Feryal Clark MP calls out the Government’s wasteful NHS re-organsiation

The Tories’ Health and Care Bill sees the largest re-organisation of the NHS since the disastrous “Lansley Reforms” in 2012.

With the NHS continuing to fight against COVID-19, and cases and hospitalisations rising, it is baffling that the Government are embarking on these reforms now.

The very fact that they have done so is a devastating verdict on 11 years of underfunding, understaffing and the neglect of social care that left both health and care services weakened and exposed when the pandemic hit.

We entered the crisis with sky high waiting lists, cancer targets being missed, and young people being denied mental health support.

Here in Enfield, we have faced years of chronic underfunding of health and social care services, putting immense pressures on health and care services even before the pandemic struck. You can view my letter to the Minister on this here: https://bit.ly/EnfieldHealthFunding.

Patients will expect Ministers to explain how a structural reorganisation in the middle of the biggest crisis the NHS has faced will fix these issues.

Every day frontline NHS staff are forced to spend on this top-down reorganisation, is a day less for the NHS to tackle waiting lists, work with local government to sort out social care, cope with COVID, and prepare for one of the most challenging winters in living memory.

Labour has long warned that the previous Lansley reorganisation was wasteful and forced the privatisation of health services.

Now, after a year when billions in taxpayers’ money has been handed out to Tory cronies for duff PPE and testing contracts, allowing further privatisation with no oversight must be resisted.

Whilst Ministers are wasting valuable time on this wasteful reorganisation, I will continue to work with colleagues in Parliament and locally to ensure the best possible deal for patients, their families, and NHS and social care staff here in Enfield North.