Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said hospital A&Es are facing their “worst year in a decade” due to a bungled reorganisation, in a speech in Birmingham.
Speaking at the Unite Union office on Broad Street, Mr Burnham accused David Cameron of “supreme arrogance” after the Government’s huge reorganisation of the NHS through the Health and Social Care Act 2012.
He said: “Even at the eleventh hour doctors, nurses, midwives and health workers from across the NHS were lining up in their thousands and pleading with the Prime Minister to call off his reorganisation.
READ MORE: {}
“But David Cameron would not listen. He ploughed on regardless. It was a cavalier act of supreme arrogance.”
The MP also claimed that the reshuffle’s real motive was to drive towards privatisation of the NHS.
As well as reorganisation which saw the abolishment of PCTs, he also cited rising energy costs, and less GP and walk-in centre availability, as leading to a surge in A&E patients - with a 10 per cent increase in Birmingham in the last six months.
“In the first three years of this Government, attendances increased by 633,000,” said the MP for Leigh. “No wonder we have an A&E crisis.”
Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that an estimated 31,100 excess winter deaths occurred in England and Wales in 2012–13, which is a 29 per cent increase compared with the year before.
Most Read
“Since the election there has been a dramatic increase in the number of older people admitted to hospital for cold-related illnesses.
“This is the human cost of this Government’s cost of living crisis and their failure to stand up to the energy companies.”
Mr Burnham claimed an extra 144,958 patients were diagnosed with cold-related illnesses at A&E departments last year compared with 2009-10.
He said rising household bills were responsible, which have gone up by an average of £300 in the same period.
“A&E is the barometer of the whole health and care system and it is telling us that this is a system in distress with severe storms ahead.
“People are struggling to keep warm in their homes.
“No phenomenon more clearly symbolises the true impact of this Government than the rise of food banks, teachers having to feed hungry children at school or GPs having to ask their patients if they can afford to eat. And all this while millionaires get a tax cut.”
Don’t miss
Mr Burnham added he was ‘shocked’ after reports that some Birmingham residents had to queue outside a GP surgery and bring their own chairs to get an appointment.
In Care Quality Commision reports published in December, inspectors described that patients had reported bringing their own stools as they desperately waited for appointments.
“It’s a shock to hear that to be honest, but it backs up what I hear all over. It’s getting harder and harder to get a GP appointment. The Patients Association are saying that it may become normal to wait for a week for an appointment.
“People deserve better than that. I would suggest stopping the closures of walk-in centres. There are many walk-in centres across the West Midlands that are highly valued and yet they are now under threat.”
But the Conservatives said that Mr Burnham’s campaign against A&E departments ‘was wearing thin”.
Tory Health Minister Dr Dan Poulter said: “Labour’s desperate campaign to run down A&Es is wearing thin.
“More elderly people need healthcare as the population ages, yet even with this big increase in demand, hospitals are seeing more patients within four hours than ever before, and have already hit their target more weeks than they did the winter when Andy Burnham was Health Secretary.”