I went along to Worcestershire Royal Hospital this morning to show my support for the junior doctors on strike today. Their protest is, in my view, valid and the fact that they have had to resort to strike action – the first in 40 years – shows what a desperate situation they find themselves in.
The root cause for this is the attitude of the Conservative government and Jeremy Hunt in particular. The NHS already provides urgent and emergency care 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days days a year. It is the scheduled appointments that the government wants 7 days a week. This is something that doctors support. However, to be able to do this more doctors and nurses need to be recruited, which needs funding and planning. Rather than doing this Jeremy Hunt is imposing a new contract on junior doctors that will stretch existing services making them unsafe for patients and unfair to doctors.
Safeguards to prevent doctors from being overworked are being removed and they will be paid less for working more hours. As a result, demoralised staff are thinking of leaving the profession. At the same time, the government are cutting the NHS bursary for 80,000 healthcare students.
The Conservative government cannot continue to under-fund the NHS, whilst at the same time demanding that it does far more. The UK spends less on health as a proportion of GDP than similar countries, yet it is regularly rated the best system in the world. If we want to maintain the great service the NHS offers, then we need to invest in it and support those working in it. Unfortunately, the Conservatives are doing the opposite.