THE future of the NHS was at the top of the agenda in a debate on the first day of Unite’s policy conference today.

Delegates who spoke in the debate all denounced the widespread privatisation threatening the health service’s very existence. 

They also emphasised the importance of pay restoration for NHS workers and many shared heartbreaking personal stories of their experience with a health service on its knees.

Unite delegate Len Hockey of Barts Health Trust moved a motion on saving the NHS.

“Change was the mantra — we were told that the NHS was broken; that it had to be fixed,” he said. 

“But what does this fix looking like? A merger of NHS England with the Department of Health and Social Care will see a 50 per cent cut in jobs in both organisations. 

“Integrated care boards will reduce costs, again by 50 per cent. All NHS providers to reduce corporate cost growth by 50 per cent — and in short order. 

“Over a third of organisations say they are cutting clinical posts to balance their books.”

He denounced what he called “an ongoing and unrelenting embrace of neoliberal ideology,” with “taxpayer money continuing to find its way in the profit margins of an elite class that has the sixth richest economy in the world. 

“An elite who — according to the Sunday Times rich list — has an asset value of £772bn among 350 families.”

He compared this exorbitant wealth to NHS workers on the lowest pay bands, many of whom are struggling on bare minimum pay. 

Mr Hockey said that the status quo under a Labour government was not a “mistake” or “a misstep,” but rather a “deliberate, considered attempt to make ordinary working people pay for a crisis that they did not create.”

Unite delegate Stanley Mukassa of London & Eastern seconded the motion, as he shared a personal story of his neighbour whose pain was so bad that she could not remain on an NHS waiting list. Instead, she opted to go private, which wiped out her life savings.

Moving a motion on public health services, Republic of Ireland delegate Brian Martin said: “Whether in Britain or Ireland, the creeping privatisation of healthcare, the outsourcing of public services providers, puts further strain on the healthcare system and its workers.”