Jarrow MP Kate Osborne slammed the Conservative Party's NHS reforms in a scathing speech during a Westminster debate this week - saying that the NHS was at crisis point and being "privatised by the back door".
Ms Osborne spoke during a Westminster Hall debate discussing the pressures on emergency and urgent care and ambulance services around the UK. While she backed NHS staff who are "doing their best to cope", she attacked the Government for what she said was "pushing the NHS to the brink".
In response, the now-resigned health minister Edward Argar defended the Conservative Party's record, and said issues around privatisation and bed closures had been first introduced by Labour administrations prior to 2010. Mr Argar was among those to resign on Wednesday in a bid to call time on Boris Johnson's premiership.
The debate had been called by Lib Dem MP Wera Hobhouse. Kate Osborne, a member of the Labour Party's Socialist Campaign Group, said: "In the North East like across across the UK, our healthcare system is in crisis. From an NHS staffing crisis to a lack of GPs, millions waiting for routine operations, to the loss of hospital beds and direct cuts to funding in mental health services.
"The introduction of the health care bill which came into force this month fails to address the serious challenges facing the NHS and public health and social care and will likely make all of these problems worse."
She said it was "clear" that the NHS was "at crisis point" but added: "Let's be clear. This is not the fault of the staff members who are doing their best to cope with an under-resourced and understaffed NHS, nor is it just the impact of the pandemic. For too long our NHS has been pushed to the brink by the Tories."
The MP also paid tribute to the Save South Tyneside Hospital campaign and shared concerns about the alleged cover-ups at North East Ambulance Service. The latter issue is being examined by an NHS England-commissioned investigation. NEAS has "welcomed independent scrutiny" and said has learned from mistakes in the past.
Ms Osborne added that the emergency services "need our support and they need this Government to start investing directly in our NHS", before adding that it was vital to ensure NHS staff did not receive a real-terms pay cut. She said: "This Government is instead of investing in our NHS staff, insisting staff take a real terms pay cut and attacking staff sick pay. At the same time as privatising as much as they can get their grubby little hands on."
NHS Trusts have in recent months found it difficult to free up hospital beds - in May execs at the QE in Gateshead spoke of how at times a month earlier it had been "one-in, one-out" due to difficulties discharging patients caused by shortages in the social care sector.
Ms Osborne said the use of private sector resources to bring down waiting times was a "false narrative", and spoke of the devastating consequences for those who were forced to take out loans or crowdfund for medical treatment because they felt waiting longer was "too much to bear". In the North East there are more than 200,000 people waiting for NHS treatment on official waiting lists.
Following this, the now-resigned minister Edward Argar expressed his "gratitude to all those who work not just in our NHS and health services but also in social care" before agreeing that resources were "hugely important". He highlighting how the challenges facing the NHS were "grave concerns", he said one of the first bills passed by the 2019 Government would see NHS funding increase by £33.9bn by 2023-2024.
Addressing delays at A&E and in the ambulance service, he said "a whole system approach" was needed, adding: "A key element of that solution is the new integrated care boards and integrated care systems which genuinely seek to bridge the gap between two parts of the system, health and social care, which both have different sorts of DNA. This is an attempt to integrate them."
Speaking of the importance of freeing up NHS beds, Mr Argar added: "We've set up a national discharge task force working actively with trusts and across local systems, particularly those who are most challenged to support that discharge work."
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