Give our NHS the cash NOW
12 unions in unprecedented plea to Hunt for extra funds
HEALTH unions are joining forces today to make a desperate plea to Jeremy Hunt to give the NHS an emergency funding boost.
In an unprecedented joint letter, the heads of 12 major trade unions make an urgent appeal to the Health Secretary to reverse Tory cuts and give the health service the money it needs.
They say this year’s “acute” winter crisis is the result of “years of cuts to services and wages, and damaging staff shortages”.
Leaders tell Mr Hunt the £1.6billion extra in November’s Budget came “far too late” and the NHS is kept going only through the dedication of more than one million workers.
These staff are working in “an overstretched service, for declining wages and under incredibly difficult conditions,” the letter – in full on the right – states.
Its signatories include TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady, UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis and Unite’s general secretary Len McCluskey.
Mr Prentis said: “This, and every other winter, lays bare the huge pressures staff are under. There aren’t enough of them, nor the resources to care for patients properly. The Government must come up with the cash the NHS urgently needs and deserves.”
Ms O’Grady said: “No one knows the NHS better than the people who work in it. And the message is clear – intolerable funding pressures are putting patients at risk and damaging services. “When over a million NHS workers speak out, ministers should listen.”
Last night, former health secretary Lord Lansley called on the Government to give the service more cash. He said: “The level of funding per year needs to increase by 4% as a minimum.
“It would in the NHS’ interest for us to set something like 8% of GDP as a benchmark.”
The unions’ letter comes after trade body NHS Providers warned last week the service cannot deliver required levels of care with its current funding.
More than 5,000 people waited more than an hour to be seen at A&Es in England in the first week of the year. Hospitals have been ordered to postpone all elective operations till February, with at least 55,000 deferred.
It comes as a report by analysts LaingBuisson found that 929 care homes have shut in the past decade. John Appleby, of The King’s Fund, said “funding pressures on local authorities [are] making it increasingly difficult for the NHS to deliver high-quality care.”