Happy 70th Birthday to our NHS
Hundreds of people were lining up in Cowdenbeath this week to sign a card celebrating 70 years of the NHS, but services are under immense pressure and NHS Fife needs to address worrying levels of vacancies across hospital and community services.
The NHS was the greatest creation of the last century and the support for the NHS remains very high across our communities. If we want to celebrate its centenary, then we need action to address the underfunding and we need proper leadership to plan for the future.
The Tory Government and their failed austerity agenda has been so damaging but also the SNP Government have spectacularly failed to future plan staffing and services. All the evidence shows and all the experienced staff agree we need more investment in our NHS and is why we must reject failed Tory austerity and failed Tory attempts at privatisation as both are having a real negative threat on our NHS. The other major area of failure is that of the Holyrood Government to plan and ensure we have enough trained and qualified nurses, doctors and specialist consultants.
There are massive difficulties in GP recruitment across Fife, people in most communities have experienced that it is more and more difficult to get an appointment with their GP. Some practices are finding it more difficult to maintain the patient care and support required and is why NHS Fife must set out what they are doing to recruit, where they have the greatest problems and what help they need from government.
I want to see dialogue between government and the NHS Board about the extent of the gaps in services and how they are going to work together to address these issues. It is our NHS, people are proud of the NHS and all the staff who work in it and it is now time to demand that government gets its act together when it comes to our health service.
