Running down the NHS is a deliberate Conservative strategy - Yorkshire Post Letters

The NHS is facing “the greatest workforce crisis” in its history, according to Parliament’s Health and Social Care Select Committee, which also says the “absence of a credible government strategy” on understaffing is putting patients at serious risk of harm.

A higher proportion of retired people live in rural and coastal Yorkshire, so we are particularly dependent on our NHS.

The UK population is ageing, and another 475,000 clinical staff and 490,000 more social care staff will be needed in the next decade.

However, there is already a national shortage of 105,000 doctors, nurses and midwives – and these shortages hit rural areas disproportionately.

While healthcare spending in Britain has fallen dramatically since 2010, France now has 11 per cent more doctors per capita and Germany 48 per cent more; and almost all EU countries have more beds.

Boris Johnson’s promise of 40 new hospitals has gone the way of all his other lies.

This is further evidence that a deliberate running down of the NHS is longterm Conservative strategy.

The Covid crisis was treated as a pretext to channel £18 billion to private companies, with minimal oversight.

Now, we see an increasing proportion of taxpayers’ money spent on outsourcing to foreign health corporations – many Amercian – using our NHS money to boost their shareholders’ profits.

In rural and coastal Yorkshire, this will mean even longer waits for GP appointments, further reduction of services at district hospitals, and a dwindling provision of health and social care from local authorities that have seen their budgets cut since 2010.