Dave Prentis addressed UNISON’s health conference today.
Read the speech in full:
Good morning conference – welcome to Liverpool.
I want to pay tribute to everyone here who led our recent industrial action – our national committee, Christina, and our full-time officers. You were great.
It was a real testament to our union, getting out there, making the case. Exposing the scandal of Jeremy Hunt refusing to pay even one per cent to our health members, and refusing to implement the pay review body award.
I would also like to send a message of thanks from this conference to the Royal College of Midwives who stood alongside us – the first time in their 130-year history that they had taken action. Perhaps the Royal College of Nursing could learn a few lessons…..
And it is still a scandal that even after our settlement the NHS is not a living wage employer.
It really is great to be with you once again, recharging our batteries for the fight ahead to save our NHS. It’s great to be in Liverpool again too.
A great city with a great heart, a city steeped in trade union history, a city that for decades has fought for jobs, for decency and for justice.
And none more valiant than the Hillsborough families – brave families who were smeared, betrayed by authority and lied to for decades.
UNISON has stood with them for 25 years, and conference we’ll keep with them – shoulder to shoulder – until they get the justice they deserve. Their demand is our demand: justice for the 96.
We live in a blatantly unfair society, a society where sadly your social class, your sexual orientation, a disability or the colour of your skin can still define your future.
It is 2015 but we are still fighting the prejudices of 1215. And at the centre of this unfair society sits Tory economic policy.
Economic growth looks good on paper until you realise that the beneficiaries are not our people – who are still paying the price for austerity – but the banks, the private equity firms, the hedge funds.
While the financial sector booms again and bankers pocket huge bonuses, the Tories promise the vulnerable a £12bn cut if they are elected.
While the rich with private health cover skip queues and book instant consultations, nearly all local authorities now only provide adult social care in cases of critical need. Where’s the fairness in that?
And while the Tories promise to cut taxes further for the wealthy, George Osborne tells our public services that we are only halfway through the cuts. Public spending is to return to 1930s levels, with another 700,000 jobs to go.
And in 24 days time, our country is going to make a decision. We are all guilty of exaggeration from time to time – and some like me, are worse than others. But on this occasion I have absolutely no doubt that it is a decision like none we have faced before.
And when I say ‘we’, I mean ‘us’ – the decision we need to make for our union, for our NHS.
Next year will mark the 70th anniversary of Nye Bevan’s appointment as Minister of Health.
An appointment that shaped so much that is good about this country and our health service.
I could use every minute of my time here to quote the great man. But I will restrict myself to a single sentence: “No society can legitimately call itself civilized if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means.”
Which makes this election not just about the future of our union or our health service, but about the very future of civilised society in this country, the very future of our welfare state.
It is five long years ago that David Cameron pledged not to cut our NHS. He appealed to us from the heart. He looked us in the eye. He made unequivocal pledges:
- “The NHS is my top priority.”
- “There will be no cuts to frontline services.”
- “The NHS is safe in my hands.”
Compelling stuff conference. But I don’t need to remind any of you what Nye Bevan thought of the Tories.
Suffice to say that nothing changes. Let me remind you of the broken Tory promises. The lies that have torn our country apart, that have neglected those who need the most help.
That have betrayed the innocent.
A Tory promise to “increase spending on health in real terms every year”. Broken.
Cameron’s promise that: “The NHS is safe in my hands.” Broken.
Last week waiting times in Accident and Emergency hit their worst level for a decade. NHS finances are in ruin – with £22bn of savings to be made by the end of the decade.
And last Wednesday, 100 top doctors signed a letter confirming the Coalition’s legacy: a health service that is weaker, more fragmented and less able to perform its vital role than at any time in the history of our NHS.
The Tories promised we would have 4,200 new health visitors by the end of last month. A tangible promise, one that’s easy to measure. Broken.
They promised change would be: “driven by the wishes and needs of NHS professionals and patients”. No forced closures.
Broken.
No wonder many of you have never felt so demoralised. Because every wolf has claws, and this one has Jeremy Hunt’s closure clause. Making it easier for wards and hospitals to be downgraded or closed completely.
And finally, do you remember they promised “No more top-down re-organisations of the NHS”? Not just broken. But smashed.
The Health and Social Care Act – a good idea? Report after report highlighting the damage it has done.
So much for the Tory promises. If we are charitable, the Act is a study in failure. Sadly, it appears to be something more sinister.
And we warned about it at the time. The jobs that would be lost. The waste that would follow. The patients betrayed.
And that, conference is the word that sums up the past five years –betrayal. Betrayal of our trust. Of our people. Of our NHS.
And meanwhile, the rich have got richer. It’s no surprise – just a numbing sense of inevitability.
In the last year, more than £6.5bn was redirected from the NHS to pay private companies. That’s £18m per day – a rise of 50 per cent since the Coalition took power.
If it worked, they’d attempt to justify it. But it brings no benefits.
Take Hinchingbrooke Hospital – UNISON warned from the outset against passing it over to private operator Circle. And then, Circle decided to hand it back.
Not because their work was done. Not because they had solved the problems at the trust. But because they couldn’t make money from it.
When the going got tough, Circle got going, leaving the NHS to pick up the pieces and the taxpayer to pick up the bill.
And through all this – the longest period of falling wages since records began. Our people are worse off. Earning less. Paying less tax back into the economy.
Five million earning less than the living wage in this country – 1.8m on zero-hours contracts. Exploitation rife.
The most deprived councils bearing the brunt of cuts. Austerity targeting the poorest. Cuts only avoided by those who can actually afford them.
But we have reached a fork in the road. Five more years of this and our children may well look back at this as the government that killed our greatest institution.
Which brings us back to the decision we need to make. The chance to remove this party run by millionaires for millionaires.
To remove a party that refuses to rule out an axis of evil with UKIP. To remove a party that refuses to rule out cutting child benefit.
And there are alternatives: Outlawing zero hours contracts, raising the minimum wage, promoting the living wage.
Building affordable housing, abolishing the bedroom tax, extending free childcare.
Clamping down on the abuse of employment rights, ending the attacks on check-off, restoring the right to facility time.
Ridding the NHS of the Health and Social Care Act, reinstating the NHS as the preferred provider of care. Using a mansion tax to provide extra funding and staff for the health service.
And I must applaud UNISON Scotland for their ‘100 influencers’ campaign. I have no doubt that we must learn from the progressive politics growing within Scotland. The participation from 16 year-olds to the elderly. The way in which the renewal of Trident has been put on the agenda.
Three and a half weeks conference. Three and a half weeks for us to speak to our friends our families, our members to convince the wavering voters to get rid of this Coalition.
The next Parliament will witness the seventieth anniversary of Nye Bevan opening the first NHS hospital here in the North West. It was always intended to be a health service for all.
It is no wonder that Bevan’s vision is being betrayed by a government that is unashamedly run by the few for the few. What a contrast conference. What a waste.
We have a chance to make a real difference. And I implore you to help make that difference. This Coalition must be defeated.
There could not be a greater incentive to cast those votes. To say no to the politics of exclusion. No to the politics of hate. And no to the politics of unfairness.
Not because I want it. Or because Ed Miliband wants it. But because our members need it. And our NHS needs it.
Conference, I would like to thank you all for what you do for our union.
To those who saved the George Eliot hospital from privatisation. Those who kept pathology in-house in Dorset.
Those who prevented the massive privatisation attempt in Cambridgeshire and Care UK. But don’t be under any illusion, whoever gets into power, UNISON’s fight continues.
A year to fight. A year to campaign. Work together, move forward together. More ballots for industrial action. And anyone who comes
after our unsocial hours payments, we will ballot for action and we will fight. Thank you.
