5th July 2018 will be the 70th birthday of our beloved #NHS.
This THREAD argues that it is in severe danger under this #Toryshambles government, with #Brexit posing an imminent & particularly invidious threat.
To #SaveOurNHS we must work tirelessly together to #StopBrexit.
1/ Today's devolved #NHS is a complex federation of tens of 000s of orgs employing some 1.7m workers. It's combined annual budget is just shy of £150bn. It handles, overwhelmingly successfully, almost a million patients daily.
With each box maybe 000s of orgs, & England only:
2/ Unresolved public health issues & a fast-expanding multi-morbid elderly population, coupled with chronic underfunding & the blowback from the butchery of social care since 2010 means the #NHS is pressured as never before.
3/ Should we allow ANY flavour of #Brexit to happen, it's impossible to see how NHS funding problems will not be magnified & potentially many times over. The extra £350m/wk promised by Vote Leave is a pipedream: Brexit will mean CUTS--likely savage ones--even under @UKLabour.
4/ Unfortunately, it's dire economic impact is only one strand of #Brexit's unconscionable vandalism of the #NHS. Let's first look at EU immigration that Brexiters argued was a strain on scarce NHS resources.
5/ The truth is that EU migrants are net contributors to the UK economy. Generally younger & in better health, they pay in rather than consume NHS (or other) resources.
6/ But this overlooks their tremendous impact in staffing both the NHS & #socialcare. UK-wide, EU immigrants make up 10% of registered doctors and 4% of registered nurses, ~5% of NHS/SC staff overall.
Brexit means we are already losing them & they will not be easily replaced.
7/ It's no secret that the Brextremists are no friends of the NHS. From the Git in the DIT with his dodgy erstwhile Atlantic Bridge plans to sell it off to US carpetbaggers to #ArronBanks & the Kippers, NHS privatisation & Brexit go hand in hand.
8/ Increasingly NHS services are being put out to tender. Nowadays, the NHS is thus ultimately protected by the EU directive on public health procurement. This protection will disappear should we allow Brexit to happen.
goo.gl/hofdcM
9/ Next on our list of existential dangers to the NHS posed by Brexit is our loss of at best influence with the drugs regulator, the European Medicines Agency. The EMA's HQ is already moving from Canary Wharf to Amsterdam at a cost of 890 highly skilled, highly paid jobs.
10/ A post-Brexit UK may end up successfully applying for associate EMA membership or, alternatively, negotiating mutual recognition. But this is mindless red tape & the risk is cutting-edge drugs & clinical trial information will simply be unavailable to the NHS.
11/ Next up #Euratom. As with @EMA_News this is a vital European agency there is no need to leave but for pointless #Toryshambles red lines over ECJ jurisdiction. Leaving Euratom will have negative impact well beyond medicine. goo.gl/Cy5nZd
12/ However, it is expected this disastrous decision will affect radiology supplies, cancer treatments & clinical trials. If we're mad enough to leave #Euratom, the best outcome we can hope for is increased cost & bureaucracy.
13/ Unlucky 13 for anyone that relies on it is the EHIC card. No deal has yet been made; no assurances have been given to ensure medical treatment for UK citizens outside our borders. goo.gl/eFd4fF
Plus FWIW, a 70,000 hotel nights plus subsistence & other run on to London tourism per annum.
NB There has never been a single ECJ case involving the UK & Euratom.
For the avoidance of doubt, the same goes of course for non-EU migrants who are on average worse paid & are also heavily represented among NHS staff. But they're not the subject of this thread.
14/ Another clinical issue is around the exchange of blood & transplant organs. With the UK outside the CU & SM with new border delays looking likely, this has the potential to KILL both UK residents as well as those in the EU. Yet there remains no plan.
15/ What will become of the falsified medicines directive if we're dumb enough to Brexit? This bit of EU law effectively protects citizens from fake drugs with cost implications, especially for GPs. As always with this #Brexitshambles, nobody has a clue.
goo.gl/idXwB4
16/ ATM the UK is a large net beneficiary of EU medical research grants. We already know we will be excluded from Horizon 2020's successor & the European structural and investment funds. How might this vital R&D funding be replaced? @jeremyhunt? Anyone?
goo.gl/bEkFAm
17/ There's rightly been a lot of talk about the return of a border in Ireland & associated dire prospects for the Belfast Agreement: yesterday's 20th anniversary was a muted celebration. Less well known is the likely negative impact on health both north & south of the border.
18/ NHS & Ireland: cont.
- Currently prescriptions are collectable from chemists in NI or the ROI irrespective of the location of the prescribing GP.
- Ambulances from the north or south are free to cross the border in case of emergency such as RTA or cardiac arrest.
19/ NHS & Ireland: 3/3.
The Altnagelvin Area Hospital in Derry opened a new £50m radiotherapy unit year ago, offering this survival service to cancer patients on both sides of the border.
What will happen if the Brexmadness continues?
People may very well die.
20/ Phew, well the guts of the thread are finally over!
In a nutshell, if HMG continues on it's disastrous course &/or @UKLabour cannot join up effectively with it's allies & sufficient patriotic Tory mutineers to #StopBrexit, the #NHS is in the deepest of stinky doo-doos.
21/ The #NHS & social care start at a depleted base.
- Brexit threatens them financially
- It threatens staff & staffing
- it threatens further privatisation
- & it threatens their very ability to provide person-centred coordinated care
#NHSLove #StopBrexit #ExitFromBrexit
22/ All that Remains to say is #Corbyn PULL YOUR FINGER OUT. It's no use giving speeches saying how the #NHS is the embodiment of socialism whilst not leveraging the FULL campaigning might both of you personally & the Movement to defend it against Brexit.
#NHSLove, remember?
Postscript: A BIG thank you to @SalBrinton whose excellent speech to open the Brexit: Health and Welfare debate in the House of Lords on 29th March was herein plagiarised, providing much of the thread content.
#StopBrexit #ExitFromBrexit.
A great new tweet & meme by StrongerStabler emphasises this point:
An article just tweeted by Jon Ashworth highlighting one of many issues surrounding #NHS privatisation:
A just-tweeted anecdote supporting this point:
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