Did Tony Blair’s Labour Ruin the NHS?

The NHS is the nation’s largest cliché magnet. Envy of the world, national institution and sacred cow are uttered breathlessly by those who act as if they were with William Beveridge when he conceived the idea. The creators of hit Japanese export Pokemon are clearly fans, having created a network of Pokecentres free at the point of use in every version of the video game. Unfortunately, the NHS has been besieged by political mismanagement, most notably under New Labour, damaging the patient-nurse relationship. Under former Health Secretary Andy Burnham’s stewardship, the patient before profit ethos at hospitals like Whipps Cross University Hospital in East London was heavily undermined as New Labour opened hospital doors to the virus of market forces.

Mr. Burnham has been injecting doses of artificial zeal into his desire for a public NHS for as long as he has been surreptitiously dismantling it. Having approved the funding of the Great Western Hospital in Swindon through the disastrous PFI scheme, Private Finance Initiative in common parlance, Mr. Burnham’s calls for a public NHS are astronomically disingenuous. Devised by the Conservatives in the 1990s, PFI is a corrosive alliance between the government and the private sector allowing businesses to fund public infrastructure projects on a ‘buy now, pay later’ basis. Consequently, the private sector profited from the construction of schools and hospitals. Research conducted by the Independent on Sunday and verified by the National Audit Office (NAO) found that Britain owes £222 billion to banks and businesses from all the deals made, implicating the public in the costliest loan we never agreed to get.

Whipps Cross is currently in intensive care after New Labour’s calamitous embrace of the private sector. The genesis of the debacle that saw Whipps put into special measures started when it merged with Bart’s Health Trust in Whitechapel, alongside three other hospitals in 2012. The trust, the largest in Britain, was funded by PFI and overseen by private companies like Skanska, who still manage its maintenance, among other services. Subsequently, Whipps absorbed Bart’s PFI debts and cut hundreds of jobs. A devastating report produced by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) earlier this year discovered low morale, an over-dependency on agency workers and a culture of bullying at Whipps, all of which stemmed from the merger. Patients’ health became a commodity as quality treatment became subservient to delusional targets. The beleaguered hospital became an emblem of New Labour’s sustained assault on the patient-nurse relationship.

A former employee at the hospital, who wished to remain anonymous, spoke to me about how their ward was effected. Twenty years’ of service ended sourly after the damage done by callous lay-offs gave them no option but to look for work elsewhere. The problems were numerous and varied: before the merger, over-stretched staff often worked extra unpaid hours to keep wards running. When the merger occurred, a consultation took place, after which loyal staff were told to reapply for their existing jobs or face demotion. After the CQC’s report was issued, morale sank to an all-time low. Many roles were slashed, and many more nurses left in disgust. Bed numbers were cut, with many patients having to wait longer in A&E or be inconveniently transferred to hospitals outside London. The ward transformed into a carousel for agency workers, meaning patients lacked continuity of care. Disgracefully, frontline staff were sacrificed to save bureaucrats who imperilled the livelihoods of staff and patients alike. Whipps, the nurse said, was ruined irrevocably.

PFI is undoubtedly the most myopic act of headline generating in recent memory. New Labour under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown gleefully adopted PFI, stupidly believing the private sector could cure the public sector’s ills without repercussions. Mr. Burnham knew that thanks to Labour’s integral role in the NHS’s creation, he could yell ‘public NHS!’ and voters would automatically trust him over the equally iniquitous Tories. He knowingly increased private sector involvement in the NHS, yet had the audacity to bleat about privatisation by stealth by the Coalition government in the run up to this year’s general election. The three architects of debt-driven catastrophe aimlessly lobbed money at the NHS without thinking where it was going or what the long term consequences would be, a view echoed by my interviewee.

The chaos that engulfed Whipps Cross is what happens when government allows the private sector to interfere in our healthcare system. The private sector’s presence in the NHS has always rightly been viewed with hostility, and PFI illustrates how private self-interest wrecks the quality of care. Nurses, my interviewee said, need to be consulted about future decision-making and have their pay raised to boost morale and make nursing an attractive profession. Health is not a commodity and illness should never be treated as an opportunity to make money. If the patient-nurse relationship is to fully recover, superfluous managerial positions must be axed and the NHS must be single state monopoly, free of private sector involvement.