In a week of u-turns for the better, there was further evidence today of a u-turn for the worse - the breaking of David Cameron's pre-election pledge that there would be no frontline cuts to public services.
In a week of u-turns for the better, over the forests sell-off and housing benefit cut, further evidence today of a u-turn for the worse – the breaking of David Cameron’s pre-election pledge that there would be no frontline cuts to public services. In an interview with Andrew Marr on May 2nd last year, just days before the election, the Tory leader said:
“We’ve said which departments we will protect, and that’s the NHS, which for me and for many families in this country absolutely comes first, and it’s vitally important people know that…
“What I can tell you is any cabinet minister if I win the election, if we win the election, who comes to me and says here are my plans and they involve frontline reductions they will be sent straight back to their department to go away and think again.”
Watch it:
Yet now it has emerged that thousands of frontline NHS workers are to be sacked, with today’s Guardian reporting:
“St George’s hospital in south London announced that it was shedding 500 personnel, including nurses and – unusually – consultants, its most senior doctors. It is also closing three wards, with the loss of about 100 beds, and reducing the number of women allowed to give birth there from 4,200 to 3,000, as part of an attempt to save £55m in 2011-12…
“Meanwhile Kingston hospital in southwest London announced that it would be losing 486 staff, almost 20% of its total workforce, over the next five years. In an email to staff, its chief executive, Kate Grimes, said two key government health policies had forced the decision and warned that its action would soon be repeated by others.
“The job losses in the capital take the total of NHS jobs earmarked to disappear since 1 January to at least 3,053, with another 360 personnel put at risk of redundancy, according to research by the RCN…”
That research, by the Royal College of Nursing, shows that, as hospitals in England struggle to cope with the coalition’s £20 billion ‘efficiency drive’:
• Ashford and St Peter’s hospitals in Middlesex and Surrey are axing 440 posts;
• North Lincolnshire and Goole NHS foundation trust is also axing 440 posts;
• Southend University hospital NHS foundation trust is losing 400 jobs and closing six wards;
• In Croydon, the NHS trust is scrapping 12 elective surgery beds at its local hospital;
• NHS Oldham has closed a 28-bed community recovery unit;
• Barts is axing 630 jobs – including 250 nurses.
As Left Foot Forwad first revealed in October, the NHS faces a real terms spending cut:
“Table 2.2 of the June Budget clearly shows that the departmental expenditure limit for current spending in the Department of Health would be £101.5 billion. But Table 1 of today’s Comprehensive Spending Review sets out that the same number is £98.7 billion.
“Health spending will rise to £109.8 billion by 2014-15. In real terms, the rise from the new baseline delivers a 1.3 per cent rise. But compared to the baseline set out just four months ago, the rise turns into a cut of 1.5 per cent.
“What has happened to the missing £3 billion this year? If these are the the administrative savings, why have they not been reinvested in the NHS?”
Mr Cameron, in his infamous airbrushed poster, claimed:
“I’ll cut the deficit, not the NHS.”
On that latter point, the numbers, and the evidence, appear to suggest otherwise.
41 Responses to “No frontline cuts? Really, Mr Cameron?”
Mr. Sensible
Mr Mouse, in respect of that, 1 nurse told a news program recently that they were understaffed.
How’s that situation going to improve with these cuts?
Is what we read about on Tuesday acceptable? Of course not.
Anon E Mouse
Mr.Sensible – That’s just one nurse’s opinion.
I have recent personal experience of both a private and NHS ward in the same hospital and the differences are stark. In the NHS there were nurses talking at the main desk basically doing nothing.
I also have two friends who work for different PCT’s and my daughter for an NHS dentist. The system is top heavy and needs reform by getting rid of unnecessary management ASAP.
Gordon Brown created a state with huge numbers of people dependant either on benefits or work in the public sector and as has been shown it is unsustainable.
The country is bust Mr.Sensible. The NHS is a disgracefully run organisation yet no one on the left seems to have a problem with the incompetent way it continues.
The last Labour chancellor stated the party had discovered £11billion of waste in government spending yet was prepared to allow it to continue to reduce the debt over a longer period of time which is madness.
Did you know that the current interest on Britain’s debt, £120million a day, would allow us to build a new primary school every hour without increasing tax by a single penny?
Labour need to get ahead of the curve on these cuts because five years from now people will wonder why the country ever got out of control the way it did employing for example “Five a day outreach coordinators”…
Steve
you can create direct cuts indirectly eg torys put up course fees, people cant afford courses = not enough learners for courses = tutors made redundant. Realistically everthing the torys do is to preserve their place at the top of the social food change; change needs to be branch, trunk and root of the problem…the real converation … equality in society
EON
‘no one on the left seems to have a problem with the incompetent way it continues’- not true. Many of us were dismayed by the way Labour seemed to increase the levels of bureaucracy started by the previous tory gov’t, all supposedly in order to meet the ridiculous target systems that same gov’t lauded. Unfortunately Labour picked up the baton and ran with it.
Brown didn’t create a state dependant on benefits, again that was an unfortunate consequence (inheritance is the buzz word of the moment) of the previous tory gov’ts. experiments with slash, burn and hope. Hoping the private sector will pick up the slack is not much of an economic policy – especially as it didn’t. Creating state jobs was an answer, and one many benefitted from after the misery of the previous gov’t.. As to weather it was sustainable or other if other answers would have been found, as labour themselves knew diversification was necessary and desired, we will never know due to the greed of the private sector creating yet another financial crisis. It is always the private sector that creates world financial melt downs. Five years from now it appears with the continued sell off of everything public by the tories we will find ourselves fully at the mercy of the private sector and its continued desire for financial ruin.
curmudgeon 1
RT @leftfootfwd: No frontline cuts? Really, Mr Cameron? http://bit.ly/eAaFF6