letter to the press: NHS
Dear editor,
Your continuing recent coverage of problems at our local hospitals brings home the extent of under-resourcing, understaffing, and increased workloads. Despite the dedicated work of healthcare professionals, our health service is in crisis.
The amount that London’s hospitals spend on agency nurses has increased by 156 per cent over just four years, and one in six nursing posts is now vacant.
Ambulances are missing their targets, GP waiting times are getting longer and the A&E system in Barnet and Camden is failing to hit waiting time targets as a result of the strains under which they are forced to operate by the Conservative Government.
NHS data show a continuing trend of missed A and E waiting times for the most serious (Type-1) emergency cases across London, including at the Royal Free, University College and Whittington Hospitals.
A&Es are expected to treat 95% of patients within 4 hours, in accordance with national NHS waiting time targets. Yet in January, the Royal Free, UCLH and the Whittington were amongst all the hospitals in London ( bar one) that fell short of the target with just 87% of emergency patients seen within 4 hours in January at the Royal Free (including Barnet General), 88% at UCLH and 84.6% at Whittington.
2,834 Royal Free and Barnet patients were left waiting longer than 4 hours, 1,314 patients at UCLH and 1,274 at the Whittington..
While our NHS services struggle the Conservative candidate for Mayor of London makes no reference whatsoever to these NHS problems in his manifesto.
The Conservatives abolished NHS London – the strategic management body for health services in London – so that London’s health and social care system doesn’t have the strategic planning and coordination it needs. They have failed to devolve NHS to London, unlike to Manchester, but the Mayor still has important public health powers.
We need a Labour Mayor, Sadiq Khan, to fill this vacuum and to prioritise tackling public health problems like rising rates of HIV and TB and London’s growing mental health crisis.
Andrew Dismore
Labour London Assembly Member and candidate for Barnet and Camden
