The NHS is in crisis. I'm not going to spend several paragraphs writing about how it is in crisis, because no doubt you already know, and if not there are lots of news websites you can read this on. However, what the mainstream media might not make clear is the fact that it is in crisis not because of too many patients, or doctors not working hard enough, but because of ideological cuts to services by a Government intent on privatisation.
However, perhaps you do not yet know what you can do to help this. No MP, even one under pressure to toe the party line, wants to see their local health service close down. Every single person who writes to their MP about this is putting them under pressure to demand more funds for the NHS. You can write to your local MP by clicking here and entering your postcode. Below is the example that I have sent to my local MP, Thangam Debbonaire (Labour):
Dear Thangam Debbonaire MP,
I am writing to you to express my extreme concern with the current state of the NHS in Bristol West, and across the west of the country. I read recently that hospitals in this area have been placed on a 'black alert', meaning that they are now so overcrowded that patient safety can no longer be guaranteed. Across the country, cancer operations are being postponed, birthing units are being shut down, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
The Health Secretary seems to be holding everyone to blame but his own regime for the current crisis. There have been indications that the incredibly hard-working staff are to blame. He has suggested scrapping the waiting times to be assessed for 'non-urgent' cases - overlooking, of course, the fact that it is impossible to tell before such assessments whether or not a case is urgent. He tells people that they shouldn't visit A&E unless it's an emergency - this is patently obvious, but when GP appointments are so hard to come by it is really not good enough to advise people of that, not to mention utterly hypocritical on his part (in 2014, he admitted taking his own children to A&E for a non-emergency situation). The media is not helpful, suggesting that patient numbers have been 'unprecedented' this winter. They are described as 'unprecedented' every year, which makes no sense as the word means a unique situation that could not be prepared for. Patients are in danger now, not even taking into account the extra £22 billion of cuts that health services are expected to produce.
I believe that the NHS is being driven into the ground on purpose to justify further privatisation. I am aware that the current Labour leader has promised to renationalise the entire NHS if Labour are elected into Government at the next General Election, but we cannot wait to see if that happens. The NHS needs more funding right now, and as your constituent, I feel that this is something that must be not requested, but demanded.
Yours sincerely,
George Harold Millman
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