30th January 2012
Just over a week ago I posted the report below because I am so consciouse of the effects that the Tories’s approach to the National Health Service could have on the low and middle income people I represent in Egremont, Seacombe, Poulton and Somerville. Things have certainly moved fast in a week – and not very well for the Tories. The newspapers are increasingly open about the damage to its own popularity the Tory-led government is creating for itself.
The Bill seeking to change Labour’s NHS so fundamentally is back in the Lords on 8th Feb. The Government seem to be on the defensive. ”Yougov” has just published the results of a new survey on public attitudes to the NHS and its reforms, with a sample size of 1884. Here are some of the highlights:
36% trusted the Coalition to deliver high quality NHS services, but a startling
57% didn’t trust the government “much or at all”.
Could you?
A full breakdown by political party support, gender, age, social group and region is available at:
http://cdn.yougov.com/today_uk_import/YG-Archives-Life-Sun-NHS-190111.pdf
A higher percentage of the British public opposes the Government’s plans to restructure the NHS than supports them, and faith in the Coalition’s ability to deliver NHS services is sinking. After all didn’t the Tories go into the general election with slogans that they could be ‘trusted’ with the NHS? Who believes that now?
- Cllr Chris Jones gives her opinion of the government’s NHS proposals
On 22nd January Chris reported:
Following years of neglect under Tory governments, Labour invested heavily in replacing crumbling buildings and increasing nurse and doctor numbers to rebuild the National Health Service. Most residents of the Wallasey Riverside area, covering from Seacombe to New Brighton, would agree that we are now well served with excellent local medical practices, backed up by top class Wirral hospitals. But we have not yet met anybody on the doorstep who believes what this Tory-led government is now doing to the NHS is acceptable.
Follow the link below to read Angela’s summary in November. The latest developments show her view was spot on.
http://www.angelaeaglemp.co.uk/news.php?id=242
Labour created the National Health Service during the economic aftermath of Hitler’s war when Britain faced economic re-construction with burdens greater even than the Bankers’ gambling-debt crisis we are all now being forced to pay for. It was created in the face of dogged opposition from the Tories. So what’s changed?
Health is the most important element of every person’s ‘wealth’. Isn’t there something fundamentally unwholesome about the privatisation of health provision into profit inspired businesses?
Last week the pressure on Lansley increased when official health department data revealed that the number of patients not being treated within the 18-week time limit has soared by 43% since the Tory/LibDem coalition took office. Led by the Doctors’ organisation “The British Medical Association” a meeting has been called of all 20 members of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. Along with the nurses’ and midwives’ unions, these health professionals are calling loudly for the bill to be scrapped.
The meeting comes as one of Downing Street’s advisers on the NHS, Professor Chris Ham, King’s Fund health thinktank chief executive, warns that growing disquiet across the medical establishment “could become an NHS version of the Arab spring”.
Despite the Tories’ attempts to personalise politics, with rather silly jibes at individuals, we believe the people of the UK will no more forgive the collaboration government of LibDems and Tories, for their policies towards the NHS, than they will for their closeness to the bankers who plunged the world into its present economic chaos.
This ‘Health Policy Insight’ article provides excellent information, well worth reading for anyone who believes in the NHS
http://www.healthpolicyinsight.com/?q=node%2F1313
We will be interested to hear your views.
