Action gets results! In fact, the junior doctors have shown that the threat of action gets results. Their planned strike on 1 December was called off after the government was forced back to the negotiating table. The threat to forcibly impose the new junior doctors’ contracts has been temporarily suspended.
So far no deal has been reached and the BMA, representing the doctors in negotiations, has correctly kept the threat of future strike action on the table if no satisfactory changes are made. Any deal should be put to a vote of all junior doctors before being accepted.
The bold, united stand taken by the doctors shows the type of campaign that will be needed to defend our NHS, which is facing crisis. In his spending review George Osborne reaffirmed the Tories’ demand for ‘efficiency savings’ of £22 billion in five years.
A letter in the Guardian signed by 76 doctors pointed out: “hernia operations costing £1,000 now will be expected by the Treasury to cost £815 in 2021 for a similar, if not better, standard. This is a frighteningly unrealistic expectation for a health system already among the world’s most efficient. Efficiency savings are fast becoming a euphemism for funding cuts.”
Osborne tried to trick us by promising an ‘extra’ £3.8 billion next year – but that’s just frontloading money that was already budgeted for. Services are already at breaking point – unacceptable waiting lists, under-staffed wards and overworked, underpaid nurses.
Trusts are being bled dry by Private Finance Initiative vultures and vital drugs are being taken off of patients because the pharmaceutical companies charge too much for them.
We need a mass, working class movement against all cuts and privatisation. To have success, such a movement would have to be led by health workers in all NHS unions willing to take industrial action to defend jobs, conditions and services.
- Abolish the Health and Social Care Act – no cuts, closures or privatisation
- Support health workers. Reject the junior doctors’ contract. End the low pay scandal. United action by all health unions to defend our NHS
- Scrap the Private Finance Initiative and cancel the debt
- Nationalise the pharmaceutical, medical supply industries and all private health providers. Compensation to be paid only on the basis of proven need
- Investment not cuts – for a well-funded NHS, free at the point of use
