"Keir Starmer failed the NHS. The next Labour leader must do better. 'We need commitment to a publicly funded, provided and accountable NHS, not an ever-closer relationship with the parasitic private sector." By Tony O'Sullivan and Dr John Puntis : At-> https://leftfootforward.org/2026/06/keir-starmer-failed-the-nhs-the-next-labour-leader-must-do-better/
"As Keir Starmer ended his resignation speech with tears in his eyes, we remember the rivers of tears flowing from the people of Gaza and the occupied territories. Closer to home is the lasting sadness among the families of 305 people dying avoidably every week from delays in emergency care, and those impacted by the deep social inequalities and poverty that have not been seriously addressed. Starmer, Chancellor Rachel Reeves and former Health Secretary Wes Streeting have conspired to deliver a prescription without hope for the NHS and for patients. In place of compassion and positivity, they have built their ambitions on fear of the bond markets, the worthless opinions of the right wing press and partnership with private corporations... In Streeting, Starmer appointed a powerful neoliberal voice, heavily funded by donors linked to the private health industry. He repeatedly asserted that the NHS needed ‘reform’ and partnership with the private sector, rather than funding and that AI, data and technology would replace the need for a health and care workforce delivering personal care. The prime minister lapped all this up and regurgitated it. Starmer’s legacy is a series of policy failures and acts of omission. He ignored Labour’s manifesto commitments to roll back outsourcing of public services to the private sector, to scrutinise existing contracts and to return them to the public sector. He and Streeting were silent when the East Suffolk and North Essex Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) outsourced 1000 NHS staff to Sodexo in April 2025. He allowed Streeting to announce arrogantly the abolition of NHS England, the 50% funding cut and merging of Integrated Care Boards, and the enforced financial cuts to trusts which, when totalled up, may lose the NHS between 50-100,000 clinical, technical, support services, admin and management staff – collective experience discarded without even a workforce or redundancy plan, and guaranteeing damage to clinical services. The 7.2 million waiting list simply cannot be addressed in this way. The crisis in the NHS spans the whole service: inadequate numbers of GPs facing intense pressures and thousands of unemployed colleagues; insufficient community nurses making a mockery of Streeting’s ‘hospital to community’ shift; social care in crisis, with over a million people denied the support they need. Lack of community and social care support means around 13,000 hospital beds are occupied by patients unable to be discharged; A&E’s consequently overwhelmed, with patients experiencing delayed transfer from ambulances, many hours waiting for assessment, and in May, 3,000 patients a day needing admission but kept waiting in corridors, storage spaces and other unsafe areas for a hospital bed and definitive treatment. …." -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#42161): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/42161 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/119937028/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
