THERE is a “clear and present danger” that the health of the North East will suffer because of Government cuts, Parliament heard yesterday.
Labour MPs from across the region warned existing health inequalities – linked to the region’s industrial past – would be worsened by “destructive” changes to the NHS. And they even forecast a return to soup kitchens.
In the Westminster debate, Easington MP Grahame Morris, a member of the Commons Health Select Committee, claimed the Government’s changes to the NHS would fragment services.
“There is a stark danger – a clear and present danger – of a downturn in the progress that has been made in addressing health inequalities because of decisions being made by the Government,” he said.
“I was shocked to attend a meeting in my constituency last Friday about the contingency plans that are being put in place for emergency feeding centres after 2013.
“Those centres are the soup kitchens that we have not seen since the 1930s or the miners’ strike in 1984.”
Chi Onwurah, who represents Newcastle Central, accused the coalition of cutting funding to tackle health inequalities and cast doubt on pledges to ring-fence cash for public health and hand it to councils.
“They cannot distract from the assault on public health that the Government’s wide-ranging cuts represent for local authorities,” she said.
“For example, cuts to fuel poverty reduction programmes such as Warm Front will leave pensioners in Newcastle colder and more vulnerable to illness.”
She also attacked “unnecessary and destructive” healthcare reforms, with the NHS in the North East asked to put aside £143m for the overhaul.
“Every year, 37,000 people in the North die earlier than their counterparts in the South,” she said. “That is enough people to fill a modern football stadium.”
North West Durham’s Pat Glass also spoke of the North East’s past. The Labour MP said local people had to cope with lasting health inequalities caused by industrialisation, which left a “history of early deaths from cancers, emphysema, stroke and heart disease”.
Meanwhile, Tynemouth MP Alan Campbell said alarm bells were ringing and cast doubt on Government pledges that NHS spending would increase in real terms, claiming budgets used to fund hospital treatment had been cut.
The Government had a role to play in helping individuals make the right health choices with a “clear link” between health inequality and deprivation, he said.
He highlighted how North Tyneside Council is having to make £48m of cuts over the next four years, with plans to close bowling greens and increase charges for those remaining.
That could see pensioners’ health suffer, said Mr Campbell, who also expressed concern about the impact of benefit changes.
Tory Health Minister Anne Milton said the variations in health “cannot be right” and that the Health Secretary would for the first time have a specific duty to tackle inequalities. But she insisted tackling the situation was mainly down to individuals changing their behaviour.
