National Health Service

Lord Morris of Handsworth Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morris of Handsworth (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, commend the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, for securing this important and timely debate. Like other noble Lords, I also come to the debate as a long-term user of the NHS, but one who fears for its future as I see the most tried and trusted institution disappearing almost daily in terms of its ethics, values and what it stood for.

In 2006, the current Prime Minister told us that the NHS would be safe in his hands. He promised that there would be no more pointless, top-down, disruptive reorganisation and that changes would be driven by the wishes and needs of NHS professionals and patients. As a matter of fact, this Prime Minister has presided over the biggest, most costly and I would say pointless reorganisation in the entire history of the NHS. Patients and professionals alike have personally experienced the results of this destructive reorganisation which the majority neither wanted nor needed. No Conservative or Liberal Democrat manifesto contained any mention of this approach, nor was it mentioned in the coalition agreement.

Last October, the CQC report described some A&E departments and maternity units as so short of doctors and nurses that they posed a danger to patients. NHS staff are leaving the profession feeling undervalued, underpaid, overworked and not consulted. The result of this mass exodus means that last year the NHS spent £1.3 billion on agency and contract staff.

Let’s face it. This has been one of the worst weeks in the history of the NHS. Day after day we have heard that one health authority after another is unable to cope with patient numbers, with waiting times increasing, operations postponed, staff demoralised, ambulance services under pressure and many operating below mandatory levels. People are urged to use A&E departments for genuine emergencies only, yet many have been unable to get a GP appointment. As a nation, we are of course living longer. The official statistics show that over the course of the past few years more than 700,000 elderly people have blocked hospital beds because a care home or a support home could not be found to accommodate them.

Throughout the world, the NHS has been admired and even envied for its record in providing healthcare to people when they need it most—publicly owned, publicly funded, publicly respected and publicly accountable. However, the NHS is becoming unrecognisable. I am not alone in fearing for its future. The British people want an NHS dedicated to making a difference rather than a profit; a service which belongs to the people and which is not for sale. I want the workers to be properly represented in the decision-making process, properly remunerated and consulted about how the service is run and delivered.

I, for one, look forward to the British people having the opportunity to rescue the National Health Service and hand it back to those who need it, those who use it and those who care for it.