The NHS has provided the best, most cost-effective health service in the world, it has provided to the British People a level of health care unparalleled anywhere or at any time in world history.
During the Coalition years, we have seen the NHS systematically starved of money, basic resources, doctors, nurses & ancillary staff cuts, resignations and redundancies. Pay has fallen at an unprecedented rate & morale among the remaining staff is at its lowest point ever.
The Coalition is selling our NHS. There is no doubt of this, the reasons given for both the cuts and the sale of the NHS are fairly simple.
The Tories believe in privatisation of all services.
The Tories believe that all Welfare Services should be provided by individuals or via Charity.
Already privatised the majority of social housing - housing associations, sale of council housing & private landlords control the majority of social housing in the UK.
Already provided by charity - the list is almost endless with Children in need and care line providing for children & Age Concern providing relief for the elderly and C.A.B. and others providing advice to everyone - food banks and soup kitchens providing food the the poor, charity shops providing cheap clothing, bedding and second hand household goods - charity groups providing shelter for the homeless and a thousand other things.
Another Way for the NHS.
I have believed for a while that fundamental errors in thinking have happened in Britain with regards to the NHS and social welfare.
When the NHS was conceived it was envisaged that it would provide a comprehensive health care service to every individual in the UK, at the time this included physical injury, physical illnesses, physical impairments due to age or long term health conditions, dental and Mental Health Care.
As the years have passed (largely due to NHS research and innovation experimentation and data gathering) the NHS has learned (and shared) millions of pieces of information. This accumulated
knowledge has led to thousands of new procedures, operations health care improvements and advances. For example treatment of diabetes, cancer, heart conditions and research into the effects of tobacco and alcohol.
I believe one area of knowledge that was still in its infancy when the NHS was created is Emotional Health, Welfare and Wellbeing. Mental Health was an emerging science in the 1940's. but medical professionals tended to think of emotional needs as something provided by family and people would learn to deal with themselves.
As professionals have learned about the connections between physical health, mental health &
emotional health, welfare and wellbeing. It becomes clearer that there needs to be a closer relationship between the people that provide physical health care and the mental health team. Also, there needs to be a closer connection between mental health services and those providing emotional support, health, welfare and wellbeing.
I believe the Government has taken the NHS in entirely the wrong direction. Privatisation, not only undermines every principle upon which the NHS was founded but (perhaps more importantly) the Coalition has disempowered the NHS and undermined its evolution to the next level.
The NHS must be Renationalised in its entirety.
The NHS must be enlarged and extended to provide a 'completely comprehensive (Wholistic) service.
The NHS Must be promoted as the answer to social, health & welfare injustice in Britain.
The NHS Must be offered to other nations as a 'Packaged all-encompassing Human health and welfare resource.
I believe the NHS only has a future if we take action that is as 'Equally Radical' as at its inception in the 1940's. I believe the cost to Britain if we loose OUR free at the point of service NHS (to Privatisation) will be far greater than the cost of saving and advancing it - TO THE NEXT LEVEL.
We all know the amount of difference a 'kind word' or a small 'help kindness' can have upon our emotional wellbeing - this improves our mental health and causes us to feel better physically.
I propose a health service that caters for the Wholistic needs of every citizen from pre-natal to anti -mortem (perhaps even a funeral provision for the poor and a house cleaning service for the disabled).
David King.
