Mid Ulster Workers’ Party representative, Hugh Scullion has said the National Health Service is not a business nor was it meant to be one.

Commenting on the new Three-year Strategic Plan, he said his party welcomed any move that is related to longer term planning for the delivery of Health and Social Care Services and the ambition to ensure pay parity for its dedicated and undervalued workforce.

He said: "We have heard it all before, the same old buzz words, the same old refusal to accept that wholesale efficiency savings within strategic health planning flies in the face of the delivery of good clinical outcomes for patients and service users.

"The intention to impose massive budget cuts to achieve financial break-even is the usual spreadsheet economics, which has created the crisis in the first place.

 

"The £200 million efficiency saving target in 2024 / 2025 will be continuing for a further two years. No financial figures have been included for 2026 / 2027, but we know from past experience it will be huge, it will entail closures of facilities and large-scale relocations of services that will have a major impact on rural communities.

"It would seem that in order to balance the books by 2027 they are going to consult on potential charges for Prescriptions and Home Care Services. These two items have long been on the wish list of many senior executives both in the Department of Health and some Trusts.

"While the efficiency target for valuing medicines strategy (prescribing generic drugs) we can all agree on, we are entitled to ask why progress on this issue has been so slow?

"It has been talked about for decades and there are massive savings to be made in this area without negatively impacting on patient care or clinical outcomes, prescribing should always be reviewed as good clinical practice."

Continuing, Mr Scullion added: “If the Minister and his Executive colleagues are committed to improving and maintaining the National Health Service as envisaged by Nye Bevan then they need to start a dialogue with Trade Unions, Political Parties and Community groups with an interest in improving and strengthening the Health and Social Care Services. These are services we all depend on and will all need at some point in our lives. The National Health Service is not a business nor was it meant to be one.

“It was introduced in 1948 to tackle the health inequalities that existed then, Bevan in his book ‘In Place of Fear’ explaining the need for a National Health Service free at the point of entry. Should be made compulsory reading for our Politicians and Health Service Executives who seem so keen to dismantle it. Because sadly for many of our citizens health inequalities persists today and are growing worse. Nye Bevan said ‘there will always be a National Health Service while there are people willing to fight for it’. It is now time for us begin that fight in earnest."