The NHS long term plan does not face up to ‘the grim reality of the cash crisis confronting the health service’, Unite, Britain and Ireland’s largest union, said today (Monday 7 January).
Unite, which has 100,000 members in the health service, said that prime minister Theresa May was engaged in ‘a smoke and mirrors exercise’ with the promise of an extra £20bn a year for the NHS by 2023-24.
Unite national officer for health Colenzo Jarrett-Thorpe said: “This new cash is, in reality, putting in the funding that the government removed a decade ago. ‘Smoke and mirrors’ is the name of the game.
“The money that is now coming on stream is not enough to meet the ambitious targets to save the almost 500,000 lives outlined in the long term plan.
“The NHS is like a Rolls-Royce that needs constant care and attention – the Tories, since 2010, have neglected its annual maintenance. The NHS requires an immediate cash injection to meet increasing demand. That’s the grim reality.”
Before Christmas Unite warned that the NHS is facing ‘a perfect storm’ winter crisis, due to a number of factors, including the dramatic decline in health visitors and mental health nurses.
Colenzo Jarrett-Thorpe added: “We know that even the projected boost of government funding to the NHS over the next four years does not meet the historic average increase in NHS funding over the last 70 years, which has run at about 3.9 per cent compared to the three per cent minsters are proposing.
“From 2010 up till now, increases in the NHS budget have been barely one per cent.
“For example, because of the massively flawed Health and Social Care Act, many of our public health services have been transferred to local authorities since 2013 and funding in public health has fallen by eight per cent since 2013/1,4 according to the Kings Fund.
“How can this long term plan be implemented if the government gives with one hand and takes away with the other?
“This plan is doomed to failure if ministers do not reverse cuts to local authority budgets or give incentives to councils not to cut public health or community health budgets.
“On top of all this, there are an estimated 100,000 vacancies in the NHS, which are compounding the current crisis. As a country, we also rely on the 63,000 EU citizens working in the NHS in England whose future is being blighted by the unpleasant atmosphere created by Brexit.”
For more information please contact Unite senior communications officer Shaun Noble on 020 3371 2060 or 07768 693940. Unite press office is on: 020 3371 2065
Email: shaun.noble@unitetheunion.org
Twitter: @unitetheunion Facebook: unitetheunion1 Web: unitetheunion.org
Unite is Britain and Ireland’s largest union with members working across all sectors of the economy. The general secretary is Len McCluskey.