NHS backlog needs more money than this to clear – Yorkshire Post Letters

From: Dr Chaand Nagpaul, BMA chair of council.
By YP Letters
Published 9th Sep 2021, 16:33 BST
People take part in a protest outside Parliament in central London, calling on the Government to tackle NHS waiting lists.People take part in a protest outside Parliament in central London, calling on the Government to tackle NHS waiting lists.
People take part in a protest outside Parliament in central London, calling on the Government to tackle NHS waiting lists.

THIS week’s additional £5.4bn is welcome as a first step to deal with immediate National Health Service pressures. However, the scale of the backlog is gargantuan and unprecedented in the history of the NHS.

There are 5.45 million people on the waiting list compared with four million before the pandemic, with projections it could reach 13 million.

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Some 304,803 patients have been waiting more than a year, a figure which is 208 times larger than it was pre-pandemic. We estimate that between April 2020 and June 2021, there were 3.66 million fewer elective procedures and 28.35 million fewer outpatient attendances. Demands on general practice are at an all-time high.

People take part in a protest outside Parliament in central London, calling on the Government to tackle NHS waiting lists.People take part in a protest outside Parliament in central London, calling on the Government to tackle NHS waiting lists.
People take part in a protest outside Parliament in central London, calling on the Government to tackle NHS waiting lists.

It will take years – not months – to clear this backlog, in addition to concerns of new winter pressures ahead.

The NHS already had major infrastructure problems before the pandemic, with about 50,000 fewer doctors compared with equivalent EU nations, and we have one of the lowest number of hospital beds per capita in Europe.

What the NHS desperately needs from this Government is long-term sustained funding to give us the capacity to address the totality of this backlog, plus to give the NHS a chance to meet ongoing health needs of our nation.

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We have estimated that funding must increase by 4.1 per cent to ensure that the NHS can cope, meaning core health spend must total £174bn by 2023-24.

At best this announcement allows for a start to what is needed, but it will soon run out.

From: Martin J. Phillips, Tinshill Lane, Leeds.

RATHER than asking the working public to contribute more by way of National Insurance payments to cover the cost of care – particularly when we are still struggling from the effects of austerity and Covid – the Government should ensure that the people who avoid paying tax, like those individuals and companies that hide billions in overseas tax havens, can no longer do so. If tax avoidance was made illegal, then the Treasury could benefit by as much as £600bn.

From: Sam Willmott, Bingley.

NOW Boris Johnson has ripped up his manifesto promise not to raise tax or National Insurance, please forgive me if I do not believe a word of the Tory policy blueprint at the next election. This is one “lie” too many from the PM.

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Related topics:NHSChaand NagpaulYorkshire PostBMABoris Johnson

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