A political alternative is needed

Labour won't reverse NHS privatisation, photo Paul Mattsson

Labour won’t reverse NHS privatisation, photo Paul Mattsson   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

As waiting times at A&E’s hit their highest levels since records began, Labour’s lead over the Tories on the NHS has widened to 18 points. Without doubt, one of the main motivations of Labour voters in the general election will be the hope that a Labour government would act to reverse the attacks on the NHS that have taken place in the last five years.

Labour has said it will repeal the Con-Dem’s Health and Social Care Act, which has massively accelerated privatisation of the NHS, allowing – among other measures – hospitals to use up to 49% of their beds for private patients.

The aim of the Act is to move rapidly to fulfilling the dream of the head of the Independent (i.e. private) Healthcare Association that the NHS logo would become “simply a ‘kite-mark’ attached to the institutions and activities of a system of purely private providers”.

Last year the amount the NHS handed over to these providers exceeded £10 billion for the first time. That means tax payers money being handed to private companies whose primary motivation is not meeting our health needs, but making a profit.

No wonder opinion polls show 84% of people are opposed to privatisation of the NHS. It is understandable that some workers will vote Labour in order to see the Act repealed, and the current decimation of our health service halted.

Unfortunately, however, a Labour government does not offer a road to kicking the private profiteers out of the NHS, or for a fully-funded service, free at the point of use, which is able to provide for everyone’s health needs. Labour did pledge an extra £2.5 billion for the NHS, but this falls far short of the extra £20 billion a year that the Institute of Fiscal Studies estimates that the NHS will need to continue to meet patient demand.

Labour’s insistence it will stick with Tory spending plans, however, means that it has since had to admit that it will not implement this minor pledge before halfway through its term of office!

Council cuts

Nor is the pressure on hospitals only related to NHS funding. Cuts to council funding have decimated social care budgets over the last five years. Labour councils have merely passed on these government cuts.

The number of elderly people getting state-funded care in their home has fallen by 28%. The result is many more people stuck in hospital, unable to go home because of the absence of assistance to help them cope.

Labour has, however, made it very clear that they will not reverse any of the cuts made in council funding. They have also pledged that the 1% pay freeze for health workers would continue if they won the election.

Nor will a Labour government reverse the privatisation that underpins the Health and Social Care Act. When the private company Circle pulled out of running Britain’s first wholly-privatised NHS hospital – Hinchingbrooke – Andy Burnham, Labour’s Shadow Health Minister, responded by saying the government had chosen the ‘wrong company’. Hardly opposition to privatisation!

This is no surprise, however, as the process of privatising Hinchingbrooke began under the last Labour government, when Andy Burnham was health minister. At the time of Labour leaving office three bidders – all private companies – were on the shortlist to run the hospital.

Successive Labour governments massively expanded privatisation of the NHS, creating a platform which the Con-Dems have built on. NHS Private Finance Initiative (PFI) deals introduced under Labour total £79 billion, of which only £6 billion has been paid off. They leave hospital trusts facing financial disaster and bankruptcy as they struggle to pay off their giant debt burdens.

No safeguard

None of the possible governmental alternatives beyond 7 May offer a means to safeguard the NHS. We need the trade unions to urgently prepare for a mass movement to defend our health service and to oppose austerity beyond the general election.

At the same time it is necessary to begin to build a political alternative that does stand for kicking the privateers out of the NHS, and rebuilding it under democratic control.

Some workers will vote UKIP in the general election, seeing them as a means to protest against the major parties. But UKIP is a right wing party led by millionaires and stockbrokers. Farage openly admits that he favours abolishing the NHS and moving to a private health insurance system!

We urgently need to create a party that stands for the majority – the working class – and puts defence of the NHS at the heart of its programme.

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition is aiming to stand in over one hundred seats in the general election as a step towards creating such a party. TUSC candidates will be fighting on a programme including:

  • No cuts or closures – full funding for our health care
  • End the Private Finance Initiative – bring PFI companies into public ownership
  • Reverse council cuts to social care to ease the A+E crisis
  • Public ownership of the drugs companies – private companies out the NHS
  • Pay health workers – end the pay freeze and the low pay scandal