The NHS has given me extra time, and I intend to spend every day fighting for it
3 min read
Ronnie Campbell MP argues that increasing National Insurance could help plug the £2.5bn funding gap in the NHS budget.
I owe my life to the NHS, pure and simple.
After I was diagnosed with cancer last year, I received the most wonderful treatment from consultant Professor Mike Griffin and his excellent team at Newcastle Royal Victoria infirmary. Plus, of course, the support of my family, friends, and comrades.
Professor Griffin told me that if I had been diagnosed with the same cancer just five years ago, I would not be alive today. That shows the tremendous advances that have been made despite the funding cuts and backdoor privatisation suffered by the NHS in those five years.
Regrettably, not all lives can be saved given the many different complicated cancers there are. However, the advancement in cancer treatments - particularly chemotherapy - is superb. It is not the death sentence that it once was.
After five months of treatment – and given that I might have come out with palliative care – that is why I was able to bounce back to serve my constituents and press Theresa May at PMQs. I told her: “The service I received was absolutely wonderful, but there is a flip side. What we have today is what are called “corridor nurses”, who look after patients on trolleys. Quite honestly, Prime Minister that is not the way we want the health service to be run. We want it to be run in the way it saved me. Get your purse open and give them the money they want.”
She, I have to admit, responded graciously, saying: “The north-east is a very good example of some of the really good practice in the NHS. I want to see that good practice spread across the NHS in the whole country.”
However, fine words are clearly not enough. Simon Stevens, Chief Executive of NHS England, has said that the NHS needs an extra £2.5 billion. Quickly.
And even Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has conceded the NHS in England is facing "completely unacceptable" problems. He said there was "no excuse" for lengthening waits in A&E and patients being left for hours on trolleys.
Recent reports revealed that the numbers waiting longer than they should for routine operations has risen by 163% in four years, nine in 10 hospitals had unsafe numbers of patients on their wards this winter, record numbers of patients have waited more than four hours for A&E care; and patients have been left stranded in hospitals for months because no community care can be found for them.
If – or when, given my new lease of life – I become Chancellor of the Exchequer; I would do the same as former Chancellor Gordon Brown and increase National Insurance to pay for it.
Decent, working people who routinely use the NHS would be happy to pay the extra, knowing that it is worth every penny.
Almost everyone needs the services of the NHS at some point in their lives, and in the lives of their families, albeit some more than others.
In order for the NHS to get back to its world-renowned footing, it requires the necessary investment. And now that the NHS has given me extra time, I intend to spend every day fighting for that.
Ronnie Campbell is the Labour Member of Parliament for Blyth Valley
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