Tories crash dive NHS abandoned any pretence of commitment to SINCE JUNE, the same health service which Tory miniscoes insisted was safe in our Health aurhorities have been ciosing beds, wards, casualty units and clinice, cancelling developments and even cutting nursing stall As the cash has run out, general managers, politicians and academies have hitting health authorities all over hands* has come under a barrage of curs. LISTER argues that the labour the country are no accident or The massive wave of cutbacks have deliberatcly engineered a in a mad scramble to meet cash limits. undermine confidence in the coincidence. Tory ministers future of the NHS. JOHN movement must develop a financial crisis designed to fighting response.
per ceol Health authorities real spending puwer an all party cummons committee at E1.325 provements have cur another 13 per cent deals have lumbered health authorities with the old egalitarian ideals of a health service funded from taxation and free to all at time The financial disasters are the direct out- come of conscious Tory policics since 1979: has each yrar been held down despite Lhe growing ensts of caring for an increasingly cumulative restirces gap 1981-85 has been estimared by im- subsequent pay "cast This year's electioneering 9 for The • Arbitrary demands pay award to nurses and each ycar from budgets. populasion. unpaid bills. elderly billion. of use. •
Every onc of these policies has been quite deliberate, in particular the decisions not to Health authorities bave been allored only 3.75 per cent extra to cover price infla- too, yel NIlS prices are expected to rise by 7.5 per cent; underfunding this ycar is likely fund inflation and pay awards were taken to total some £300m
no 4 November Decenter 1987 and all Kids of lsk-ups with Some health authoriice (inceding Ox- lord. City & Hackney, and Lewishan & North Southwark) are sirody carrying qui sonic of rhese types of schemes lor link upe = which were list proposed in the Thatcherite Adar South schemes, charging patients for admissions, voucher confultations and even CP visits: private health care Arras: with the private sector - Nurses on the morning drugs round in a Sheffield hospital SOCIALIST OUTLOOK schemes: alling hospitals. These managers, together with the Boundering acadernics of the kings Within weeks of the clection resul, the in. missioned a sody of che varions ways in which private health firms or charges lor health care could inject extra cust into our lund who are conducting a simples survey, will now be the fire to float a whole succes- sion of conrrocerial ideas, such as insoratice stitute of bealth scrutce management com on her real policies — cutbacks and major assumption bl management and most pundits is that the old ing privansation plans out of the closet which: Thatcher's barmy right" previously carlier this year in the knowiedgo thar it Thatcher knows that had she campaigned hospitals — she would have been trounced at the polls. So she has been forced to adopt a NHS is finished: it will never again be possi- ble to fund it adcquately from taxation. This deleatist assumption is used to justify drage- The key has been creating a major fun- would ercate a major crisis by autumn after the election votes were counted. ding crisis. The common more devious approach. hesitated to spell out. inroads by private even 14
dependent, to a greater or lesser extent, on: the auroomy and right to make choices of thar the authors consider doctors and social socicty as a whole has to provide agencios, like social workers, capable of intervening, TalF ARTICLE by Dant Ahrens and Judith snous attempt ro go bebind the headlines young children do not possess the capacity and explain the causes of child ahusc. But In the limsted space availabic T will just The inevitable conclusion is chat wörkers as much a part ofithe problem as seriously one-sled, giving the impression delending childion — and in some cases, children be absolace, sinply because very interpret this as mcaming that the abused prosecution' is, or what is will entail for them — Ict's remember that many abuse authors to argue for the maximisation of child must have the right to make all the This is surely utopian. Many children whether to prosecute, in my view some of its arguments were authors argue diat the solution to child vicums an under ten, and many much makr three basic objections, First, the that autonomy cannot for very young Paton (SO no 3) on child abuse was al children, and against the myth of the abuse is to 'empower children'. They abused are far loo young to have any cunnipotence of all-kadwing 'experts' whether to go into care, and su on. together with other agencies. making Of cours ir is quite right for the rational comprehension of whar a for total autonomy: they Irmain parents who