Like a tiny plaster over a gaping wound, promises to improve the NHS made by the establishment parties are worthless. Even the former boss of the NHS, Sir David Nicholson, says that these party election pledges will not fill its “financial hole”.
There will be a £30 billion predicted annual shortfall by 2020 – enough money to fund 100 hospitals. Some of this gap is meant to be reduced by £22 billion a year “efficiency savings” – in plain language, cuts.
Even Nicholson says these would be a “big ask” that “no healthcare system in the world has delivered on this scale”. They could not be achieved without cutting staff, hitting patient care, longer waits and ultimately more deaths.
The Tories and Lib Dems have promised an extra £8 billion, but not until 2020. Labour says £2.5 billion. Yet already three quarters of hospitals can’t balance the books.
The NHS must be properly funded. Privatisation, which is bleeding the NHS of billions, must be scrapped.
The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) is standing in these elections on a programme to defend the NHS. None of the others will!
* TUSC Parliamentary Candidates for Llanelli is Scott Jones
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