For whom the bell tolls
Wednesday, April 25th, 2007
As all colleagues report ahead of the local council elections on 3rd May, there has been one theme repeatedly brought up on the doorstep: what has happened to our NHS? People are incredulous.
Most people remember back in 1997 when the fresh-faced Tony Blair trumpeted “24 hours to save the NHS”. Spending on the NHS has trebled since then. Yet the question I am most often asked by people is, where has the money gone? Our local health service in Suffolk is currently facing debts of £52 million this year. If the accounting rules had not been changed, it would have been closer to £80 million. This is despite our hospitals closing wards and sacking staff.
One reason is that the Government increased funding for the NHS without ensuring that reform of the structures would take place at the same time. Much of the money was spent on recruiting more managers and bureaucrats, which encouraged a form-filling and target-driven culture. It should have been spent on front line services. It should be professionals and clinicians making decisions, not hordes of often overpaid pen pushers.
For example, in Haverhill, the largest and fastest growing town in my constituency, GPs are infuriated after being told by the Suffolk Primary Care Trust that their budgets will be cut by £308,610 this year. This is a huge sum and it will have dire consequences for surgeries in the town. Staffing cuts will be inevitable leading to longer waiting times, or patients travelling further afield to seek treatment. The hard-working and dedicated NHS staff are feeling demoralised because their work is being undermined by the bureaucrats who interfere so much in their lives.
Yesterday there was an extraordinary scene in the gallery of the House of Commons, something unique in my experience. Junior doctors broke into spontaneous applause when the Opposition attacked the government for causing so much distress and anxiety to them and their career prospects.
People are now seeing the effects of this failure by the Government to reform the NHS over the past decade. They will, no doubt, apportion blame rather conclusively on 3rd May.