To Jeremy Hunt
We’re appealing to you on behalf of more than a million NHS employees working across the whole of the health service. The NHS is in the depths of an acute winter health crisis. Patients are stranded, treated, and sometimes dying on trolleys in corridors because wards are so overcrowded.
Ambulances are queuing outside hospitals because crews are unable to hand over patients to under-pressure emergency staff.
But the sad thing is, this crisis isn’t a one-off. It’s the direct impact of decisions from your department and by your Government. The result of years of cuts to services and wages, and damaging staff shortages.
The extra resources for the NHS in November’s Budget came far too late and weren’t nearly enough. The impending flu epidemic is of course added pressure, but it masks the biggest threat facing the NHS – it simply doesn’t have enough staff.
Despite the incredible strain the NHS is under, it’s still treasured by the British people, still a concern for them. More than an institution, the NHS is an ideal they hold dear.
That is thanks to those who work in it, who continue to work in an overstretched service for declining wages and under incredibly difficult conditions.
Many health employees could earn more working elsewhere. Yet they stay, often way beyond the end of their shifts, to hold the NHS together so it can treat everyone who’s ill or in pain.
This winter crisis will give the NHS a hangover that lasts all year long. But it doesn’t have to be like this. It’s not too late.
Stop and listen to the people that know the NHS best, who see with their own eyes every day how bad things have got. Fund it better and do so now, for all our sakes.
Signed
Frances O’Grady, General Secretary, TUC Dave Prentis, General Secretary, UNISON Chris Cox, Director of Membership Relations, Royal College of Nursing Dr Chaand Nagpaul CBE, Council Chair, BMA Len McCluskey, General Secretary, UNITE Tim Roache, General Secretary, GMB
Claire Sullivan, Director of Employment Relations and Union Services, Chartered Society of Physiotherapy
Gill Walton, General Secretary and Chief Executive, Royal College of Midwives Richard Evans, CEO, Society of Radiographers Steve Jamieson, Chief Executive, Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists Andy Burman, General Secretary and CEO, British Dietetic Association Prof Ross Welch, President of Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association