Jeremy Corbyn MP

FOR the first time in the history of the National Health Service we have seen junior doctors and consultants taking joint strike action.

Both groups have seen their pay drop by more than a third in real terms over the past 15 years, and almost half of junior doctors say they now find themselves struggling to meet rent or mortgage payments.

However, NHS workers are not just striking for decent pay. Understaffed and overworked, they are striking for the safety of us all.

After 13 years of systemic underfunding, the NHS is on its knees.

In January the waiting list for hospital treatment rose to a record 7.2 million; half of patients spend more than four hours in A&E. The average waiting time for an ambulance is 90 minutes.

We will not revive our NHS unless we tackle the root causes of its collapse: underfunding and privatisation.

More than 330,000 excess deaths have been attributed to austerity.

Public sector cuts produced a lethally toxic combination; they increased the pressures on our health care service (due to poorer nutrition, social isolation and inadequate housing) and reduced the capacity of the NHS to respond.

By the time the Covid-19 pandemic hit, a diminished, overworked and underfunded service was somehow expected to cope with its biggest-ever demand.

We didn’t just warn against the dangers of austerity. Before that we warned against the dangers of PFIs, private finance initiatives. We were ignored and our local hospital paid a heavy price.

As many of you will know, the Whittington Hospital is being sued by a PFI firm. The Whittington had disputed the performance of maintenance work by the PFI, and subsequently brought the services back in-house. They are now being held responsible for the PFI’s loss of profit.

The Whittington provides a wonderful local service and is our precious local hospital.

It is outrageous that those who sought to make money out of the NHS through a PFI are now looking to make even more during an unprecedented health care crisis.

Our message to them – and to anyone else here looking to promote private health care – is as clear today as it has ever been: keep your hands off our NHS.

Austerity and privatisation are the causes of, not the solutions to, the health care crisis.

We built the NHS to provide free and universal health care at the point of use. Today we must rediscover that foundational purpose.

That means reversing the disaster of privatisation.

That means supporting striking workers in their demands for decent pay.

And that means standing up for the principle of free, public and universal health care.

We should be expanding this principle not desecrating it. A short time ago I was on LBC Radio debating the importance of a National Care Service. This would make social care freely available to all who need it, wherever they need it, whenever they need it.

For Conservative MP Danny Kruger this was a “dangerous idea”. I disagree. What is dangerous is a social care system that forces families to fend for themselves and plunges millions into social isolation.

It also forces many middle-aged adults into double debt, of supporting their children through university and their parents through social care.

Health and social care is a human right, not a commodity. This has guided us through several people-powered campaigns.

In 2010 we marched down Holloway Road to protest the closure of Whittington’s A&E department, and we won.

Now NHS staff are striking to protect a public service on which we all rely. And we will win.

If health care workers deserved our applause on the doorstep, then they deserve our support on the picket line.

Nye Bevan once said that the NHS would last as long as there were people willing to fight for it. Our solidarity is proof of that conviction.

I’m proud to have spent my life campaigning alongside my community for a fully-public health service. With your support, that is what I’ll continue to do.

Health and social care is a human right, not a commodity.

• Jeremy Corbyn is the MP for Islington North