menu
menu
Molly Scott Cato, MEP for Bristol and the Green Party’s parliamentary candidate for Bristol West, has today pledged to fight to ‘end the privatisation experiment’ in the NHS and backed the Party’s promise to give the health service a ‘cash injection’.
Earlier this week, Green co-leader Caroline Lucas launched the Party’s proposals to rescue the NHS from a ‘healthcare emergency’ spelling out plans to end marketisation in the NHS and ensure the health service is ‘fit for the challenges of the twenty-first century’ [1].
Molly Scott Cato put clear, blue, open water between the Green Party and Labour on the NHS when she said:
“Only the Green Party is offering a bold and effective solution to the NHS funding crisis. We must finally put an end to the pain of privatisation that has been inflicted by Labour, the Lib Dems and the Tories. The Green Party is the only party that never has and never will collude in the dismantling and selling off of our beloved NHS. Instead, we will give the NHS the funding it needs to meet the challenges of the 21st century.”
“Spending is at its lowest since the 1950s [2] and, at the same time, our NHS has been asked to make £22bn worth of cuts [3] – cuts that researchers have concluded are responsible for 30,000 excess deaths a year [4].”
“NHS sustainability and transformation plans [5] will see thousands of hospital beds slashed across the country [6], cutting capacity by more than 5 million patients every year. In Bristol, the plans, which were only revealed after pressure from healthcare campaigners, will see £139m of cuts to local healthcare services and a further £104m of as yet unspecified cuts [7]. We can’t stand by and let this happen.”
“As your Green MP, I will fight to reverse this race to the bottom and give our NHS the emergency kiss of life it so desperately needs. If you look at the record of all of the other major parties it’s clear that only the Green Party can be trusted to protect the NHS. One more Green MP in parliament brings us one step closer to reinstating a fully funded, truly public NHS”
Only the Green Party is united in its commitment to the NHS Reinstatement Bill [8] and the repeal of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 [9] which forced a commercialised model on the NHS in England.