Last week was a Parliamentary recess, so I used the opportunity to catch up on local medical services.
Changes are heading our way. The Worcestershire Integrated Care Board is due to be merged with Warwickshire. It is too early to say whether this is a good or bad thing, but it does mean, hopefully, a wider spread of good practices across the two existing ICBs. This change comes because of the new government’s desire to allow ministers more day to day control of the NHS.
Its not an unreasonable proposition and I wish the new Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, every success. Real terms (allowing for inflation) expenditure on the NHS from 2010 to 2024 was up 28%, so the accusation that the NHS is a victim of austerity are simply false. Yet despite that, and more staff, productivity is down.
Here in Worcestershire, we have seen investment into our hospitals, most notably in the new A+E department in Worcester, that I visited last week. Around £35 million has brought in not just new facilities, but also new processes, helping speed up ambulance throughput. Of course, the performance of an A+E department relies on the whole of the health system working properly, so queuing ambulances do not indicate a poor A+E.
Kidderminster has also seen significant investment into more local services at the treatment centre. Kidderminster hospital is unusual because it suffers no cancelations and no infections. This is because of its status as a treatment centre and therefore has no A+E department. I know feelings still run raw after the last Labour government downscaled our hospital, closing A+E back in the late 1990s, but medicine has moved on from then, and we do have an excellent facility, right here in Wyre Forest.
This brings us, of course, to the junior doctors and their ballot on striking (again). They are seeking a further near 30% hike in their salary, adding to the 22% they received last year. They base this on restoration on an arbitrary date (2008, when their pay was unusually high compared to average earnings) and applied the retail price index since then. The rest of our salaries are based on the slower growing consumer price index, so what they are asking for is unpopular even amongst other NHS workers. Public opinion does not support more waiting list misery, so let’s hope common sense prevails. We shall see.