Agenda item

National Health Service

It was moved by Councillor Mary Lea, seconded by Councillor Jenny Armstrong, that this Council:-

(a)       notes that in a report by the Times newspaper in October 2014, it was claimed that the Government did not understand its own NHS reforms and that the top-down reorganisation which cost £3 billion was a “total car crash” and a “huge strategic error”;

(b)       notes that the Government’s catastrophic project of NHS reorganisation, which cut 6,000 nurses has been criticised by experts and senior doctors, who say that A&E departments are operating without safe staffing levels;

(c)        condemns the crisis in A&E which has meant that for the last 12 months, the Government has allowed almost one million people to wait more than 4 hours to be seen in A&E, more to wait on hospital trolleys before being admitted and more to be kept in ambulance queues outside of our hospitals;

(d)       condemns the cuts to elderly care, putting even greater pressure on A&E when their essential care is unavailable at home;

(e)       notes that more than 4,000 NHS staff have been laid off, only to be rehired by the Government, many on six figure salaries;

(f)        notes that under this Government more patients are waiting for longer due to the scrapping of the previous Government’s guarantee for a GP appointment in 48 hours, and now 60% of patients are unable to see their GP within 2 days;

(g)       believes that the previous Government rescued the NHS after years of Conservative Party neglect; and

(h)       welcomes Ed Miliband’s promise to invest an extra £2.5 billion in a new Time to Care Fund to support 20,000 more nurses, 8,000 more GPs, 5,000 more caseworkers and 300 more midwives.

Whereupon, it was moved by Councillor Roger Davison, seconded by Councillor Vickie Priestley, as an amendment, that the Motion now submitted be amended by the deletion of all the words after the words “That this Council” and the addition of the following words therefor:-

(a)       notes that the Coalition Government has increased funding for the NHS - a policy that was not offered by the Labour Party in 2010 and that there are 21,431 more nurses compared to 10 years ago and that the total employed in 2013 was an increase on the previous year;

(b)       notes the scaremongering by the Labour Party and others over the effects of the Health and Social Care Act can now be seen to be unfounded, irresponsible and cruel;

(c)       notes the consistently weaker performance of the unreformed Welsh NHS run by the Labour controlled Welsh Assembly;

(d)       welcomes the introduction of the first waiting time targets for mental health;

(e)       welcomes the extra funding for the NHS in the Autumn Statement, and believes that this would not have been possible without having achieved the fastest economic growth in the G7; and

(f)        welcomes the Liberal Democrat call for £1 billion in extra funding for the NHS in every year of the next Parliament.

On being put to the vote, the amendment was negatived.

It was then moved by Councillor Brian Webster, seconded by Councillor Sarah Jane Smalley, as an amendment, that the Motion now submitted be amended by the deletion of paragraphs (f) to (h) and the addition of new paragraphs (f) to (j) as follows:-

(f)        notes that the share of NHS spending on General Practice has fallen steadily from 10.75% in 2005/6 to the current 8.4% and that the recent Deloitte report showed that extra funding in primary care would allow GPs to offer more appointments, saving money elsewhere in the NHS;

(g)       notes that despite their 1997 manifesto pledge to “restore the NHS as a public service working co-operatively for patients, not a commercial business driven by competition” the previous Government, under the guise of choice and competition, introduced market structures, foundation trusts, GP consortia and private corporations into commissioning, which increased management costs, reduced democratic control and laid the foundations for further privatisation of provision by the current Government;

(h)       notes that the recent Five Year Forward Plan for the NHS estimates that the gap between resources and patient needs will be £30 billion by 2020/21 unless demand, efficiency and funding are addressed;

(i)        notes that NHS staff morale is at an all time low and that staff shortages have forced hospital trusts to use agency staff at much greater cost, and therefore supports the call by low paid NHS staff for at least a 1% pay increase; and

(j)         recognises that the NHS will only survive and prosper when there is:

(i)         a whole hearted commitment to reverse privatisation;

(ii)       reduced demand by creating the conditions for good health and quality of life; and

(iii)      a management structure which removes the use of targets, incentives and competition and restores professional values and cooperation, so that the needs of patients are met in a timely, efficient and holistic manner, thereby reducing waste.

On being put to the vote, the amendment was negatived. 

The original Motion was then put to the vote and carried, as follows:-