Jonathan Ashworth MP, Shadow Secretary of
State for Health, speaking at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton today, said:
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It is a tremendous privilege to speak from this
platform, humbled in the knowledge that it was this Conference over 80 years
ago that demanded public universal healthcare.
And this Party, almost 70 years ago, established a
National Health Service, free at the point of use covering every man, woman and
child in the land.
So today we renew our commitment to that cause and
dedicate ourselves to electing a Jeremy Corbyn Labour Government whose mission
will be the rebuilding of a comprehensive, reintegrated, public NHS, free at
the point of use, there for all who need it.
And we must also speak out with a sense of urgency
about what is happening to our NHS. In the past year: waiting lists topped 4
million and 2.5 million people waited over four hours in A&E; over the
winter, patients crammed
on trolleys in corridors; ambulances backed up outside overflowing hospitals.
And the nation
left shocked by a little boy, with suspected meningitis, waiting 5 hours
in A&E without a bed, forced to lie on two plastic chairs. Some called it a humanitarian crisis. When
you underfund the NHS and slash billions from social care let’s call it what it
is, a Tory manufactured crisis.
A crisis where waiting lists are so lengthy, more and
more patients feel they have no option but to pay for a surgeon to come to
their bedside, while the rest wait longer and longer.
Friends, a person’s health should never depend on
their individual wealth.
So a Labour Government would allocate an extra £45
billion for our NHS and social care sector. And to avoid another winter like
the one we’ve just had, we would establish a half billion pound emergency
winter fund, so that patients and their families never suffer like that again.
And we will invest in general practice too, and start
recruiting so everyone can access a GP when they need one.
Don’t let anyone tell you we cannot afford to invest
in the NHS. If our forebears were able to marshal their resources to create our
NHS in 1948, then we owe it to their endeavour 70 years later, to give our NHS
the funding it needs today.
This is the leadership Jeremy Hunt should be showing.
Instead he ordered hospital bosses to a summit last week where they were instructed
to chant ‘we can do this’The NHS doesn’t need silly Jeremy Hunt gimmicks; it
needs a Jeremy Corbyn Labour Government.
I will be a Health Secretary, who will work closely
with NHS staff.
So let us send a message to the staff of the NHS, who
work day in day out, at weekends too, whose hands deliver us into the world,
who comfort us in our final moments, you have our gratitude, our backing and
you have our commitment that a Labour Government will tackle vacancies, will
bring back bursaries and scrap the pay cap to deliver fair pay for you all.
To those who come to our shores from the EU and
beyond, we say you are welcome, your rights will be secured, you are not
bargaining chips, but part of our society and of the fabric of our NHS.
Our NHS is undermined by millions of pounds wasted on
endless tendering of services to private providers. It is patient care that
suffers.
Let me give a quick example, an ambulance contract
here in Sussex handed to a private company who didn’t own any ambulances so
they sub-contracted to 20 other companies. Two ceased trading, and ambulances
drivers couldn’t be paid. Thankfully the contract was taken back off private
hands.
I had the privilege of meeting those ambulance
drivers recently. They continued taking patients to appointments for 8 weeks
without pay. Doesn’t that show public service is about a greater calling, is about
compassion, care and public duty, not contracts, markets and commercialisation.
So a Labour Government will legislate to reinstate
the Secretary of State’s duty to provide universal care, we’ll reintegrate the
NHS, reverse the Health and Social Care Act, fight fire sales of hospital
assets and end Tory privatisation.
Cutting beds, closing services and rationing
treatments because of underfunding is not sustainable transformation. So we
would stop the STPs and integrate health and social care.
I also want a new approach to public health that
protects people’s wellbeing for years to come.
To prevent disease, to reduce the toll from cancer,
stroke and diabetes it’s time to start tackling the causes of ill health too.
We need to end the dismantling of our public health services, we need to tackle
social isolation, build decent homes and improve the quality of the air we
breathe.
We have seen an increase in hospital admissions for
malnutrition, and a stalling in the improvement in life expectancy for the
first time in 100 years. We know a child born into poverty is likely to suffer
far worse health outcomes in life.
It was once said “there can be no keener revelation of a society’s
soul than the way in which it treats its children”.
This Party has long been committed to abolishing child poverty, so I can tell
you today that the next Labour Government will commit to an all-out assault on
child ill health too.
No longer will we let squalor impair the health of
our children.
We’ll recruit more health visitors for our
communities. We’ll invest in dentistry and, to tackle child obesity, we’ll give
every infant a free school meal and ban junk food advertising on family
night-time television.
And we’ll end the disgraceful cuts to child and
adolescent mental health budgets, end the scandal of children being treated on
adult wards, and finally deliver true parity of esteem.
I want to mention one other area. This year £43
million will be slashed from alcohol and drug addiction treatment services. Recently,
I chose to speak out very personally about my own circumstances, growing up
with a dad who had a drink problem. He was an alcoholic.
His drinking hung over my
childhood with the fridge empty other than bottles of drink. His drinking
became so bad in his final years he couldn’t bring himself to come to my
wedding because he felt too embarrassed.
I tell this story not for
your indulgence or sympathy. But because 2 million children grow
up with an alcoholic parent, 335,000 children grow up with a parent with drug
abuse issues.
So as part of our assault on child ill health, I will
put in place the first ever national strategy to support children of alcoholics
and drug users and we’ll invest in addiction treatment and prevention as well.
So conference, a
fully funded public National Health Service; fair pay for our staff; an end to
Tory privatisation; an assault on health inequalities. The very best quality of
care for all, free at the point of use, there when you need it.
This is what we
strive for. We settle for nothing less. It’s the demand of a
civilised society.
So today we pledge ourselves to united effort: and
resolve that the next Labour Government will rebuild our NHS.
ends
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