We tried

I won’t lie, I felt pretty abject on May 8th. So many hopes shattered, so many people now entering frightening unknowns, feeling insecure, threatened, battle-weary; so much disappointment, so many careers dashed and prospects ruined. This is the reality which a whole nation of healthcare workers woke up to the day after the election. Because we the Left could not persuade you the voting public what was at stake yesterday. I’m sorry. I’m sorry we could not speak over the volume of a right-wing press complicit in the dismantling of our greatest public service. We could not persuade the BBC to give you the facts, or ask the government the right questions on your behalf. Lacking all conviction, we tried. We tried to spell it out. Four years ago 400 health professionals and experts publically condemned the Health and Social Care Act, hoping to get your attention, saying the Bill would “erode the NHS’s ethical and cooperative foundations, and [would] not deliver efficiency, quality, fairness or choice”. You ignored them. Since then countless experts not driven by political ambition – the BMA, the Royal College of GPs, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Royal College of Nursing– have pleaded with the government to think again. They have all been dismissed by the government, which knew better. And those professionals who pleaded for mercy have since seen their budgets squeezed, pay frozen, wards shut and services fragmented. The “moral economy” which once gave NHS hospitals “almost a family atmosphere”, to quote a nurse […]