Protests helped save Lewisham A&E from closure in 2013, photo Paul Mattsson

Protests helped save Lewisham A&E from closure in 2013, photo Paul Mattsson   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

Simon Carter

The ongoing crisis in the National Health Service (NHS) has become the latest general election battleground for the establishment parties – with Labour, Tories, Lib Dems and Ukip all pledging to make it work.

However, the pro-austerity, pro-privatisation policies of these parties are the problem, not the solution. They are responsible for the systematic undermining of the NHS as part of their pro-big business agendas and their private healthcare connections.

The latest manifestations of the NHS crisis is the temporary closure of several hospitals’ Accident and Emergency (A&E) departments in England and the worst patient waiting times in A&E on record – due to staff shortages and high demand.

The health authorities and government ministers point the finger of blame for this crisis at the patients, disingenuously arguing that many shouldn’t be accessing A&E at all.

However, firstly, many patients find it nigh on impossible to get a GP appointment. Secondly, the acute shortage of permanent health staff due to cuts in the numbers of nurses being trained and budget cuts have led to long A&E waiting times. Thirdly, funding cuts to local authorities have led to a shortage of care and nursing home places for many elderly patients who occupy hospital beds thereby blocking the throughput of patients.

And, finally, there have been widespread closures of A&E departments in hospitals throughout England (and the ‘downgrading’ of A&Es in Wales). These closures are, on the one hand, the result of cost-cutting health trusts under pressure to carry out £20-£30 billion of government driven ‘efficiency savings’ and, on the other hand, by health trusts driven into bankruptcy as a result of servicing PFI privatisation contracts pushed by successive Labour and Tory/Lib Dem governments.

The fragmentation of the NHS as hospitals shift to Foundation Trust status – where hospitals become self-governing entities competing with one another for NHS and private patients to generate income – can only exacerbate the current public health crisis.

The Socialist Party, working with its trade union allies in the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, will continue to fight the spending cuts and the scrapping of PFI contracts; and to demand that privatised services are reintegrated into a fully funded and democratically run public NHS.

This could be paid for by nationalising the tax-avoiding giant corporations, including the parasitic ‘big pharma’ drug companies, and imposing a wealth tax on the income and assets of the super-rich. Then, people’s health could come first instead of private profit.