THIS week the Tories voted to end the NHS as we know it, in one of the most far-reaching pieces of legislation in my lifetime.

There can and should be further efforts to block the legislation in the parliamentary process. But we cannot rely on that being successful and should prepare for a campaign to oppose the self-off in every way we can.

The Health and Care Bill is in reality nothing of the kind. It is a corporate takeover Bill, which dismantles the national structures of the NHS in order to allow private companies, mainly US and British private healthcare companies to cherry-pick the services they want for profits. Inevitably this will mean worse service, high charges and/or health insurance costs for many and even bankruptcy for some.

The NHS is already clearly in crisis, but this Bill does nothing to alleviate that. Taking the measures of the legislation as a whole will exacerbate it.

We have already reached a point where there are six million people on waiting lists. In the years before the Tories came to office (along with the Lib Dems) Labour had finally managed to get waiting lists down to between two and 2.5 million.

We have also seen ambulances queueing around the block because there are no beds, including for seriously ill patients. We have also seen reports of ambulances not being sent out because wards are already full. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine has just revealed that over 90 per cent of clinical directors reported that there had been delays in admitting patients from ambulances on some days. Over 60 per cent reported that this was happening every day.

Yet there is not a single worthwhile measure in the Bill which will alleviate the fundamental cause of this, which is the long-term the failures in the recruitment and retention of NHS staff. These arise because NHS pay is pitifully low and conditions are dreadful, themselves worsened by the staff shortages, with staff being forced to work prolonged and often unpaid overtime to cover.
 
Of course, the effects of the pandemic have been a huge factor in the latest cycle of the crisis. But this is a chronic condition which has become acute, as waiting lists have continuously lengthened under more than a decade of Tory rule, not just in the pandemic.

In any event, the severity of the pandemic is itself a product of the government’s vaccine-only policy, combined with opposition to any mitigating measures which might prevent the spread of infection in the schools. School pupils have been dangerously used as guinea pigs, allowed to become ill, develop Long Covid or even die as a proxy for generating whole of population herd immunity.

It has been a disaster for them and led to the resurgence of the virus, with very high levels of cases and wholly unacceptable numbers of deaths.

Naturally, it has led too to increased Covid-related hospitalisations. Because of government policy the NHS has been increasingly confined to vaccinating, or testing and treating Covid-19 patients. It had no spare capacity to begin with and is now in crisis because much of that capacity has had to be diverted solely to dealing with the virus.

The recent emergence of a potentially dangerous new variant is a global threat, not just to the African countries where it seems to have been first identified. Scientists tell us that mutations are a function of allowing the spread of the virus unchecked.

But while many African countries simply do not have the resources to suppress the virus, and they have been denied vaccines by the refusal to waive vaccine patents, rich countries like ours could vaccinate and simultaneously use simple suppression measures, yet fail to do so.

The Bill should have addressed all of this. Instead, it increases ministerial powers while diminishing their accountability, it facilitates privatisation by bringing in even more private-sector actors and it allows for the sell-off of your data. Jeremy Corbyn in 2019 was derided when he warned of the plan for an Americanised, privatised health service and now unfortunately it is becoming a reality.

The whole shambles is worsened by the failure to tackle social care. By increasing National Insurance payments the government has forced average and low-income workers to fund support for the higher-paid against the costs of social care. The lower paid will be clobbered.

The government’s scheme also completely fails a key objective. There is no increased capacity in the social care sector at all. One consequence will be the exit door from the NHS will remain jammed shut, with patients who are able to leave hospital are prevented from doing so by the lack of social care.

This is a government mired in corruption, and its focus on benefitting the rich, as well as private healthcare and insurance companies at the expense of all of us who rely on the NHS starkly illustrates its real character.

We cannot take the view that all is lost. It is already reported that overworked GPs in England have voted to take some form of industrial action. Any increase in pay or demands for extra staff among any of the various health workers in the NHS should be fully supported. Greater funding and staffing are needed right now to cope with the crisis.

So, a sharp increase in pay for nurses would aid recruitment and retention and would also make those private health companies think twice about taking over key parts of the NHS (usually the routine operations where than can make most profit). Pay rises for NHS workers will literally benefit us all.

The NHS relies on the co-operation of local authorities. Labour-elected officials could announce they will co-operate only with public bodies, and not privateers or those where there are representatives of the private sector.

Most importantly, Labour could announce that it will renationalise any part of the NHS that the Tories sell off when we come to office. Not only would this be a huge vote winner, but it would halt the privatisation drive in its tracks. We cannot give up this fight.

Diane Abbott is MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington.