agreements will expire.
paign underway: after November.
ed local strikes to defend thresholds).
In November even the paltry protection of wages against inflation provided by the present threshold The campaign to gain real protection against inflation has to start now. Three vital steps must be taken immediately to get this cam1. All trade union branches and trade union bodies should immediately adopt resolutions expressing their ularm that the only torm of protection the working class at present has against inflation - the threshold agreements - run out in Novem ber, while prices will continue to soar. They should demand that their union, in alliance with other unions und the TUC wages a fight to defend and extend the thresholds. They should call for a nil-norm threshold which will continue permanently 2. Local conferences of the working class movement should be called to work out how to carry on this campuign. both on the local and national level (this could lead towards co-ordinat3. All bodies of the rank-and-file movement - the engineering convenors" conference, the Linison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions, combine committees, rank-and-file groups, etc — should be recalled in order to discuss how to carry on the campaign to defend and extend the thresholds. costs must therefore constantly shoot up, even to maintain the miserable facilities which now exist. It is difficult in this labour-intensive service to offset higher labour costs by boosting productivity.
elderly in the total population has Increased from 10 per cent in 1931 to 16 per cent in 1971. As the elderly account for over 33 per cent of NHS expenditure this is another inbuilt factor in increasing costs.
The third factor in increasing ogsts is the rising expectation of the working class, who expect an improvement in their living standards with improvements in medical care as purt of this. The scandalous revelations that came out of Ely, Whittingham and South Ockenden mental hospitals have given ammunition to those lighting for improvod conditions.
battle to restrain these expenditures. Other areas of social expenditure are expanding fast, such as education, social security and grants to British industries, and are in competition with the NHS Taxation, a truditional metlod used by all post-war governments to finance social expenditure, las, an 'undesirable' impact on wage claims, Under tbe 1964-70 Labour Government, net, real wages, ufter taking into account taxes and price increases, rose by less than half a percent each year. This was the underlying cause of the wages axplos тол іл 1970.
class, cach try to obtain a higher share of the slowly growing real resources by secking to push up respectively, prices, laxes and money wages. This is the cause of increased.
Moreover, the proportion of the crisis still further The State has waged a consistent to 3.5 per cent in real from the standpoint of the employers, left for all other improvements such Capital, the State and the working mean that in real terms expenditure CUTLES As a result of mushrooming prices, health expenditure at constant prices Tell as a share of the gross national product and stuck at the paltry level of 3.7 per cent during the 60'g. As this figure includes more capital expenditure on new hospitals, which was almost nil until the early 60'%. current spending continues to fall as a share of the gross national product. The results stand out like a sore thumb in the form of poor equipment, primitive and ramshackle buildings, long waiting lists and the abysmally low pay of many bealth workers. The cuts introduced by the Tory Government in May and December 1973 will worsen this The last White Paper published in December 1973 proposed a growth of 4.6 per cent per annum in expenditure on health up lo 1973/78. Taking into accoubt the relative price effect noted above, this immediately drops terras, Tocreasing demands arising solely from changes in the age struc ture of the population chope it by abour 314 per cent. The higher running costs of new hospitals takes another 2.5 per cent. Thus one quarter of a per cent per year will be as new buildings, wage rises ete. And thur was hefore the inst cuts.
SIMILAR
Both Labour and Tory Governments have produced similar solutions' to the crisis of health expenditure. Each has financed the NHS out of taxation income tax, social securicy contributions, indirect taxes and local rates.
70,000.
These are puid our of the workers' wages, either directly or indirectly. Payments by patients for vurious itoms and services come to five per cent of total costs. The capitalists The domination of pay negotiations by the nine Whitley Councils and the lack of workshop organisation and almost non-existent Tepresentation, have been big factors in keeping down wages. The presence of 80,000 trainee students or pupil nurses who suffer from onerous rescretions, the cultivated vocation' image (given a new lease of life by a big influx of spinsters during the inter-war yoars), and the high proportion of women workers (70 per cent of bospital ancillary staff lacking trade union backgrounds, have been other factors working against wages militancy This has made hospital workers one of the most exploited groups, and allowed various governments to operate the NHS on a shoestring budget. The revoit of hospital workers against these conditions will pose intolerable demands on the NHS. To raise wages even to the mirimal level will cost £500 million.
Although the number of NIS beds has declined the number of inpatients treated has doubled since 1940, Despite the doubling of med. Ical and nursing stalf, the workload goes up more than proportionately to the throughput of patients. The method of quicker discharges alter operations means patients are more ill when they are in hospital and therefore require more care. For technical and ancillary staff the faster turn around of patients has boosted their workload. At the same time the proportion of unqualified staff has risen in 1949 there were 27,000 nursing auxiliaries, by 1930 there were This article in the first an u two-pert teries on the Health Sersice written
It was not only demonstrators whe