Blyth Valley MP

Ronnie Campbell column: Only Labour can save the health service

Posted by The Journal on Jun 1, 11 09:20 AM in Blyth Valley MP

Blyth Valley MP Ronnie Campbell's weekly column in the Blyth & Cramlington Extra

The big news around Parliament is of course the proposed changes to the health service and how this is splitting the coalition government.

Now it doesn't take a brain surgeon (pardon the analogy) to work out that every time you hear a Tory leader say the health service needs 'modernising' or that it is 'inefficient' or can be 'improved by cutting management' there are massive risks and cuts facing the people who deliver a brilliant service.

Can you remember the state of the hospitals back in 1997? I can - understaffed, poor facilities and with doctors and nurses working long and dangerous hours. To try and get an appointment with a GP was a huge task, never mind seeing a consultant.

Remember how you kept reading the horror stories about cancer patients dying before they ever saw a specialist? To its credit the last Labour government achieved a huge amount in the health service, waiting times slashed, cancer patients guaranteed to see a specialist within days of diagnosis, heart and stroke fatalities dropping and all because the right amount of investment went in and it was targeted at the right areas.

Now I would be the first to say that we didn't get it all right and that we should have done more but by its very nature the health service can never be fully funded because it is always identifying and tackling either new ailments or finding new treatments for existing problems, so it will always be a service-led drag on the finances available.

Now, however, I have the familiar nervous tingling I always get when I hear Tories say the health service is safe in their hands - it isn't and never will be because they have one overriding goal and that is to privatise it and see profits coming out of it.

However these profits when they are made won't be to benefit the hospitals or the service. I hope and pray that the Lib Dems get some guts when the proposals come into the Houses of Parliament because the way this bunch of Conservatives are going the privatisation will be quick, brutal and mercenary.

The proof of the pudding however is always in the eating as they say and after only a year in government already the waiting lists are going up and there is now more than one in 10 people waiting for treatment for over 18 weeks.

I rest my case and hope common sense prevails and they leave the health service alone, although I don't think that will happen. But be warned - the health service is anything but safe in the hands of the Tories and their lapdogs the Lib Dems.

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