The National Health Service in England has suffered the ultimate humiliation as the Red Cross – a charity – has had to be called in to help save lives – because the grossly-underfunded service simply cannot cope any more.

It has been calculated that the NHS needs £22 billion of extra funds in order to provide anything like an adequate service – but those funds are not available.

It is no coincidence that the money handed over to private healthcare – to part-fund their shareholders’ profits – along with the administration costs that go with the part-privatised system add up to around £22 billion.

So the Conservative Government – Jeremy Hunt, Theresa May, the current cabinet, and previous ministers including David Cameron and former health secretary Andrew Lansley – have engineered this crisis and would rather pay public money, your money, into the bank accounts of shareholders in Virgin Health (for example) than use it to save people who are dying on hospital trolleys as you read these words.

The two deaths at Worcestershire Royal Hospital are only the most visible part of the NHS crisis, as members of the public made clear on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/liamyoung/status/817428053580193794

Members of the public were keen to assign blame equally to all those who consigned the NHS in England to this fate – including the Liberal Democrats whose coalition with the Conservatives from 2010 to 2015 allowed the Health and Social Care Act, which diverted public funds into the hands of private, profit-making companies, to be passed:

Shadow health secretary Angela Rayner pointed out that the Tories had cut off the most obvious available help for overstretched hospitals:

But where is Jeremy Hunt in all this? The Health Secretary is highly conspicuous by his absence.

Of course, his forerunner in the job, Andrew Lansley, abolished the health secretary’s responsibility for the NHS, so perhaps Mr Hunt feels that it’s none of his business.

https://twitter.com/liamyoung/status/817441724586926080

The Conservative Government is responsible for the deaths that have happened – and for any further deaths. Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt might just as well have killed those people themselves. They should be brought to justice for every preventable fatality.

We, the people, need decisive action. This crisis has to end now. It is time to end the privatisation nightmare and restore responsibility to the funding and structure of our health system – before anybody else dies.

https://twitter.com/Lollindialogue/status/817483257692508160

The NHS is facing a “humanitarian crisis” as hospitals and ambulance services struggle to keep up with rising demand, the British Red Cross has said, following the deaths of two patients after long waits on trolleys in hospital corridors.

Worcestershire Royal hospital launched an investigation on Friday into the deaths and did not deny reports that they had occurred after long waits on trolleys in corridors over the new year period.

On Friday, doctors’ leaders said more patients could die because of the chaos engulfing the NHS.

Source: NHS faces ‘humanitarian crisis’ as demand rises, British Red Cross warns

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