Flint slams NHS critics for scaremongering

6 November 2006

Don Valley MP Caroline Flint has met NHS staff and patients to reassure them that the wild tales of NHS job losses was not true.

Outlining the real situation for compulsory redundancies across the whole of the NHS Ms Flint explained that there were 903 compulsory redundancies in the first six months of 2006 with eight out of ten of these being non-clinical.

"The Conservatives have been whipping up unnecessary alarm among staff - there are some changes but the vast majority of the 1.3 million people who work in the NHS do not need to worry."

The Don Valley MP stressed that over the ten years of Labour's government there have been significant increases in the numbers of staff employed in the NHS - with over 300,000 extra staff since 1997. Ms Flint explained that in 2005, staff numbers in the NHS grew by over 34,000.

Commenting on the meeting Caroline Flint said: "The Tory claims of mass job losses have been shown to be nonsense. This year, there have been just eight compulsory redundancies in the whole of Yorkshire. Whilst every job loss is to be regretted, the NHS is growing and around 120,000 jobs become vacant every year.

Ms Flint said: "A small number of NHS organisations keep overspending year after year and they cannot expect everyone else, including the taxpayer, to bail them out. When we have more than doubled NHS spending, it is reasonable to ask them to manage with the resources they have."

Ms Flint confirmed that the NHS was treating more patients than ever before: "The Tories complain about Government targets, but it is our targets that have reduced waiting times for cataract operations from two years to just three months. And that is because Labour's NHS has done nearly twice as many cataract operations as the Tories.

"This is no accident. We have also done 93% more heart operations and 43% more hip replacements. Virtually no one is waiting more than six months for treatment, and no one with a heart condition waits more than three months."

Ms Flint said that the faster treatment had saved the lives of 50,000 cancer patients and 150,000 heart patients.

Said Ms Flint: "After 18 years in power, the Conservatives left the NHS under-funded, with massive waiting lists. We have restored it to health. Whilst they have quick access to treatment today, more than ever before patients say they want it even faster; they want services at their GP; they want to be out of hospital quicker and to be looked after in their own home. We have to have a health service that can adapt to that."