ridiculed for saying this and the electorate chose not to believe him but believe instead the filth spread about him by the establishment MSM Tories and those in our party who detested him because he was an honest socialist whose principles were not for sale. As a result they voted for “Boris” a jolly good fellow as opposed to the devil incarnate they were happy to believe Jeremy was .
    Now once again Jeremy is being proved right but we will all have to live with consequences of the electorate voting in this shameless government with a massive majority which means they can and will do precisely as they please for the next 4 years. By the time the next election comes the NHS will probably no longer exist and people diagnosed with chronic health conditions will face poverty and homelessness if they want treatment – exactly as happens to the sick in the USA.

    1. Though Thatcher introduced the market into the NHS, the weasel Blair cemented it while also claiming they were against it by creating Primary care trusts. The rest is the coalition’s legacy.
      My point is, there is no political party that will remove the internal market from the NHS. Corbyn was the last hope and the new normal under Covid-19 will carry on forever. The fake internal market never brought ‘choice’ and continues to suck money into a financial black hole.
      The NHS won’t cease to exist but will treat emergencies and chronic illness while more and more, professionals will get private healthcare and dentistry as part of their employment package.

    2. In all fairness Smartboy,

      The Tories did not gain a majority of the vote in December 2019, in fact it only marginally increased on that gain under May in 2017 when we came within 2300 votes of becoming the largest Party in Parliament.

      What actually occurred was a large number of the Corbyn vote of 2017 cleaved off to the Lib Dems, whilst a small number of the electorate in Leave seats either jumped to the Tories, or the wreckers in all Labour Constituencies, the Brexit Party.

      All of this was to do with the People’s Vote crap, which of course Starmer was highly involved with.

      As for the privatisation of the NHS, well in England that was virtually achieved via the 2012 NHS Legislation pushed by the ConDem Coalition, whilst, Blair and Brown in 1997-2010 never reversed antiNHS Legislation passed by Thatcher or Major, rather, they too doubled down with privatisation and outsourcing, the PFI/PPP building programme being indicative of this fact.

      In a nutshell, the Labour centrists, Tories and LibDems have all contributed to the destruction of the NHS and its priming for an insurance-based system of health coverage.

      That said, more than 10 million good British folk stuck with Corbyn in 2019 and all of these, including my entire family, are the victims of this neoliberal assault on our health service.

      1. …….& now we have 2 ‘Liberal Parties’, but no Socialist Labour. The future is orange with Ed Davey & Sir Keir Starmer. A 2nd Referendum anyone?

    3. The lack of journalist support for Julian Assange tells you all you need to know about MSM.

  2. Go to Labour List and read article on Unison Election, not least the letter from Hugo Pierre to the other two left wing candidates, offering to step down if a single Left Wing candidate can be agreed
    Time to bang JC, John Mc and Skwawkbox heads together
    Dont Fuck it up

  3. Privatising the NHS has been a Tory ambition since its inception.
    Long before Letwin & Redwood put it on paper.
    https://www.cps.org.uk/files/reports/original/111027171245-BritainsBiggestEnterprise1988.pdf
    Underfunding – death by neglect – is part of the plan to prepare it for “rescue” by privatisation. No surprise.
    Doing it so slowly and carefully shows they know it could blow up in their faces though.
    Labour could help that happen by waving the evidence in the public’s faces at every opportunity, and what better time than now?
    If only that malignancy Starmer wasn’t such a fucking Tory.

  4. My daughter has been asked to isolate for 14 days after being iin contact with someone who has tested positive
    Her son my little petri dish can still go to school because neither have shown symptons
    No one at his school has tested positive
    My daughter also has immunity after being tested a few weeks back and as a health worker is swabbed every week before starting her shifts in local hospital
    You could argue if she was a brain surgeon would you want her sitting at home, but from my point of view, this seems to be the best outcome under the current circumstances up here in the Kingdom of Northumbria

  5. The NHS is ‘Socialism in Action’ & must be eliminated as an act of faith in any Tory Doctrine.

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