Councilllors in the North West are being asked to support a joint national political initiative to save Britain’s NHS and care services.
Former full-time NHS watchdog, Southport councillor Tony Dawson has a motion for debate in the Sefton Council next Thursday which seeks backing for a unique move in political co-operation to save our health and care services and make them fit for the 21st century.
National Lib Dem Health spokesperson Norman Lamb MP has got together with former Tory Heath Minister Dan Poulter MP and Labour’s former shadow care minister Liz Kendall MP to try to create a national Health and Care Service fit for the future. Their bold move is also supported by four Select Committee Chairs – Tory Sarah Wollaston MP (Health Committee), and Labour’s Meg Hillier MP (Public Accounts Committee), Clive Betts MP (Communities and Local Government Committee) and Frank Field MP (Work and Pensions Committee).
Councillor Dawson hopes that if Sefton Council can give support to such co-operation then other councils across the North West can be asked to follow suit. He says:
“The Borough of Sefton is unique in Britain in that it was governed for 19 years by a three party coalition. So, if local elected representatives cannot support co-operation here then nobody can.”
“The NHS is not just under phenomenal pressure from an increasingly elderly population and the prospect of more cutbacks after Brexit. It is under deliberate and sustained attack from an ‘enemy within’.”
He cites Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt as presiding over an increasingly dysfunctional organisation which he seems to want to fail in its present form so that the people of the country will lose faith in it, permitting proposals to come forward for the NHS to be completely dismembered and privatised.
“Reforming and uniting Britain’s Health and Care provision is a massive task. It is a task completely beyond any single government of any political party. Because of the crude adversarial nature of UK politics, even the best idea in the world put forward by the most brilliant minister in the most brilliant government would be shot to pieces in Parliament and then be delayed beyond delay.”
“This core group of respected honest politicians from all parties are prepared to co-operate together for the good of the nation, for the good of our NHS and for the good of our care services. They deserve and need our support.”
Launching the initiative, Norman Lamb MP said:
“The health and social care system in England is facing unprecedented challenges. Failing to find a solution to this crisis puts some of the most vulnerable people at risk – frail and elderly people in need of care services, disabled people who need support and people with long-term illnesses, particularly those suffering from mental ill health.
“Building a sustainable health and care system that can provide high-quality care can’t be realised without putting aside party political point-scoring.”
“The public sick and tired of the NHS and care system being treated like a political football. People have had enough, and are crying out for an honest discussion and bold solutions to these challenges.”
The move comes as Southport & Ormskirk hospital and several other NHS Trusts across the North West look highly-precarious as they struggle under huge debt – and when the completion of the new Royal Liverpool Hospital is uncertain due to it being caught up in the scandal of the multi-billion Carrillion collapse.
Councillor Dawson also wants the Council to invite Prime Minister Theresa May to come up to Southport to discuss the effect on local communities of salami-slicing Southport Hospital till there will be little left there. He says:
“We have already had the visit of the ‘monkey’. Jeremy Hunt sneaked in and out of Southport hospital on a flying visit last year avoiding local people and doing nothing for our hospital’s survival. We need the ‘organ grinder’.”
“Let Mrs May come here to the North West, to Southport and similar places where are hospital services are at risk. Let her talk with local people and hospital staff as well as the councillors who are involved in trying to deliver community care locally. Then we will see if there is any substance behind the re-branding ‘hype’ which the Prime Minister has recently been hard-selling.”
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