As a doctor, every day I see the enduring effects of short-term political spin and the affect it has on my patients, who bear the brunt of politicians lacking consensus. It is now clear we need cross-party consensus on safely funding and staffing health and social care into the next decade and last month, with NHS Chief Executive Simon Stevens calling for a national agreement on social care by 2018. Former Liberal Democrat Health Minister Norman Lamb MP has actively looked to achieve this and has introduced a Bill so that cross-party work can be the bedrock of this cross-party agreement.
Norman, who has extensive experience in the field having been a Coalition government Minister for three years, has warned ‘the system will drift into a state of crisis [unless] we confront the existential challenge now.’
Supporters of his Bill include Green MP Caroline Lucas, several Labour MPs including Liz Kendall as well as a handful of Conservative MPs who have a medical background. Last week the Commons debated Lamb’s proposal.
And it’s not just politicians on both sides calling for a brisk consensus. 40 charities, including British Red Cross, Mencap, Stroke Association, and Macmillan Cancer Support, wrote to the Prime Minister urging ‘politicians to put aside political differences and work together to face these challenges, otherwise it is the sick, frail and elderly in our country who will lose out.’ Their call was echoed by 2000 grassroots signatures collected by a nonpartisan organisation I co-founded called NHS Survival. Hospitals are bursting at the seams, they’re short staffed and lacking enough beds for the patients. Even more infuriatingly, additional nurses are only set to become available if there is a ‘surplus winter funding’. The recent unprecedented strikes by Junior Doctors has shown the peril of a reckless uncosted Conservative manifesto and the effect it has had on our NHS and Junior Doctors.
With health and social care demand expected to soar by 50% in the next decade and only 10% growth in funding from current trends to meet it, we must act immediately and rapidly. As the Royal College of Surgeons warns, ‘for the sake of patients this long overdue debate with the public has to happen now.”
Dr Mohsin Khan is an NHS psychiatrist, co-founder of NHS Survival and is also Vice-Chair of both Oxford East Liberal Democrats and Liberal Democrat Mental Health Association. He has commented on healthcare for BBC Breakfast, ITV Good Morning Britain, Sky News, and London Live. @thedoctorkhan
