We don’t need the kind of NHS ‘reforms’ currently on offer from the main electoral parties, none of which provide a sustainable solution to the deepening crisis in the National Health Service, but neither does the NHS need Reform UK argues Lucy Nichols.
The Labour Party says we need NHS ‘reform’, but as we’ve argued here, they haven’t committed to proper levels of funding or to rule out increasing involvement from the private sector in our NHS. The Conservative’s record is so bad on the NHS that the best they can offer is a meaningless promise to increase the use of A.I.
Keep Our NHS Public has repeatedly made the case that the NHS doesn’t need this kind of ‘reform’ at all, but instead needs a return to founding principles and a truly universal health service.
The other kind of ‘reform’ the NHS absolutely doesn’t need is Nigel Farage’s Reform UK Party.
What does Reform say about the NHS?
Reform UK claims that, like the rest of Britain, the NHS isn’t working properly and only they can fix it. Their manifesto, or ‘Contract’ as they prefer to call it, contains barely half a page on their proposals for the National Health Service.
They claim they will tackle staff retention issues not by improving pay and working conditions, but by getting rid of income tax for NHS workers and giving public funds to private companies to ‘relieve pressure’ on public health providers. They would also reduce tax on private healthcare providers, offer a ‘voucher scheme’ so that people can go private if they’ve waited too long for NHS care.
They repeat the idea that one of the key problems is the top heavy NHS is bureaucracy and will cut back on ‘unnecessary managers’ and ‘waste’, for instance by abolishing NHS Race and Health Observatory.
They also suggest they will spend £17 billion in five years on the NHS, but make the laughable claim they will fund it by cutting government spending by £50 billion, and cutting taxes on almost everything.
The simple truth is, Reform UK does not offer any meaningful policies that will bring about better living and working conditions for people in the UK at all.
Farage’s posturing over the NHS is a cynical appeal to the justifiable concerns of many people in the UK, and conceals the truth that the only people that would benefit from Reform’s electoral gains will be millionaires like himself.
Immigration
In addition to scapegoating migrants and asylum seekers for problems created by the failures of successive Conservative and coalition governments, Reform UK contradict themselves when it comes to migrants working in the NHS.
On one hand, they agree that the NHS workforce is heavily reliant on immigration. Their plan to totally ban non-essential immigration does not apply to people coming to work in healthcare. However, they also believe that any migrant should be made to pay for healthcare, and pledge to end ‘health tourism’, a policy in direct opposition to our own position on ending all migrant charges.
They are happy to blame migrants for the strain on public services and are bold enough to suggest cutting down on immigration will cut NHS waiting lists – even though at 7.5 million, there are more people waiting for NHS care than there are immigrants in the UK (the net migration figure in 2023 was 685,000 and is smaller than this in 2024).
Debunking the myths
The truth is, immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers do not pose a threat to the NHS. The opposite is true. Reform UK’s attempts to blame immigrants for the problems in public services is both factually incorrect, and clearly intended to encourage racist ideas as an explanation for all that is wrong with ‘Broken Britain.’
The NHS is in a crisis because of political and ideological choices made by successful governments which have defunded the NHS to fail, not funded it to succeed and allowed the private sector to increasingly undermine services. Keep Our NHS Public demands a full restoration of the people’s NHS, as Nye Bevan envisioned it in 1948. This means a publicly provided NHS open to all who need it, when they need it.
There is no room for racism in the fight for the NHS. Reform UK claims that the NHS is ‘not fit for purpose’, but it is the racist Reform UK that are not fit for office.
Lucy Nichols
Sophie Anderson, a UK-based writer, is your guide to the latest trends, viral sensations, and internet phenomena. With a finger on the pulse of digital culture, she explores what’s trending across social media and pop culture, keeping readers in the know about the latest online sensations.
