In an open letter to the three main party political leaders, the British Medical Association (BMA) and other bodies have highlighted the fact that the health budget has kept the NHS in an ‘era of unprecedented austerity’.
The letter states that a long-term, fully- costed spending plan is needed for the NHS. It warns that staff feel undervalued and demoralised and the system is buckling under rising demand and flatlining budgets. It calls for serious action.
The letter says: “The NHS and our social care services are at breaking point and things cannot go on like this. An NHS deficit of £30 bn is predicted by 2020 –a funding black hole that must be filled.”
It states that a long-term plan is needed if the NHS is to remain a universal healthcare system. It also stresses that there must not be another top-down reorganisation.
The letter, also signed by the Royal College of Nursing, the medical royal colleges and some charities, says that the NHS has been rated as the most effective and efficient healthcare system in the developed world yet it is under huge pressures. It says: “Historic annual increases in the health budget, designed to keep pace with a growing and ageing population, have been severely reduced –meaning that our NHS has just been through the longest, and most damaging budget squeeze in its history. Signs of a system buckling under the twin crises of rising demand and flatlining budgets are everywhere.”
The letter adds that social care is also in crisis and people with long-term conditions such as dementia had been ‘cut adrift’ from services and made to rely on unpaid and unsupported carers.
