It was almost like watching a comedy this Tuesday when Grant Shapps introduced his so-called ”Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill” to the House of Commons.  In fact there were quite a few howls of laughter.  With a straight face this former Transport Secretary told MPs that the new law would ensure that "vital public services” like the NHS and transport would “have to maintain a basic function by delivering minimum safety levels, ensuring that lives and livelihoods are not lost".

    He kept repeating that this law was all about the “safety” of the general public, as if strikes, rather than his government’s policies, were putting the public at risk!

    Of course it’s not funny.  Not when lives are being lost daily - in front of everyone’s eyes - because of the parlous state of the NHS and social care, aggravated only marginally by a cold winter, new Covid and ‘flu.

    Yes, the death count today is almost entirely due to serial cuts by Tory governments (but previous Labour governments are almost as guilty).  And then this upstart Shapps talks about “safety” of the public?  About preventing deaths by passing anti-union legislation?

    He says he aims to “legally enforce” a level of service in "health services, fire and rescue services” but also in “education services, transport services, decommissioning of nuclear installations and management of radioactive waste and spent fuel, and border security" although no details are yet provided...  In other words, this is all just (very) ill-timed anti-strike propaganda...

    In actual fact there have already been de facto “minimum service levels” during most of the strikes, with managers driving trains, for instance - but also with nurses and ambulance workers organising their own emergency cover during their strikes.  Thus it has always been during NHS strikes, and so too, today!

    So Shapps and the Tories are just trying an old anti-working class ploy.  Attempting to generate public hostility to strikes, which sadly for them, the public is largely in sympathy with. Why else would ambulance strikers hold up placards that say “strike to save the NHS”, unless the majority of the public knows exactly where they stand - with patients, with health workers, for a better NHS!

    But given that so far, the government’s strategy has been to delay any concrete talks, in the hope the strikers will give up, there surely has to be a change in the strikers’ strategy.  It’s not a question of public sympathy, but winning the fight; and that can only be ensured if yes, there is a “general strike” - the co-ordination which the union leaders are so anxious to deny!  Because the “national day of protest” announced for 1 February by the TUC, will hardly do the trick!

Some shocking figures for “excess deaths” were published this week.  The Times writes that: “Fifty thousand more people died last year than normal, with NHS delays blamed for one of the most deadly 12 months on record.”  It adds that there is “compelling” evidence that the crisis in the NHS is killing hundreds of people a week.

    In fact already on the 1 January, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine said that as many as 500 people could be dying each week because of A&E delays.  Waiting times for December were the worst ever seen, with 12 NHS trusts and ambulance services declaring critical incidents.

    One doctor said that he had never seen so many patients in A&E nor seen them so very sick.  And let’s be clear.  This is nothing to do with NHS strikes.  Nor Covid, even.  The NHS already had long waiting lists before the pandemic (4.2m as opposed to 7.6m today).  Undoubtedly, Johnson’s “easy” solution to turn it into a “Covid-only” service for the past 2 years contributed to this crisis, even if it wasn’t the ultimate cause.

    Yes, people are sicker today - they’ve been sitting on conditions which have become worse; their cancers have grown unchecked; they haven’t been able to access tests, let alone their GPs - the possibility of a diagnosis has literally become a virtual nightmare.  And then there’s the cost of living crisis.  No wonder more have flu and the complications of Covid this winter!

    Of course, behind this terminal crisis of the NHS are the policies of both Labour and Tory governments: years of cuts, outsourcing and above all the dismemberment of what used to be a (albeit always under-funded) joined-up, integrated health service, into autonomous “Trusts”...  and of course the privatisation of social care.

    Imagine even thinking it was OK to make a profit out of health and social care?  Well that went through both houses of Britain’s parliament without any hitch!  Labour and Tory alike preside over this broken health and social foundation today.

    The lack of staff?  In 2016, under chancellor George Osborne, the nursing bursary, which offered student nurses at least £10,000 a year in funding, was scrapped causing a 40% drop in student applications.  And of course, don’t mention “Brexit” which caused a huge exit of EU workers...

    So no, there is no quick fix for the NHS.  What might prevent things from getting worse is a 20% pay rise.  It could at least help stem the tide of those leaving in despair and exhaustion.  But Sunak and Barclay aren’t even offering it.