‘In thrall to austerity policies of the past’

THAT the staff working at Royal Stoke University Hospital and the County Hospital in Stafford deserve the extra days holiday awarded to them in recognition of their efforts during the pandemic, is unquestionable.

It is somewhat more debatable whether the government values NHS staff in Staffordshire, or anywhere else, quite so highly.

The recent one per cent pay rise they were given, along with advice to think themselves lucky not to belong to one of the other public services who received no rise at all, rather proves this point.

Arguments that this was necessary to ‘balance the books’ don’t hold water, as with the two world wars the debt run up by the government will be spread over several decades, making it entirely manageable.

A more accurate understanding would be that despite noisy protestations to the contrary, this is still a government in thrall to the austerity policies of its predecessors.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Chancellor Rishi Sunak were keen enough to be seen clapping for the NHS last year.

Now they are enthusiastically promoting building a memorial to commemorate the pandemic and those, including NHS staff, who lost their lives.

No doubt they are doing so with one eye on playing a starring role in any national ceremony of remembrance.

Such optics should not be allowed to hide the fact that starving the NHS and other public services of funding for a decade made it all the harder for them to deal with a crisis.

This makes the response of the NHS, public services and the many key workers employed in the private sector over the past year truly heroic.

Sadly, it also shows up the actions of the government as being dangerously irresponsible.

ADAM COLCLOUGH PENKHULL