Support Our Welsh NHS
Wales TUC trade unions within the health service represent thousands of committed workers in a wide variety of roles, from nurses and paramedics to porters and physiotherapists. As a whole, Wales TUC affiliated unions represent around 400,000 working people across the private sector, public services and voluntary organisations in Wales. The vast majority of members do not work within NHS Wales but rely upon the service for their families and communities.
NHS Wales is facing growing pressure and increasing demand on its services due to a complex mix of financial constraints, changing demography and long term public health challenges. As austerity at a UK level continues to deliver unprecedented cuts to the overall Welsh budget, all of our public services now face unjust funding pressures.
While none of our public services caused the financial crash, all of them are being forced to pay the price for it while taxes are cut for the wealthiest few. We are committed to working in partnership with the Welsh Government to ensure that our public services are able to deliver the best possible outcomes with a workforce that is valued, respected and listened to.
It is essential that patients and their families have faith in the healthcare services they access and that the workforce delivering them is not misrepresented.
The NHS is and always should be subject to open and honest democratic accountability. This was Aneurin Bevan’s vision for the NHS in 1948 and trade unions continue to campaign for more robust mechanisms to ensure that where problems arise they are identified and rectified early with appropriate redress and remedy. It has always been the case that the voice of the workforce is central to securing a fully accountable and transparent service.
The challenges and opportunities presented to the service by societal, scientific and technological changes also serve as a constant motivation for each of us to strive for better NHS services and design. Constructive and informed criticism should be embraced to help the service improve. This will be essential in ensuring that reorganisation secures the best outcomes for patients.
Wherever services fail and complaints are upheld it is imperative that they are acted upon in a rational and proportionate manner. It is in the interests of patients and the workforce that this happens. However, political or personal interests should not be allowed to sensationalise and undermine a process that relies on evidence to drive improvement.
These are important tests for a service we all rely on. However, we are deeply concerned that party political attacks and irresponsible rhetoric is damaging the relationship of trust that exists between patients and NHS Wales. These attacks have already damaged workplace morale and it is now essential that the voice of those who deliver our services is heard.
Health services across the UK are facing similar challenges while adapting to the changing nature of demand. This task follows the successful work which has seen services across the UK’s four nations improve over the last twenty years. The Nuffield Trust’s ten year study of those services found that: “no one country is emerging as a consistent front-runner on health system performance” and that “there have been significant improvements in the performance of the health services across all four countries.” NHS Wales staff should take pride in this and deserve better than the description by the UK Prime Minister of Offa’s Dyke as a line ‘between life and death’. It is totally unacceptable for any government or organisation to subject NHS Wales to such baseless and irresponsible party political attacks.
The rhetoric used does not represent the experience of our members or the public satisfaction rates but it has already had the affect of damaging morale within NHS Wales.
Services across NHS Wales are delivered by a committed and talented workforce that works with patients to deliver excellent care, often in extremely high pressured circumstances. In meeting this challenge NHS Wales employees regularly go above and beyond the call of duty and at times even face verbal and physical abuse in the process. This makes the NHS unlike most workplaces and the role of staff morale is integral to the delivery of an effective service.
As long as sustained attacks are levelled at the service as a whole without a satisfactory evidence base, morale will be undermined. It is therefore more important than ever that the work of those who serve patients and their families is properly represented.
Whatever political interests such attacks serve are totally inferior to the task of supporting and enhancing NHS Wales and should be recognised as such. As a movement we will not tolerate opportunistic smears that seek to drive a wedge between patients and the workforce. The care and treatment delivered is simply too important to be dragged through the gutters of political point scoring and electioneering.
As we celebrate the 66th anniversary of the NHS, we are now seeking to work with partners across the service in order to provide a genuine account of NHS Wales based on the principles that founded the service in 1948.
NHS Wales is not a political football. It is our public service.
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The Wales TUC would like the thank the below for showing support for our campaign.
#SupportOurWelshNHS
AMs:
- David Rees
- Ann Jones
- Lindsay Whittle
- Mike Hedges
- Julie Jame
- Keith Davies
- Christine Chapman
- Jenny Rathbone
- Rebecca Evans
- Lynne Neagle
MPs:
- Paul Murphy
- Owen Smith
- Nick Smith
- Dai Havard
- Martin Caton
- Wayne David
- Huw Irranca Davies