Bean counters and pen-pushers galore
On some estimates the number of people administering our NHS is greater than the number of beds; whatever the exact figures, there is virtually nobody who actually works in the NHS as a nurse or doctor who does not think that the NHS bureaucracy is unaccountable and out of control.
Manning tables in my constituency, as part of a nationwide NHS Action Day on Saturday, asking people to sign a petition about NHS cuts, the enthusiasm to participate was extraordinary. In Suffolk, it is no wonder. Community beds are under threat, nurses are being sacked, services withdrawn and wards being closed – people are rightly disgusted by what is taking place, as I am.
One constituent told me that the Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, was like the last Tsarina visiting Potemkin villages in pre-revolutionary Russia – with no idea or sense of reality of what is happening in the NHS at grassroots level.
The destruction of NHS services has happened not because of more money but because of a culture of interference, target setting and sheer incompetence starting in Whitehall and spreading like a bureaucratic virus through to the regions and health trusts.
Next month, along with other Suffolk MPs and councillor leaders, I shall be meeting the head of the new (again!) Suffolk Primary Care Trust, Carole Taylor-Brown, to discuss how the £64.5 million NHS deficit in the county can be reduced without drastically cutting services further. My parliamentary neighbour, Tim Yeo, and I will also be seeing Patricia Hewitt soon to explain to her personally the extent of the crisis we are experiencing in Suffolk.
We will continue to fight this terrible attack on our NHS services, which is entirely being driven by a financial shambles unprecedented in the history of the NHS.
People deserve better and they now really, really feel this.