12 January 2016
The Green Party fully supports Tuesday’s strike action by doctors seeking to prevent their working conditions becoming even more unsustainable. Jeremy Hunt’s proposals would further add to staff shortages and increase the hugely expensive reliance on agency staff.
Green Party councillor Lesley Grahame, who is also a nurse, said: “I’m supporting the doctors’ strike because there comes a point where you can’t keep doing more with less. We’ve passed that point, and if we want to protect patients we have to protect the NHS and reverse the cuts and fragmentation of the last three governments.”
Green MP Caroline Lucas has been at the forefront of the campaign to reverse the decline of the NHS, having tabled the NHS Reinstatement Bill last year. The bill gained support from MPs from four other parties, and is due for a second reading in Parliament on 11th March. The bill proposes to fully restore the NHS as an accountable public service by reversing 25 years of marketization in the NHS, by abolishing the purchaser-provider split, ending contracting and re-establishing public bodies and public services accountable to local communities. More on the bill can be found here.
