Today marks 69 years since Clement Attlee’s Labour government created our National Health Service.
In 1948, in the aftermath of war and national bankruptcy, it was a Labour government which found the resources to create a National Health Service (NHS) – our proudest achievement – providing universal healthcare for all on the basis of need, free at the point of use.
And, as we are all too often reminded by the actions of other political parties, it is only Labour which truly protects the NHS.
The Tories have consistently undermined our health service and have spent the last seven years fighting with junior doctors.
The SNP’s running of our NHS in Scotland has been calamitous.
Just yesterday it was revealed that 20 operations have been cancelled every day since the start of the year due to a lack of beds or staff.
At the start of this week we found out there are over 1,000 fewer registered nurses or midwives working in the health service than there were in 2014. This is the legacy of Nicola Sturgeon’s time as Health Secretary, when she cut the number of training places available.
And last week statistics showed 12 of the 14 health boards in Scotland missed their 62-day cancer treatment standard.
Without doubt there’s a crisis in our NHS. The harsh reality is we have a government in Westminster which doesn’t care about our NHS and a government in Scotland more interested in running a referendum campaign than a health service.
Labour would do things differently.
We created the NHS and we will be the ones to save it.
In our manifesto, which inspired millions across Britain to come out and vote, we pledged to end the pay freeze on our hard-working nurses and NHS staff.
We would massively increase the funding available to our health service by making the richest in society pay their fair share.
A Labour government would be a government focused on delivering for and expanding our health service, not another divisive independence referendum.
We would restore the NHS to what it was originally intended to be – a health service for the many, not the few.
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