Labour’s local health lead, Cllr. Bet Tickner, is urging patients, and NHS staff, who feel the effect of the Conservative-led Coalition’s £20Billion cut to the NHS budget to register their experiences with a special website, www.yournhs.com, set up to help form a picture of NHS cuts across the country.
“Labour fought valiantly to stop the Coalition’s Health and Social Care Bill,” Cllr. Tickner says, “but the Tories and LibDems forced it through, adding to the burdens on an NHS that was already being squeezed by demand for £20Billion ‘efficiency savings’, savings that the RCN are saying have already cost 6000 nursing jobs – nurses booed Andrew Lansley at their conference last week when he tried to deny it.
“We know that waiting times are getting longer, we know that some surgical procedures are no longer being offered, we know that staff are being pushed to work even harder to cover for lost posts – but what we need is the detail of that on the ground so we can hold the Tories to account for it in Parliament and locally. Please do use this website, add your experiences to those of others, and help keep track of the damage this government is doing to the NHS on which we all depend.”