Councillor Howard Sykes MBE, Leader LGA Liberal Democrat Group - First Column, September 2019
I am sorry to say that NHS pledge from the Government is not worth the paper it's written on. Our new prime minister has fallen into the old ways of one of his predecessors, Gordon Brown, of re-announcing commitments already made. Most of the cash announced will reportedly be coming from hospital reserves or previous commitments. Hospitals had asked the government permission to spend this cash on front line services, until now the government had refused!
I am surprised the pledge didn’t appear on the side of some dodgy bus, we know how truthful they have been in the past don’t we, NOT!
The Government can’t keep ignoring the fact that we need to plug the £3.6 billion funding gap facing adult social care by 2025. It is vital that the Prime Minister uses the Spending Review to address this.
The government have under-funded social care to the point of crisis, they have failed to address a critical staffing shortage while children's mental health services are almost non-existent.
The NHS and social care is too important to people's lives to be neglected. The Liberal Democrats are committed to transformational front line funding by stopping Brexit and investing a penny on income tax into the NHS Social Care.