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The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it

By shibleyrahman in NHS, Shibley's Own on August 17, 2014.

Aneurin Bevan, the Labour Health Minister who created the NHS, famously said: “The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it”.

On 16 August 2014 a group of mothers from County Durham will set off from Jarrow to march to the Houses of Parliament, following in the footsteps of those who marched the route in 1936 to protest against mass unemployment. They did this as a bold but peaceful protest against the current NHS policy.

Whilst the Government can clearly influence the State media, it might also be true that the NHS will last as long as there are folk left in the social media and also those willing to show their democratic stand against the undemocratic demolition of a publically-owned NHS.

That people care about NHS issues, for example, is shown by the enormous affection held by many for groups such as the “NHS Action Party” and “Keep our NHS Public”, as well as the trades unions.

There have been some Labour MPs, especially, who have served in an outstanding way to represent the views of their constituents and beyond over health and social care policy.

The lack of credibility from the Department of Health is demonstrated in their statements below:

The first statement read, “We’re committed to an NHS which continues to be free at the point of use for everyone who needs it.”

Evidence of a postcode lottery in surgical provision has especially become clear in the lifetime of the current term of office.

The critical thing for the next Government not to do, of whatever political variety, is to introduce compulsory unified personal budgets and a system of co-payments, as that will torpedo in an onslaught against the free-at-the-point-of-need principle.

It clearly is a problem if one part of the system which is means-tested is soldered onto another part which is not means-tested, like a dodgy banger.

The second statement read, “By taking tough financial decisions elsewhere, this government has been able to increase the NHS budget by £12.7 billion during this parliament.”

Last year, the UK Statistics Authority upheld a complaint by Labour about government claims the NHS budget had increased in real-terms in the past two years.

And members of the current Government keep on lying about this.

The current Government took the public for granted in inflicting on them a £1.5bn top down reorganisation, turbo-boosting the awarding of contracts to the private sector.

It is conceded that the extent and speed of NHS contracting under the current Coalition have been a disaster.

Lynton Crosby, PR guru of the Conservative Party, does not want to talk about the NHS, it appears.

But now it is clear that people should make clear what type of NHS they wish to have.

Furthermore, the next Labour government will be seeking to fuse the NHS and social care, and to pool their budgets. This will be a huge step, and could have massive implications for the national roll-out of a shift from hospital to community care to promote wellbeing and health rather than acute crisis management.

People who have had their local hospital services shut down will also have a chance to make their opinions known. It is well know that many people do not want a ‘platinum service’ miles away, if they do not have ready access to an emergency service on their doorstep.

These are indeed testing times for the NHS and social care, but Jeremy Hunt fails to command a leadership necessary to lead the NHS beyond 2015, many feel.

http://twitter.com/mjh0421 Mervyn Hyde (@mjh0421)

Only since the seventies have we ever considered the need to cut funds to public services, the reason of course has been the Neo-Liberal agenda.

Campaigns during those years constantly poured out propaganda saying private good public bad, the talk was constantly of road workers leaning on shovels rather than digging roads, all lies of course but the public accepted it hook line and sinker.

As each generation grew up since then, they have been fed a diet of of business prowess, to the previous unheard of practice where private companies pay into school budgets and dictate education policy.

Just think how the Tories would would scream if we taught Marxism in our schools. This is the kind of indoctrination that is served up to our children and they will know no better because that will be the accepted norm.

Whilst capitalism is destroying jobs and children’s futures we are told there is no other way, well they said that in the 20s and 30s, if Real Labour had listened to that argument like New Labour today there would never have been an NHS.

The NHS is testament to fact that socialism works, capitalism doesn’t, that is why the Tories are deliberately destroying it. The NHS is a world beater on every level and like the rest of our public services have deliberately had their hands tied behind their backs and blindfolded and still produce the goods.

The only way to save the whole economy of this country is get all Neo-Liberal politicians out of parliament, and that includes Labour’s front bench, they have betrayed the Labour Movement and are not worthy of our trust.

Failure to do so will mean permanent poverty as the private sector are the leaches on the backs of the poor and actually strangle the life out of the economy.

We have been sold the balancing of budgets now for over forty years, the deficit is the difference between the money raised through taxation and the money needed to pay for public expenditure.

So why have governments reduced taxation for the rich, it isn’t rocket science is it. Because that is who the present crop of politicians are working for and have been over the last forty years, people have got to stop believing and open their eyes.

The Mondragon Co-operative proves what people can achieve under real socialism, and all started by just 6 people, the only reason they are being held back today is because capitalism is destroying the world economy and only people can change that, just like in Mondragon, only we could use the knowledge we have today to finance it, rather than being held to ransom by private Banks.

http://www.mondragon-corporation.com/eng/
http://legal-aware.org/ Shibley Rahman

I share your concerns, Mervyn. In fact, I think you’re rather polite about the situation. I feel the multinational corporate culture is quite infiltrative and indeed insidious into many aspects of society, including overt politics, think tanks and the media. I have never been supportive of the notion that socialism is intrinsically unpopular or leads to economic chaos; this has been a legacy of the late Baroness Thatcher’s generation, but the issue is the amount of unnecessary transaction costs, repetitive transactions, and even alleged fraud and misfeasance, which cause problems. We are in a dangerous situation where people are scared to make policy decisions in the public interest due to abuse of the law (might is right). Events such as the Jarrow March reveal to me a genuine appetite to unearth these issues. The issue we face is how to get Labour to get on track, but if that is not possible how people can vote at the ballot box to make a material difference.
http://gravatar.com/fenwickk Fenwickk

Just completed two days of the Peoples March for the NHS, from Jarrow to Ferryhill. Spirits are high, so please join in as much as you can, even if it is clap the marchers on the way.
http://999callfornhs.org.uk
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