Agenda item

8.10pm – Councillor Ben Coleman moved, seconded by Councillor Patricia Quigley, the special motion in their names:

 

“This Council:

 

Deplores the crisis in the NHS.

 

Notes that the underlying causes of the crisis are not new and are the result of political choices made in the name of the Conservative government’s ideologically-driven austerity programme.

 

Notes that by 2010, the Labour government had reduced NHS waiting lists to 2.5m but that waiting lists rose to 4.4m over the next 10 years under the Conservative government, which included Greg Hands as Chief Secretary to Treasury.

 

Notes that since 2010, the government’s limited increases in funding for the NHS have failed to keep pace with the growth in demand from a rapidly ageing and ailing population.

 

Notes that the UK now has a lower overall health spend than comparable countries and that a lack of investment in recruitment, training and buildings has resulted in fewer doctors, nurses, beds and intensive care places per head of population than in comparable countries – for example, the UK has just a third of hospital beds by population of Germany.

 

Regrets that this meant the NHS entered Covid in a weaker state than comparable countries, with an existing shortage of beds and equipment and a 4.4m waiting list.

 

Notes that, as a Financial Times analyst put it on 23 December 2022, “The effects of the Conservative austerity programme during the Cameron-Osborne years have been steadily accumulating over the past decade, but this winter that trickle has become a torrent.”

 

Recalls the findings of the 2010 Marmot Review that the lower people’s social and economic status, the poorer their health, and that health is affected by “social determinants” such as housing, income, education, social isolation and disability.

 

Notes that the Conservative government, aided and abetted by Greg Hands while Chief Secretary to the Treasury, reduced benefits, introduced the bedroom tax, cut rent subsidy (increasing overcrowding and making families take children out of school and move away), cut councils’ funding, neglected social care, reduced the funding available for social housing and instigated a myriad of other damaging measures which made people poorer and less healthy.

 

Notes that real wages have now fallen to less than where they were 18 years ago, and that life expectancy is lower than in most other developed countries and avoidable mortality higher than in these.

 

Notes the essential role played by Charing Cross Hospital during the Covid crisis and the huge challenges facing the hospital now, and thanks its dedicated doctors, nurses and support staff for their ongoing care for H&F residents.

 

Notes that Charing Cross Hospital would not be able to play its essential role if the destructive plans signed off by the Conservative Health Secretary and supported by Conservative politicians in Hammersmith, Fulham and Chelsea had been realised to:

·      Demolish the hospital and sell off most of the site

·      Replace the hospital with a series of clinics on a site no more than 13% the size

·      Re-brand these clinics as a “local hospital”

·      Replace the A&E with an urgent care clinic

·      Lose more than 300, and possibly all, acute care beds.

 

Welcomes the success of the campaign by H&F Labour Council and residents to save Charing Cross Hospital.

 

Highlights the Council’s excellent record of timely discharge of patients from hospitals across North West London with suitable care in place.

 

Highlights the crucial role played by the Council’s “reablement” service in helping people who leave hospital to regain their independence, making future hospital care less likely.

 

Congratulates the reablement service for achieving the very highest Care Quality Commission rating of Outstanding in three inspections in a row, and notes the extra difficulty of achieving such a rating in such tough times, when the demand for NHS and social care is at its highest.

 

Urges the government to apologise for the crisis into which it has driven the NHS and to call a general election so that the country can vote for a change of government.”

 

Speeches on the motion were made by Councillors Coleman, Quigley, Vaughan, Perez, Souslous (for the Administration) – and Councillors Borland and Afonso (for the Opposition).

 

Councillor Coleman made a speech winding up the debate before the motion was put to the vote:

 

FOR                        33

AGAINST                9

NOT VOTING         1

 

The motion was declared CARRIED.

 

8.51pm – RESOLVED:

 

This Council:

 

Deplores the crisis in the NHS.

 

Notes that the underlying causes of the crisis are not new and are the result of political choices made in the name of the Conservative government’s ideologically-driven austerity programme.

 

Notes that by 2010, the Labour government had reduced NHS waiting lists to 2.5m but that waiting lists rose to 4.4m over the next 10 years under the Conservative government, which included Greg Hands as Chief Secretary to Treasury.

 

Notes that since 2010, the government’s limited increases in funding for the NHS have failed to keep pace with the growth in demand from a rapidly ageing and ailing population.

 

Notes that the UK now has a lower overall health spend than comparable countries and that a lack of investment in recruitment, training and buildings has resulted in fewer doctors, nurses, beds and intensive care places per head of population than in comparable countries – for example, the UK has just a third of hospital beds by population of Germany.

 

Regrets that this meant the NHS entered Covid in a weaker state than comparable countries, with an existing shortage of beds and equipment and a 4.4m waiting list.

 

Notes that, as a Financial Times analyst put it on 23 December 2022, “The effects of the Conservative austerity programme during the Cameron-Osborne years have been steadily accumulating over the past decade, but this winter that trickle has become a torrent.”

 

Recalls the findings of the 2010 Marmot Review that the lower people’s social and economic status, the poorer their health, and that health is affected by “social determinants” such as housing, income, education, social isolation and disability.

 

Notes that the Conservative government, aided and abetted by Greg Hands while Chief Secretary to the Treasury, reduced benefits, introduced the bedroom tax, cut rent subsidy (increasing overcrowding and making families take children out of school and move away), cut councils’ funding, neglected social care, reduced the funding available for social housing and instigated a myriad of other damaging measures which made people poorer and less healthy.

 

Notes that real wages have now fallen to less than where they were 18 years ago, and that life expectancy is lower than in most other developed countries and avoidable mortality higher than in these.

 

Notes the essential role played by Charing Cross Hospital during the Covid crisis and the huge challenges facing the hospital now, and thanks its dedicated doctors, nurses and support staff for their ongoing care for H&F residents.

 

Notes that Charing Cross Hospital would not be able to play its essential role if the destructive plans signed off by the Conservative Health Secretary and supported by Conservative politicians in Hammersmith, Fulham and Chelsea had been realised to:

·      Demolish the hospital and sell off most of the site

·      Replace the hospital with a series of clinics on a site no more than 13% the size

·      Re-brand these clinics as a “local hospital”

·      Replace the A&E with an urgent care clinic

·      Lose more than 300, and possibly all, acute care beds.

 

Welcomes the success of the campaign by H&F Labour Council and residents to save Charing Cross Hospital.

 

Highlights the Council’s excellent record of timely discharge of patients from hospitals across North West London with suitable care in place.

 

Highlights the crucial role played by the Council’s “reablement” service in helping people who leave hospital to regain their independence, making future hospital care less likely.

 

Congratulates the reablement service for achieving the very highest Care Quality Commission rating of Outstanding in three inspections in a row, and notes the extra difficulty of achieving such a rating in such tough times, when the demand for NHS and social care is at its highest.

 

Urges the government to apologise for the crisis into which it has driven the NHS and to call a general election so that the country can vote for a change of government.