Healthcare workers’ unions are counting on the public behaving like football supporters who always blame the manager when their team loses, never the players. They are working on the assumption that we can still be persuaded that it is entirely the Government’s fault that we have 400,000 people waiting over a year for hospital treatment, that many patients have been complaining of having to wait two weeks for a GPs’ appointment, that stroke victims are having to wait an hour for an ambulance, twice as long as they were waiting even at the peak of the Covid pandemic in January 2021. They calculate we will continue to believe that the reason nurses have been reduced to scouting around food banks for something to eat is because of a wider, ideological attack on the NHS, consisting of a decade of ‘cuts’.
This conceit has never stood up to examination. At current prices, the state’s health and social care budget for England has risen from £129.7 billion in 2009/10 to £180.2 billion in 2022/23 — a real-terms increase of 39 per cent. The number of full-time equivalent doctors working in the NHS has increased from 94,337 to 127,890 over the same period, and the number of full-time equivalent nurses from 281,609 to 319,383. But it is going to be even harder to sustain following the wave of strikes. When waiting lists grow even further in January, and it becomes even harder to get seen at a surgery or A&E unit, it is going to be patently obvious that part of the reason is industrial action.
This morning a senior NHS source warned that one of the results of this week’s strikes will be elderly patients trapped in hospital over Christmas because they cannot be discharged. Leave aside the inhumanity involved, everyone knows that one of the biggest strains on the NHS is bed-blockers occupying acute care beds which cannot then be used for new patients. This is a problem which is now going to be exacerbated by strikes.
Operation cancelled? Don’t look to Steve Barclay; not this time. At the very least you need to be directing a bit of your anger to the nursing unions. Waiting 10 hours’ in A&E? True, things weren’t great before the strikes, but they will be even worse afterwards, when, as during Covid lockdowns, very sick people have been driven to delay seeking treatment.
This is not a criticism of nurses who turned up, uncomplainingly, to do an honest day’s work throughout the pandemic — and whose salaries in common with many workers in Britain’s low-growth economy have slightly declined in real terms over the past dozen years — but something has gone desperately wrong in the way NHS services are being planned and delivered. That a 39 per cent increase in the NHS budget has resulted in the mess we have now, there must be some pretty awful decisions being made somewhere along the line. The Government deserves its share of the blame — as do the invisible bureaucrats who come up with wheezes such as creating a job for a £110,000 – £115,000 ‘director of lived experience’, advertised by an NHS trust last week.
But from now on, thanks to this week’s strikes, the unions have ensured that they, too, deserve a slice of the blame for creaking NHS services. When the inevitable fallout hits the NHS in January, they must not be allowed to shunt everything onto Steve Barclay and his fellow ministers.
Basically, how dare you point the fingers of NHS mismanagement at NHS management and government oversight.
Elderly people aren’t trapped in hospital over Xmas as they are unable to be discharged due to NHS staff, it’s due to basic government failings for social care, the NHS has little to no involvement in providing social care.
This article is completely stupid.
What a load of shit. Exactly what you’d expect from the Telegraph.
Torygraph strikes again in explaining why it is the unions’ fault that the 12-year reign of the Tory govt have finally broken the NHS enough for them to be desperate enough to strike. What utter tosh.
But of course it is the nasty high earning Union bosses fault.
>At current prices, the state’s health and social care budget for England has risen from £129.7 billion in 2009/10 to £180.2 billion in 2022/23 — a real-terms increase of 39 per cent. The number of full-time equivalent doctors working in the NHS has increased from 94,337 to 127,890 over the same period, and the number of full-time equivalent nurses from 281,609 to 319,383.
The population of the UK is growing and ageing. The number of people with very expensive to treat issues or chronic diseases is growing and growing. The state of the UK population, largely inactive, largely overweight and obese, largely eating junk food, isn’t helping.
“The unions have to take the blame for everything we did that went explicitly against the recommendations, advice and demands of the union. For reasons that I can’t quite explain.”
By Ross Clark. Nasty piece of work whose favourite pastime is whipping up tabloid readers until they’re purple with rage. Not a journalist, just a liar and bullshitter peddling his own far-right views to anyone who’ll publish them.
Is that before or after Corbyn takes the blame, or Labour, or Nye Bevan? Fuck it go all the way back and blame Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole.
Hippocrates needs to take some of the blame too.
Stupid shitrag spouting shite ad per usual.
By daring to want better hours, better pay for it’s members? HOW DARE THOSE FUCKERS WANT TO BE TREATED LIKE HUMANS! pfft, they should work 24/7 with one hour a sleep per week and be fed gruel! /s
​
The torygraph would do this because well, the tories are innocent according to them. The NHS is a mess and underfunded on purpose, people are expected to work stupid amount of hours per shift, do the job of three or more people because the NHS isn’t allowed ot hire more and when they do hire agency staff to cover the shortage, the NHS is charged stupid amounts per person.
The Torygraph trying to push blame anywhere other than the very obvious reason for strikes. I love how they try and spin their Master’s agenda, bloody obvious propaganda, and someone is getting paid to write this utter drivel and lies.
The Conservative Party everbody.
Fair play to the unions, they are taking their share of the blame… zero, because none of this is their fault!
More bullshit from an Oxbridge educated, right-wing think-tank propagandist.
Nothing to do with the >10 years of cuts.
Im sure he will have some investments in private healthcare if a little digging was done.
14 comments
Healthcare workers’ unions are counting on the public behaving like football supporters who always blame the manager when their team loses, never the players. They are working on the assumption that we can still be persuaded that it is entirely the Government’s fault that we have 400,000 people waiting over a year for hospital treatment, that many patients have been complaining of having to wait two weeks for a GPs’ appointment, that stroke victims are having to wait an hour for an ambulance, twice as long as they were waiting even at the peak of the Covid pandemic in January 2021. They calculate we will continue to believe that the reason nurses have been reduced to scouting around food banks for something to eat is because of a wider, ideological attack on the NHS, consisting of a decade of ‘cuts’.
This conceit has never stood up to examination. At current prices, the state’s health and social care budget for England has risen from £129.7 billion in 2009/10 to £180.2 billion in 2022/23 — a real-terms increase of 39 per cent. The number of full-time equivalent doctors working in the NHS has increased from 94,337 to 127,890 over the same period, and the number of full-time equivalent nurses from 281,609 to 319,383. But it is going to be even harder to sustain following the wave of strikes. When waiting lists grow even further in January, and it becomes even harder to get seen at a surgery or A&E unit, it is going to be patently obvious that part of the reason is industrial action.
This morning a senior NHS source warned that one of the results of this week’s strikes will be elderly patients trapped in hospital over Christmas because they cannot be discharged. Leave aside the inhumanity involved, everyone knows that one of the biggest strains on the NHS is bed-blockers occupying acute care beds which cannot then be used for new patients. This is a problem which is now going to be exacerbated by strikes.
Operation cancelled? Don’t look to Steve Barclay; not this time. At the very least you need to be directing a bit of your anger to the nursing unions. Waiting 10 hours’ in A&E? True, things weren’t great before the strikes, but they will be even worse afterwards, when, as during Covid lockdowns, very sick people have been driven to delay seeking treatment.
This is not a criticism of nurses who turned up, uncomplainingly, to do an honest day’s work throughout the pandemic — and whose salaries in common with many workers in Britain’s low-growth economy have slightly declined in real terms over the past dozen years — but something has gone desperately wrong in the way NHS services are being planned and delivered. That a 39 per cent increase in the NHS budget has resulted in the mess we have now, there must be some pretty awful decisions being made somewhere along the line. The Government deserves its share of the blame — as do the invisible bureaucrats who come up with wheezes such as creating a job for a £110,000 – £115,000 ‘director of lived experience’, advertised by an NHS trust last week.
But from now on, thanks to this week’s strikes, the unions have ensured that they, too, deserve a slice of the blame for creaking NHS services. When the inevitable fallout hits the NHS in January, they must not be allowed to shunt everything onto Steve Barclay and his fellow ministers.
Basically, how dare you point the fingers of NHS mismanagement at NHS management and government oversight.
Elderly people aren’t trapped in hospital over Xmas as they are unable to be discharged due to NHS staff, it’s due to basic government failings for social care, the NHS has little to no involvement in providing social care.
This article is completely stupid.
What a load of shit. Exactly what you’d expect from the Telegraph.
Torygraph strikes again in explaining why it is the unions’ fault that the 12-year reign of the Tory govt have finally broken the NHS enough for them to be desperate enough to strike. What utter tosh.
Somehow they managed to find [£37B](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-test-trace-dido-harding-report-b1814714.html)for track and trace that neither tracked nor traced and used unprotected [Excel](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54423988) sheet data amongst other ridiculous privacy violations and laughable lack of software engineering just to slowly fade into the background once the Tory chums’ pockets were nicely lined with that yummy taxpayer money. Same goes for that juicy [PPE](https://www.transparency.org.uk/track-and-trace-uk-PPE-procurement-corruption-risk-VIP-lane) procurement contract that went to a pub owner who put the money into Jersey offshore accounts.
But of course it is the nasty high earning Union bosses fault.
>At current prices, the state’s health and social care budget for England has risen from £129.7 billion in 2009/10 to £180.2 billion in 2022/23 — a real-terms increase of 39 per cent. The number of full-time equivalent doctors working in the NHS has increased from 94,337 to 127,890 over the same period, and the number of full-time equivalent nurses from 281,609 to 319,383.
The population of the UK is growing and ageing. The number of people with very expensive to treat issues or chronic diseases is growing and growing. The state of the UK population, largely inactive, largely overweight and obese, largely eating junk food, isn’t helping.
“The unions have to take the blame for everything we did that went explicitly against the recommendations, advice and demands of the union. For reasons that I can’t quite explain.”
By Ross Clark. Nasty piece of work whose favourite pastime is whipping up tabloid readers until they’re purple with rage. Not a journalist, just a liar and bullshitter peddling his own far-right views to anyone who’ll publish them.
Is that before or after Corbyn takes the blame, or Labour, or Nye Bevan? Fuck it go all the way back and blame Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole.
Hippocrates needs to take some of the blame too.
Stupid shitrag spouting shite ad per usual.
By daring to want better hours, better pay for it’s members? HOW DARE THOSE FUCKERS WANT TO BE TREATED LIKE HUMANS! pfft, they should work 24/7 with one hour a sleep per week and be fed gruel! /s
​
The torygraph would do this because well, the tories are innocent according to them. The NHS is a mess and underfunded on purpose, people are expected to work stupid amount of hours per shift, do the job of three or more people because the NHS isn’t allowed ot hire more and when they do hire agency staff to cover the shortage, the NHS is charged stupid amounts per person.
The Torygraph trying to push blame anywhere other than the very obvious reason for strikes. I love how they try and spin their Master’s agenda, bloody obvious propaganda, and someone is getting paid to write this utter drivel and lies.
The Conservative Party everbody.
Fair play to the unions, they are taking their share of the blame… zero, because none of this is their fault!
More bullshit from an Oxbridge educated, right-wing think-tank propagandist.
Nothing to do with the >10 years of cuts.
Im sure he will have some investments in private healthcare if a little digging was done.