Labour: the last line of defence for your NHS
If elected and Labour may well take control of this Council, we pledge to preserve as much as possible our NHS.. we shall have the chair of the Health and Well being Board and will commit to the following.
The argument in Parliament about the Health Bill may have ended. But the fight for the NHS on the ground is only just beginning.
Labour will be the last line of defence in your community for the NHS – an NHS now coming under sustained attack from Mr Cameron and his duplicitous Tory-led Government.
His re-organisation is already causing real harm: longer waits and chaos in A&E; operations and treatments restricted as the postcode lottery gets worse; nurses made redundant in their thousands.
1. Protecting an NHS free for all, resisting the encroachment of charges and unwarranted restrictions based on lifestyle choices.
In some areas, some patients are routinely being denied treatment based on their weight or whether they smoke. In York, a GP's surgery even sent patients a price list for minor operations currently free on the NHS. These things are wrong and we will speak out against them.
2. Preventing a postcode lottery.
Cameron’s Health Bill has laid the ground for a postcode lottery writ large. Already, patients in some areas are being denied routine treatments, such as for varicose veins, that are available on the NHS elsewhere. We will ask health professionals to work with others to maintain comparable access for all.
3. Maintaining Labour’s waiting standards for cancer, planned operations and in A&E.
Since the Coalition relaxed Labour's targets, there’s been a 25% increase in people waiting longer than 18 weeks for operations. They lowered our A&E target - and have missed it in 13 of the last 14 weeks. Strong Labour Mayors and Councils will oppose NHS hospitals treating private patients at the expense of NHS patients.
4. Promoting collaboration over competition; preventing the market destabilising valued NHS hospitals and services.
Cameron wants hospitals to go into outright competition. Some valued hospitals are already threatened by this competitive free-for-all.
Labour will call for a 'one NHS' approach in every community.
5. Putting patients before profits.
There are already signs that financial incentives may mean NHS patients get sub-optimal care. Cheaper and less effective drugs are already being prescribed. Labour will always be vigilant in protecting patient choice and preventing profiteering.
I was sickened at the way Cameron rammed his Health Bill through Parliament. But sitting back and waiting for things to go wrong would be the wrong response. The NHS is far too important.
So the 'NHS Pledge' is the next phase of our NHS campaign. It's about doing what we can to protect the NHS from the worst that Cameron throws at it.
By joining forces with health professionals at local level, we can resist the drive towards the privatisation of our country’s best-loved institution. And we can protect the huge advances the NHS made under Labour: the lowest-ever waiting times and the highest-ever patient satisfaction.
May's local elections give people angry about what’s happening to our NHS a chance to tell the NHS Con-man in No 10 what they think of his shoddy betrayal of NHS patients and staff.
In Opposition, he used the NHS to pose as a different kind of Tory. In office, he's been turned out to be more right-wing on the NHS than Margaret Thatcher.
He promised no top-down re-organisation but brought forward the biggest and most dangerous ever.
And Mr Clegg's Yellow Tories, in waving it through Parliament, will go down in history as co-conspirators in this great NHS betrayal.
So our message in this May’s Local Elections is simple and clear: a vote for Labour is a vote for the NHS. We will be, as we have always been, its last line of defence.
Do you think that spending £18 million to reorganise the NHS in Walsall is a waste of good health care money? Vote for Labour and Ian Robertson on May 3rd and as someone who has worked in the NHS for 40 years.. you will see how I shall fight tooth and nail to keep our NHS healthy here in Walsall.
regards
Ian
published by Ian Robertson 87 Belvidere Road Walsall WS1 3AU by electronic means.
No comments:
Post a Comment