The Tories attempt to spin the NHS crisis as ‘not a crisis’ failed abysmally, as the evidence of countless images, tweets and testimonies of medical professionals shows it to be self-evidently untrue.
An alternative line the government is using is “This happens every year“. The evidence against that ‘fake news’ is clear from a quick look at the annual Accident and Emergency (A&E) performance figures. The NHS publishes quarterly reportsfor A&E waiting times and the percentage of patients waiting more than four hours to be checked, treated and admitted/discharged since 2004 are depicted in the chart below:
Once Labour started its major investment in the NHS in 2003, the percentage of people waiting fell rapidly and never reached four percent again under Labour government – not even in winter.
As soon as the Tories entered Downing Street in 2010 that quarterly figure rose rapidly, reaching over 18% and not dropping below 14% in the last couple of years – and the monthly figure is currently 23%.
As a medical professional said recently,
We don’t need a debate about funding. We just need funding.
The deceleration in NHS investment under the Tories has inflicted serious damage on the NHS. As the above figures show, it began as soon as they began to govern again – in spite of false campaign promises that it was ‘safe in [their] hands’.
The claim that the winter crisis is simply a routine yearly event is fake news by the Tories and their media allies – it has become routine under them. But it a situation of their making.
And it’s a situation that costs lives as well as causing huge suffering.
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