Motion no: 38
Conference notes with concern the extreme pressures facing our health and social care (HSC) system and the impact of underfunding, outsourcing and structural inefficiency on healthcare workers and the public. The approach taken by healthcare leaders and policymakers has given rise to a continuous series of crises, characterised by kneejerk reactions, passing blame and a lack of transparency with no clear lines of decision making.
Conference notes that previous reviews of the system, particularly the Bengoa Report, have focused on a ‘burning platform’ analogy which promotes service reduction as the only way to achieve a more sustainable system in the long term. However, no clear plan for transformation or reorganisation has been progressed that would meet the needs of the population across the region as a whole, with piecemeal service closures drawing huge public backlash and resulting in pressures elsewhere in the system.
Conference further notes with concern that the NI Executive’s lack of progress on agreeing a multi-year budget has left HSC services unstable, vulnerable to cuts and unable to invest in the long-term transformation necessary to better meet the needs of the public.
Conference believes there is a need for a genuine public debate on the future of our HSC system. This should include views from those who use it, work in it, interact with it, advocate for its founding principles, and have ideas for its future based on those principles. Conference believes that people have the right to understand how decisions are made, who is making them, and how we can influence them in advance. We need a public conversation because people are well aware of what’s happening in the HSC system but the silence around it has created a sense that we have no choice but to accept the managed decline of our services.
Conference believes that while government pays lip service to tackling health inequalities, the doors have been flung wide open for those who see healthcare as an opportunity for profiteering. Allowing privatisation to take hold of our HSC system is widening health inequalities and costing lives. Research shows that privatisation is associated with increased rates of treatable mortality, lower quality services and lower efficiency.
Conference calls on the Northern Ireland Committee to:
- Support, through affiliate unions, the development of grassroots, democratic, public debate about the future of the HSC system, not another top-down review.
- Lobby the UK government to provide a financial settlement for NI that is sufficient to support public services at the appropriate level of need. This requires addressing its chronic underfunding of health and social care in NI that has become entrenched due to decades of shrinking capacity in the public system to pave the way for privatisation.
- Lobby the NI Executive to invest in a transformation programme that provides an integrated, holistic vision for HSC services across the region, grounded in rejecting outsourcing and privatisation; valuing the workforce; and upholding equality, rights and quality of life for the whole population.
- Lobby the Minister for Health to work in genuine partnership with health unions to develop systems and delivery models that can deliver quality health and social care and justice for the workers.
- Mobilise through affiliates and trades councils for a public-facing campaign to restore a universal public health service free at the point of need.
