Our experience as frontline healthcare professionals working in the NHS, coupled with our specific backgrounds in clinical leadership (which has been encouraged as a way to improve the NHS), leaves us puzzled, frustrated and angry at the apparent lack of priority being given to healthcare by this government (BMA: Theresa May lacks understanding about seriousness of NHS crisis, theguardian.com, 15 October). Mrs May’s comments not only betray our experience, but that of health policy experts and the opinion of the NHS’s own chief executive, namely that increased funding is required to avert further crises. Most importantly, they also appear to be at odds with the opinion of the British people, with polls demonstrating a majority willing to pay extra in taxes – if that money was guaranteed to be invested in the NHS.
It is clear that, without adequate funding, the NHS will continue to miss targets; these are not only economic measures, but represent individuals who are left waiting in discomfort and misery. To recommend no more funding is shortsighted: David Cameron, Mrs May’s predecessor as prime minister, incessantly said a functioning NHS needed a strong economy, wrongly implying that such a relationship is one way. In fact, we would argue that the opposite is perhaps more true: that a population in good health is more prosperous, by any number of measures.
Mrs May seems determined to apply a brutal approach to funding the NHS. We are curious about the leadership being demonstrated by this approach: investing in the health of the nation surely would be the hallmark of a leader. We urge her to resist so-called “efficiency savings” as the solution; we have been moving along this road for several years and all the easy hits have been made. We are now being faced with stark decisions that are far removed from the principles upon which the NHS was founded.
Elizabeth Akers Senior nurse, Dr Amit Bali, Vicky Dunne Senior nurse, Dr N Malik, Dr A Dewar, Dr V Beasley, Dr R Mitchell
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