We must not let politicians kick the NHS around like a privatisation football

The general election is approaching fast, and as we get closer to polling day it’s clear that the NHS is a very hot topic for voters – with politicians from all sides making promises.

Ipsos Mori recently carried out polling which showed that the NHS is the number one issue of concern to the public. YouGov described it last week as the second issue of importance after the economy, but the two were very close, commanding a significant lead ahead of “immigration and asylum” in third place.

It’s not surprising, of course, that the NHS is on so many peoples’ minds.

The NHS: falling apart around us

The Conservative Party government has undermined the service to a terrifying degree for the past 14 years, and our public healthcare system is now facing the most significant crisis of its 75 year history.

I qualified as a doctor in 2010, and the service is barely recognisable from the one I walked into as a newly-qualified medical graduate. The NHS has never been perfect; there were sometimes long waits, and errors, and during the winters things got very busy at times.

But back then we felt that we were delivering a good service for our patients, and that things were improving too. All of that has changed now.

There are the NHS waiting lists of course, which are the longest in the NHS’s history (they’re even longer now than when Rishi Sunak pledged to tackle them back in January 2023).

There are chronic understaffing problems, because so many staff have moved abroad to places where they’ll be better supported, or have even left their careers in healthcare altogether, because of the relentless pressure and the real-terms pay cuts.

There are crumbling buildings, crumbling morale, and crumbling satisfaction amongst patients, who feel understandably frustrated about the state of the service.

The devastation that has been caused by the Conservatives is extraordinary; in just over a decade these politicians have created a bleak wasteland where there was once hope, and ambition, and collective pride in a service which has the ability to transform millions of lives.

But there lies its danger; and we need to pay close attention now to what politicians are saying and the promises they make, because this ability, this promise of what it can offer, is the very thing that lays the NHS wide open to lies and exaggerations from politicians during a general election campaign.

General election NHS promises and lies

Politicians from all parties are falling over themselves right now to tell the public that they have the plan, the commitment, and the drive to save the NHS. We are hearing it from the Conservatives, unbelievably, who are promising new GP surgeries and community diagnostic centres (forgetting, perhaps, that they haven’t delivered on their 2019 manifesto promise of 40 new hospitals).

We are hearing it from the Labour Party, who are alarmingly enthusiastic about working with private companies and claim that they will use “spare capacity” in the private sector to help with the NHS backlog, despite no evidence that this spare capacity exists in any meaningful way.

We are even hearing it from the Reform party, with Nigel Farage saying on BBC Question Time that the NHS needs a new funding model (despite experts agreeing recently that the current funding model relying on public taxation is best.

We can expect more of this as the campaigns roll on. More promises, more claims, big and bold and often inaccurate.

Voters are vulnerable right now, and we are liable to listen to politicians who have a charismatic demeanour and a compelling vision for the NHS. But if we really want to save the NHS, we need to challenge them on what they are saying.

Challenge the politicians – don’t take what they say as read

Politicians have been undermining the NHS for many years now. Governments of different parties have come into office and have undertaken “NHS reforms” which we have been told will improve the service, but have actually inserted new layers of corporatisation and privatisation.

None of this has improved the NHS; it has simply allowed public money to find its way into shareholders’ hands.

If we want to save the NHS, this needs to stop. There is no evidence that privatisation benefits the NHS; in fact there is growing evidence that it is harmful.

We need politicians who are brave enough and bold enough to reimagine the NHS; to transform the service not by creating “partnerships” with private companies, or by changing the funding model, but instead by eliminating privatisation from the NHS altogether, and investing in the service, its staff and infrastructure.

We need a bold vision for the future of the NHS; and we need politicians who will put an end to profit-creation within the delivery of public healthcare in the UK.

Featured image via the Canary