British People Put Last: Billions for the EU, Immigration, Asylum, Foreign Aid and Foreign Wars, but 40,000 NHS Jobs to Go
The thoroughly anti-British priorities of the ConDem regime have been revealed once again with the news that “budget cuts” threaten up to 10,000 front-line jobs in the NHS, while billions are spent on EU membership, immigration, asylum, foreign aid and foreign wars.
The job cuts, predicted in a new Royal College of Nursing (RCN) report, will result from the £20 billion “efficiency savings” ordered in the NHS by the ConDemners.These job losses are best put into perspective by comparing the £20 billion “efficiency savings” to other outlays actively endorsed by the ConDem regime: £60.1 billion for EU costs each year; £13 billion immigration costs each year; £7 billion in asylum costs each year; £9 billion in foreign aid each year; and £5 billion for the Afghanistan war each year.
The Tories promised to “ring fence” health spending, but in true Conservative fashion have deviously told the NHS to find the “efficiency savings” which it claimed would not affect front-line services.
However, in a survey of 100 NHS Trusts, the RCN showed that these “efficiency savings” would place 10,000 jobs under threat.
If the same “savings” are implemented across all 400 primary care trusts, ambulance services and hospitals in England, then as many as 40,000 jobs will go.
The RCN report went on to warn that front-line staff such as doctors and nurses will almost certainly be targeted, along with managers and bureaucrats.
“The Government has promised to ring-fence the NHS from its savage public service cuts, with ministers insisting that front-line staff and patient care will be protected,” Dr Peter Carter, RCN general secretary, said in the report.
“But while the NHS budget continues to increase, Whitehall has also ordered health trusts to make £20 billion of ‘efficiency savings’ by 2014 — which means delivering the same services for less money,” he said.
Many NHS trusts have already started programmes of compulsory redundancies aimed at front-line medical staff.
According to the RCN, some NHS trusts have recruitment freezes or are not replacing those who leave or retire. This is, in effect, a shrinking of staff numbers in the face of ever increasing demand for services.
“We are realistic about the need to find financial savings in the NHS but our figures expose the myth that front-line services will be protected as NHS bodies begin their drive to create huge efficiencies,” Dr Carter said.
“Local NHS organisations appear to be adopting a slash-and-burn approach to jobs which is shocking and will have a disastrous effect not only on the quality of care provided but also on the range of treatments that are available.
“Logic would suggest that as nurses make up the greatest part of the workforce they will be at risk. I don't feel confident that these arbitrary cuts are going to help.”
* Another report has revealed that NHS Trusts will also be hit for an extra £250 million in VAT as a result of the January 2011 rise in VAT rates to 20 percent.
The VAT burden will take away money from the NHS which could otherwise fund 31,250 heart by-pass operations, 1.25 million CT scans or 100 million hospital meals, the report said.
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