Labour

With polls opening in 24 hours, Labour is promising to breathe life back into the NHS after years of the Conservatives starving it of funds, running down our health workers and opening the door to full-scale privatisation.

Since Theresa May became Prime Minister in 2016, almost two million people have waited longer than four hours in A&E, almost 450,000 have waited longer than four hours on trolleys and nearly 70,000 more people on waiting lists. The Conservatives have no plan to support our NHS, with a manifesto that fails to provide any additional funding for the NHS.

If the Conservatives have five more years running our NHS, private provision of healthcare in our NHS will balloon to £18.4 billion by 2021/22.

Labour will restore the NHS to be the envy of the world by: 

• Giving the NHS an extra £37 billion over the course of     the next Parliament, including £10 billion of capital funding for NHS     buildings and IT systems.
• Taking one million people off NHS waiting lists by the     end of the Parliament, by guaranteeing access to treatment within 18     weeks.
• Guaranteeing patients can be seen in A&E within     four hours.
• Creating a new £500 million Winter Pressures Fund to     help ensure patients never have to experience a winter crisis like the one     of recent months.
• Scrapping the public sector pay cap that has cut     nurses’ pay by 14% in real terms since 2010, forcing some to need food     banks to get by.

 Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party said:

“The Conservatives have spent the last seven years running down our NHS, our proudest national institution. Our NHS cannot afford five more years of underfunding, understaffing and privatisation.

“Labour will give our NHS the resources it needs to deliver the best possible care for patients, and end the Conservatives’ attacks on our hardworking health workers, who care for us all.

“The Conservatives have already cut our NHS, our schools, our police and our social care services – and their manifesto is a plan for five more years of cuts to services according to the IFS.

“We have just 24 hours to change course and save our NHS, schools, social care and police services by electing a Labour government that will invest to transform Britain for the many, not the few.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors

The Conservatives have not given the NHS the money it needs

• In their 2015 manifesto the Tories said they would give the NHS £8 billion by 2020.

• “We will…spend at least an additional £8 billion by     2020 over and above inflation to fund and support the NHS’s own action     plan for the next five years.”     Conservative Party Manifesto 2015,
      Page 37

• Theresa May initially claimed that the NHS had been     given an extra £10 billion, which she said was more than it asked for.

“Simon Stevens was asked to come forward with a five year plan for the NHS. He did that, so that’s been generated by the NHS itself. He said that it needed £8bn extra – the government has not just given him £8bn extra, we’ve given him £10bn extra.” Theresa May, Interview with Manchester Evening News, 17 October 2016,
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/theresa-came-manchester-asked-three-12039565

• However, she has been called out by Simon Stevens,     Chief Executive of NHS England, who said it would be “stretching it” to     say this.

“I think it would be stretching it to say that the NHS has got more than it has asked for.” Simon Stevens, Public Accounts Committee, Oral evidence: Financial Sustainability of the NHS, 11 January 2017,
http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/public-accounts-committee/the-financial-sustainability-of-the-nhs/oral/45122.html

• The House of Commons Health Select Committee has     disputed the figures, putting the increase at £4.5 billion.

“If the spending review period is considered—2015–16 to 2020–21—that increase is £4.5 billion.”

House of Commons, Health Select Committee Report, Impact of the Spending Review on health and
social care, 19 July 2016 https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmhealth/139/13904.htm#_idTextAnchor008

5 more years of privatisation

• Around one third of NHS contracts since the 2012 Health     and Social Care Act have gone to private sector providers

(Source: Iacobucci G (2014). A third of NHS contracts awarded since health act have gone to private sector, BMA investigation shows. BMJ 2014;349:g7606)

• At current growth rates, private provision of     healthcare in NHS England will increase to £18.4bn by the end of 2021/22.     Since the last full year of the previous Labour government, private     provision of healthcare in NHS England has more than doubled, from £4.1bn     in 2009/10 to £8.7bn in 2015/16

(Sources: House of Lords Answer to PQ 5389, 11 March 2015; DH Annual Report and Accounts, Table 10, p 40, 21 July 2016)

5 more years of cuts

• The Tories spending plans increase NHS spending by an     average of 1.2 per cent per year between 2015/16 and 2022/23, compared     with Labour’s spending plans that will increase NHS spending by an average     of 2.3 per cent per year.

“The NHS needs an average of 1.2 per cent to just keep pace with age-adjusted population growth, the Tories plans means the NHS will get this, but nothing more.”

IFS, General Election 2017: IFS manifesto analysis, 26 May 2017

• Under the Tories the UK would face the lowest period of     spending increases in NHS history.

“A real increase of £8 billion over the next five years would extend what is easily the lowest period of spending increases in NHS history to 12 years”

IFS, General Election 2017: IFS manifesto analysis, 26 May 2017

• This has resulted in the IFS saying that Conservative     plans for the NHS may well be undeliverable.

“Conservative plans for NHS spending look very tight indeed and may well be undeliverable.”

Institute for Fiscal Studies, Press Release, 26 May 2017 – https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/9259

• While the influential health charity, the King’s Fund     says that cuts are having an impact on frontline care.

“The budget for NHS England is projected to rise by more than £8 billion in real terms between 2015/16 and 2020/21, technically meeting the manifesto commitment to fund the implementation of the NHS five year forward view. However, the budget for the Department of Health – the definition used by previous governments to measure health spending – will increase by only £4.6 billion over this period. Cuts in areas of health spending that have not been protected are having an impact on frontline care.”

The King’s Fund, 12 May 2017, https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/articles/government-pledge-nhs-funding 

Funding

• Funding for Labour’s New Deal for NHS Patients will be     met from Income Tax on the top five per cent of earners with additional     funding from Corporation Tax, higher rate insurance premium tax on private     medical insurance and Labour’s National Transformation Fund of capital     expenditure.
• The lifting of the public sector pay cap, will be     funded from a proportion of our previously announced gradual increases in     Corporation Tax.
• As part of Labour’s National Transformation Fund, £10     billion across the course of the Parliament will be used for capital     investment in the NHS, matching the estimated need identified by NHS     Providers.
• In total this represents a cash boost of £37 billion     for the English NHS across the course of the Parliament.

John McDonnell, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, commenting on the OECD’s economic outlook for the UK economy that has revised down future growth, said:

“This is a hammer blow for the Tories’ economic credibility. Only Italy is set to be a worse performer than Britain amongst the major economies, and the Tories’ cliff-edge Brexit will trash business investment.

“The OECD’s calls for increased investment in our economy is a ringing endorsement of Labour’s economic policy in this election, and shows the clear choice voters have on Thursday. It is between a Labour plan for serious investment in our economy, with a focus on living standards and a jobs-first plan for Brexit; or a Tory plan that would hold our nation back with continued cuts to vital public services and chronic under-investment.”

Labour is today taking its message to voters from all corners of the country by hosting six simultaneous rallies, showing we truly are the party for the many and not the few.

The rallies, which are due to take place this evening from 7pm in: Barry (Wales), Birmingham, Brighton, Glasgow, London and Warrington, will bring people together and show there is strong support for an alternative to the seven lost years of Tory rule.

Jeremy Corbyn, set to attend the Birmingham rally, will simultaneously appear via satellite link at the five other events to deliver his message that only a Labour Government will deliver a fairer Britain that works for everyone, not just the privileged few. 

Those coming to lend their support include members of Labour’s Shadow Cabinet, big name electronic acts Clean Bandit and DJ Floating Points, celebrity supporters Steve Coogan, Ben Elton and Maxine Peake, and chart toppers Wolf Alice and Reverend and the Makers.

Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party said:

“Since the election was called, we have taken Labour’s message of hope to towns and cities across the UK. Tonight, we will speak to tens of thousands of people across the country about the clear choice facing the British people during this election.

“While the Conservatives promise five more years of a country run for the super-rich and cuts for everyone else, Labour will transform Britain by investing in infrastructure and new industries and rebuilding the NHS and our public services.

“Labour will abolish tuition fees to give everyone a chance to fulfil their potential and create a fairer Britain by introducing a £10 an hour minimum wage, banning zero hours contracts, protecting winter fuel payments and safeguarding state pensions through the triple lock.

“On Thursday, the British people will go to the polls and have the chance to vote for a government that will transform our country for the many, not the few.”

John McDonnell, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, commenting on the latest retail figures from the British Retail Consortium showing a slowdown in sales, said:

“These figures are deeply worrying, and are further proof that seven years of Tory austerity has resulted in abject failure. Wages are still lower than they were in 2010. The Tories have no plan to tackle the fact that prices are rising faster than wages. This is leading to living standards being squeezed and working families being hit the hardest, with the impact now reaching the high street.

“Growth is slowing, retail sales are down, business investment and wages are falling back. Under the Conservatives the economy is neither strong nor stable. And a vote for the Tories on Thursday is a vote for more of the same, and no solution to the problems their economic policies are clearly creating for our economy, and working households.

“Only a Labour Government will take the action needed to end the Tories’ economic failure by introducing a Real Living Wage of £10 an hour, and by investing in an economy that works for the many, while the Tories are only prepared to protect big business and a wealthy few.”

Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, responding to leaked reports in the Health Service Journal said: 

“With 48 hours to go until the General Election the true scale of the secret Tory plan for cuts and closures across the NHS has been revealed by the Health Service Journal.

“We now know if the Tories are re-elected on Thursday we’ll see hospital wards closed, waiting times growing, treatments rationed and staff cut.

“The fact that NHS bosses have described this as the ‘most extreme and difficult NHS finance process they had experienced’ and would ‘challenge the value basis of the NHS’ will make chilling reading for patients and their families who deserve the very best levels of care.

“Every single day the Tories are in power hospitals are being left to crumble, staff are being let down, waiting lists are growing and patients are being denied the care they need and deserve. 

“Let’s be clear: these new, secret Tory plans will only be stopped by electing a Labour Government on Thursday.

“The NHS cannot survive five more years of a Tory government. That is why, Labour will pledge to bring the health service back from the brink with a multi-billion pound rescue package. The British people deserve nothing less.”

Ends

Notes to editors

·         ‘Exclusive: New national savings drive will ‘challenge the values’ of NHS leaders’ [www.hsj.co.uk/topics/finance-and-efficiency/exclusive-new-national-savings-drive-will-challenge-the-values-of-nhs-leaders/7018461.article?blocktitle=News&contentID=15303]