Bill does not help the NHS
As a retired doctor and like many patients I am appalled to witness our NHS at breaking point.
Staff are struggling to provide the necessary care in a system that is ultimately broken due to severe underfunding and increased privatisation over the last 11 years.
The Government’s new Health and Care Bill will do nothing to help our desperate NHS.
It fails to address dangerous workforce shortages; risks continuing unnecessary and destabilising privatisation; fails to provide local accountability, and gives Westminster politicians greater powers to interfere in operational NHS decisionmaking. Rushing this bill through parliament at a time when the NHS is still coping with unprecedented pressures is reckless. Probably deliberately so.
The NHS workforce is clearly exhausted, working tirelessly throughout the pandemic, caring for patients in Sunderland and with the added difficulty of coping with stroke, maternity and paediatric emergencies being transferred from South Tyneside as part of the socalled “Path to Excellence”. And we still have the largest ever backlog of care with many patients still waiting unacceptable lengths to be seen.
It is clear that we need urgent investment and the guarantee that the NHS will be given support to deliver care for patients.
If this bill is going to shape the future delivery of health care in Sunderland, it is imperative that those who are involved in the dayto-day running of care and who know the patients here are represented, and given a leading role within local decision-making bodies.
We do not want private companies sitting on the boards which decide where the money goes and we certainly don’t want money going to private companies whose very existence is about making a profit for shareholders.
Dr. Pam Wortley, Sunderland