Second of LLI’s series of meetings seeking to link the Labour left with labour-movement and left campaigns: Saturday 18 December, 4:30pm to 6pm.
Zoomlink https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89987346975 or http://bit.ly/lli-hsc
Speakers include:
• Becky Talbot, March With Midwives https://www.facebook.com/groups/463781921584006
• John Puntis, Keep our NHS Public https://keepournhspublic.com/
• Alison Treacher, Care and Support Workers Organise (CasWO!) https://twitter.com/CaSWO_
• Edd Mustill, NHS Workers Say No! (Edd writes: some background to the [NHS pay] campaign and some personal views on where we should be going next: https://medium.com/@ourcommonendeavour/the-nhs-pay-campaign-where-we-are-and-where-we-need-to-go-5ebe1359587a)
NHS waiting lists were at 5.8 million in mid-November, before winter really started and before Omicron. Part of the reason is Covid impacts, but the defining fact is that the public health grant has been cut by 24% on a real-terms per capita basis since 2015/16: https://www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/charts-and-infographics/why-greater-investment-in-the-public-health-grant-should-be-a-priorityAt the same time incremental privatisation of the NHS – conversion of large parts of it to a public “logo” and commissioner of private services – has increased, and the Health and Social Care Bill currently in Parliament seeks to push that process further: https://www.the-pda.org/health-campaigns-together-briefing-on-the-health-and-social-care-bill/
The government’s proposals for social care will mean increased costs for many poorer families: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/18/six-in-10-elderly-care-users-in-england-set-to-lose-out-from-costs-cap
They will leave untouched the long-term privatisation and subordination to profit of social care: https://lowdownnhs.info/analysis/long-read/the-history-of-privatisation-second-in-a-series-by-john-lister/
Both NHS workers and care workers face huge staff shortages and squeezes on their real wages. Over 100,000 job vacancies are unfilled in social care https://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/adult-social-care-workforce-data/Workforce-intelligence/publications/national-information/The-state-of-the-adult-social-care-sector-and-workforce-in-England.aspx and the median hourly pay for care workers is only pennies above the legal minimum wage https://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/adult-social-care-workforce-data/Workforce-intelligence/publications/Topics/Pay-rates.aspx. The official NHS job vacancy count was 94,000 in June 2021 https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-vacancies-survey/april-2015—june-2021-experimental-statistics, and NHS real wages are well below what they were in 2010 https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/resource/chart-of-the-week-real-terms-nhs-staff-pay-from-2010-to-2020