Wes Streeting Describes His Plans for the NHS

As a member of the Labour party, I got this message from Streeting yesterday in which he lays out his plans for the NHS. He also appeals for people to send in their stories of having to wait for treatment under the Tories. It all sounds great, but I have real doubts about whether it’ll ever be put into practice or whether it’s going to be another of Starmer’s meaningless pledges. Streeting has said that there won’t be increased funding for the NHS unless it reforms, and I’ve a terrible suspicion that by ‘reform’ they mean ‘privatisation’. Blair crawled out of whatever hole he resides in a few months ago to call for more private involvement in the health service, and one of the left-wing vloggers put up a piece stating that Streeting had said he’d hold the door wide open for privatisation to American healthcare firms. And without increased funding, how are these reforms going to be put into practice anyway? Here’s what he said. Take a look at it and see what you make of it.

‘After 13 years of Conservative mismanagement, people can no longer trust the NHS will be there for us when we need it.

The longer we give them, the longer patients wait. With Labour, it will be our mission to get the NHS back on its feet.

David, before I get to the latest on Labour’s plan, I want to find out more about your experience with the NHS. I’m asking you:

1. Do you work in the NHS? If the answer is yes, first of all, thank you. The NHS’ greatest asset is its staff. I’d love for you to join Labour’s NHS staff network and become a key campaigner on the NHS, working together to deliver the next Labour government.
2. Are you or have you been stuck on an NHS waiting list? Maybe you’ve even been forced to go private? Please, share your story with Labour today, so we can hold the Tories to account.

Letting us know today will help the next Labour government deliver an NHS fit for the future tomorrow:

Let Labour know

Now to the plan – Labour will pull every available lever to get patients seen faster, including using spare capacity in the private sector. We will:

• Pay NHS staff extra to deliver 2 million more appointments and operations a year on evenings and weekends.
• Double the number of scanners, so patients with conditions like cancer are diagnosed earlier, giving them the best chance of survival.
• Provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments and make sure everyone who needs an NHS dentist can get one.

Our plan to cut waiting lists will cost £1.6 billion a year, paid for by abolishing the non-dom tax status; so that wealthy people who live and work in Britain pay their taxes here too.

But we also need to reform the NHS and make it fit for the future. For the NHS to survive, it must provide better care for patients and better value for taxpayers.

Labour will train thousands more doctors, nurses and midwives, and provide them with the latest technology, so patients get the best quality care.

The NHS will become a Neighbourhood Health Service, with healthcare available on your doorstep and from the comfort of your own home. Labour will bring back the family doctor, so patients can easily book appointments to see the doctor they want, in the manner they choose – whether it’s face-to-face, over the phone, or online.

Prevention is better than cure, so Labour will shift the focus from simply treating sickness to preventing it in the first place.

Mental health should be treated as seriously as physical health, so we will recruit an extra 8,500 mental health professionals, paid for by abolishing tax loopholes for the wealthiest.

The last Labour government delivered the shortest waits and highest patient satisfaction in history. We did it before and we can do it again. Labour will give Britain its NHS back.

Let’s do it together – take action today by:

• Joining our NHS staff network if you work for the NHS.
• Sharing your NHS waiting list story with us, so we can hold the Tories to account.

Thank you and have a merry Christmas,

Wes Streeting
Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

Labour Party Now Selling NHS Merchandise

I’ve noticed that after Starmer drove all the real, old Labour, socialist supporters and activists away, the Labour party has started trying to raise funds my selling merchandise. It looks to me not just like conventional internet merchandising, but also an attempt to find another source of money now that the expelled left-wingers have taken their subscriptions with them. And then there were the sales of tickets to banquets, where you could meet great and inspiring Labour politicians like, er, Peter Mandelson, the master of the dark arts. Today I got a message from them advertising NHS merchandise to celebrate the coming 75th anniversary of the health service, along with their pledge about how they’re going to reform and improve it.

I don’t know how I feel about it. I’m tempted to buy an NHS mug or something like that, not just to support the health service, but also to display it as a gesture when Starmer starts breaking his promises there.

Here’s their message’

This year, the NHS celebrates its 75th birthday. Labour’s introduction of the NHS transformed lives, giving access to world class health care to all.To mark the occasion, the Labour shop is proud to launch our brand-new range of “Your NHS” Labour Party merch, so we can celebrate the NHS:

Your purchase will also help fund the campaign to elect the next Labour government and help us put our plan for the NHS into action – putting patients first.

The next Labour government will build an NHS fit for the future by:

• Delivering the biggest expansion of the NHS workforce in history, doubling the number of medical school places, training 10,000 extra nurses and midwives every year, and training 5,000 more health visitors, paid for by abolishing the non-dom tax status.
• Harnessing modern technology to diagnose patients earlier and treat them sooner.
• Putting patients first and enabling them to easily book GP appointments to see the doctor, in the manner they choose – whether it’s face to face, over the phone, or online.

To achieve this, Labour must kick the Tories out of Downing Street at the next general election.‘

This is followed by an appeal to help their election fund and support the NHS.

Well, I do support the NHS. Which is why I’m very sceptical about Blairite Labour. Blair did more than the Tories to privatise it. Alan Milburn, his health secretary, wanted to reduce it to a kitemark on healthcare given by private companies.

This is why I’m going to watch what Starmer does with this most precious of British institutions very carefully.

Reply from Local Bristol MP to My Offer of Book against NHS Privatisation

A few weeks ago I wrote to my local MP for Bristol South, Karin Smyth, offering her copies of my self-published book and pamphlets against NHS Privatisation. I received this reply from her yesterday.

‘Dear David Sivier

Thank you for contacting me to raise concerns about NHS privatisation.

We must build capacity in the NHS so that all patients who need it can be treated on time again. But I believe we have a responsibility in the short term to utilise spare capacity in the private sector to get through the current crisis and bring down NHS waiting lists. Nobody should be left languishing in serious pain, while those who can afford to, pay to go private. That is the two-tier healthcare system that we need to end.

In the long term, I want the NHS to be so good that people never have to go private. There is, in my view, an incompatibility between the aims of private companies and the aims of the NHS. A company’s primary concern is its shareholders, not the patients.

Building an NHS fit for the future is one of Labour’s five key missions for government, reforming health and care services to speed up treatment, shifting the focus of healthcare out of the hospital and into the community, and reduce health inequalities.

Paid for by ending the non-dom tax status regime, the plan will double the number of medical school places, create 10,000 extra nursing and midwifery clinical placements a year, train double the number of district nurses each year, and deliver 5,000 more health visitors.

Thank you once again for contacting me about this issue.

Yours sincerely,

Karin Smyth MP
Labour MP for Bristol South’

I very much support her comments about making the NHS so good that no-one would want to go private and the incompatibility between private enterprise and the aims of the NHS. I also fully support Labour’s proposal to increase the training of NHS nurses and midwives, paid for by ending the non-dom tax status. If that goes through, that will really hurt the proprietor of the Heil, who has inherited it from his wretched father but unlike him shows no sign of living in France.

However, I do not trust Keir Starmer and MPs like Wes Streeting to honour it. I hope I will be proved wrong. In the meantime, there is no chance of reversing privatisation with the Tories in power.

Get them out!