HEALTH Secretary Patricia Hewitt will face warnings of possible industrial action over job losses in NHS hospitals.
Addressing the health workers' conference of public service union Unison in Gateshead, Ms Hewitt will urge NHS staff to back the Government's reforms of health provision, warning that the service must "modernise or die".
But Unison general secretary Dave Prentis will tell her the NHS is being destabilised by "disastrous" job cuts fuelled by Government policies.
He will warn Ms Hewitt that his union is gearing up for industrial action to fight job losses, protect patients and challenge reforms that are "fragmenting" the NHS.
Ms Hewitt sparked anger among some health workers yesterday with her claim that the NHS had just enjoyed its "best year ever".
Waiting times
Despite financial deficits totalling more than é600 million and job losses which the Royal College of Nursing predicts could reach 13,000, Ms Hewitt insisted that in key areas such as cutting waiting times and avoiding a winter beds crisis, the NHS was performing better than ever.
She will use today's speech, followed by addresses to the RCN, NHS Employers and the Fabian Society later this week, to try to counter weeks of negative headlines on health.
Urging NHS workers to be "change-makers", she will warn them not to allow Conservatives to exploit recent difficulties to undermine the principle of health free to all at the point of need.
But she will be told by Mr Prentis that Unison is not prepared to stand by and watch staff suffer in a "climate of fear."
'Nonsense'
Holding up redundancy notices from the local North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Trust, Mr Prentis will say: "We are being told that somehow jobs will disappear or be left unfilled without patients and staff feeling the pain - what utter nonsense.
"These are real people, and they share the same fate as more than 8,000 NHS workers so far - with more expected to follow.
"These are nurses, healthcare assistants, cleaners, porters and support workers whose jobs are disappearing. Don't try and tell me, or the staff left to cope on the wards, that patients won't notice the difference. Don't tell me we won't see more wards closed or operating theatres left idle.
"Unison cannot stand by and watch staff suffer in this climate of fear. We will be supporting members who feel that they have no option left other than industrial action to protect jobs and services.
"We will not stand by and watch our members made scapegoats for hospital debt. The Department of Health has been disingenuous about why, after so much investment, the NHS is now in financial difficulty. It's as if trusts have somehow frittered away all they have been given. The truth is so extraordinary it is hardly believable.
Fuelled
"The financial crisis in the NHS is being fuelled by the Government's quicksand policies that are creating instability and tearing the health service in too many directions."
Mr Prentis will claim many NHS trusts are trying to "gag" nurses, doctors and health workers from speaking out about the impact of job cuts on patient care.
Unison will launch a "jobs watch" to gather information from workers about cuts and their effect on services.
The union will stage a rally in Gateshead later today to protest against the increased use of private firms to deliver health services.
In her speech, Ms Hewitt will offer the Unison delegates a stark message that the NHS is faced with the choice of whether to "modernise or die".
Failure to adopt necessary reforms would leave the door open for the Tories to introduce charges for treatment, she will warn.
Ms Hewitt will say that, after the additional resources put into the service by Labour over the past few years, the NHS was now "back in business".
More staff were giving more care to more patients than ever before and were better paid for doing so.
Context
Stories about job cuts and financial difficulties should be understood in the context of a service that was better resourced and better staffed than it had ever previously been, she will say.
She will urge people who want the NHS to survive as a tax-funded service, free at the point of need, to accept the need for reform of the system.
If it is not reformed in a way which secures public confidence in the system, then the Conservatives will be given an opportunity to argue for a system funded by social insurance or charges, she will warn.
WOULD you support a strike over NHS cuts? Have your say.
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I hear my girlfriend everyday complainining about salary and how little personel is there to provide the right level of service in the main central London hospitals. I've been in hospitals too and they don't look like 1st world country health service...it's just awful. I'd fully support a strike... they should do it!
Job cuts in the NHS are quite simply unacceptable and I would venture to say unnecessary. ??600 million is a hell of a lot of money to me as it is to the majority of people but when you equate it to what it would cost in increases in tax or national insurance contributions spread across the nations tax payers it is likely to add up to very little. Similarly when placed against the cost of going to war in Iraq or even Mrs Blairs hairdressing bill it is not an amount that would be impossible to raise.
Maybe a review of doctors pay is in order, I have yet to meet somebody that believes that a ??100 thousand pound per annum wage for a GP is acceptable let alone quarter of a million.
Hospital bosses will do anything to make a hospital look like it is performing better that what it actually is so the gagging of staff is not uncommon. If there is any body out there that doesn??<sup>TM</sup>t believe this then may I suggest you nip along to your local hospital and have a look how many nursing staff are actually on a ward and then check on how many there should be. Patients suffer unnecessarily in our wonderful NHS system and will continue to suffer until the NHS is completely and thoroughly overhauled, money is invested into it and the gods sorry doctors are brought into line with the real world.
Maybe if it was made a rule that members of our glorious government are only allowed to be treated in NHS hospitals and suffer waiting NHS times like the rest of us, then maybe something might be truly done to bring the NHS back to the magnificent institution it once was and could be again.
As a post script Mrs Hewitts warning that failure to adopt reforms will open the door for the tories to introduce charges for treatment. Well isn??<sup>TM</sup>t that exactly what the Labour party has done with our dental service, which if I remember correctly, is part of our NHS system as well. So what is she talking about? Or has she conveniently forgotten that there is a significant number of normal everyday hard working people who, not only cannot get on an NHS dentists patient lists, but when they do get on one sometimes cant afford to pay for treatment.