Slogans camouflage the truth
Cliff Ettridge
Director at The Team, advocate for brand strategy, customer and employee experience, @cliffettridge
I see that everyone working in Care is now getting a new pin badge. Admirable. What they really deserve is a medal, or a pay rise or investment. So, I designed a new badge for ministers to wear.
Since 2010, The UK government has subjected the NHS to a financial cuts like no other undoing all the work done by previous administrations to cut waiting lists and improve services to those most in need. According to independent think tank The King’s Fund, the government has overseen the harshest clampdown on spending since its inception in 1945.
The total number of NHS hospital beds in England, including general and acute, mental illness, learning disability, maternity and day-only beds, has more than halved over the past 30 years, from around 299,000 in 1987/88 to 141,000 in 2018/9, while the number of patients treated has increased significantly.
According to the Nuffield Trust, the NHS now provides fewer than 3 doctors per 1000 people compared with 4 in Italy and Germany and 5 in Norway. And according to the OECD our health service in the UK now has just 2.5 hospital beds per 1000 people against 6 in France and 8 in Germany.
We have an ageing population and yet our government has been cutting spending in real terms despite using health as a campaign tool to promise ￡350m a week to the NHS.
Now Boris Johnson says he owes the NHS his life. I hope that becomes more than just another campaigning slogan.
Because NHS workers are so dedicated the service will always get the applause of the population but that camouflages the funding attacks it has had to suffer and everyone should be bloody angry about that.
In the meantime, the government has voted against pay rises for key workers while not facing up to the tough tax conversations it should be having with the likes of internet giants like Amazon and Uber. Instead governments across the world fete them in the hope that they will open more workhouses here. We do need jobs but we also need fair taxation to ensure that everyone in society gets a fair crack of the whip.
There are countless examples of disparity and unfairness in how we go about redistributing wealth, but until those who are suffering the most start realising that they are being taken for a ride I fear that the turkeys will continue to vote for Christmas.