IN 1948, Aneurin Bevan said of the consultants: TIl stop their mouths with gold." If only it was so easy for Barbara Castle. With the present economic crisis she is hard pressed to give out gold fillings! But where did Bevan's gold come from?
At the end of the war the British economy was entering a twenty year boom. Profits in Britain and the rest of the capitalist system rocketed upwards, and productivity soared.
The rise in British profits gave the ruling class the financial basis to underwrite the welfare state. They did this not because they are naturally kind hearted people, but bec ause they needed a healthy, efficient and educated work force to comple meat the advances and scientific breakthroughs made during the war.
The ruling class were also worried about the possibility of a working iss upsurge. In order to contain hat upsurge, they granted a serics of reforms, like the National Health by Rick crisis at the workers" expense. The "strategy" of the Labour Government is spelt out there and by Harold Wibon in his recent speeches. It is all a matter of social wages, The argum ent runs we will maintain the public sector, with its fountains of falac teeth and spectacles, if you abide by the social contract and take a cut in your living standards.
CAPITALIST PRESS The capitalist press fully realise this. When discussing the White Paper the Guardian said:
The squeeze on living standards is going to be more savage and to last longer than even the boldest Government minister has yet dared to hint." (31.1.75.)
The Economier (1.2.75) went on: -"So it follows that workers' real incomes must be sharply redaced. As the social contract does not permit a cut in real wages what does that mean?"
A good question, because you can be sure that whatever is decided it will be the worker who bear the brunt of it. The Economist sugeested a massive increase in laxation or a statutory incomes policy. The Financial Times, three weeks atter the publication of the White Paper, had another solution:
*There is an almost universal feeling in Whitehall that something drastic and immediate will have to be done to prevent die public sector deficit from growing any bigger, and that some of this will have to be achieved by cuts in public spending in the longer term it seems certain that the targets in the public expenditure White Paper for the period up to 1979 will bare ta be revised downwards." (21.2.75.)
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The patients situation will certainly not improve. If it can get much worse then it will! Since 1949 the waiting list for admissions has remained at a steady half a million, which averages out at 3h months per person. However for not-priority operations the length of time before admittance can be far longer... The Daily Express (26.2.75.) reported how one young giri has been waiting two years to have her tonsils out, even though the doctor says it is alsolutely necessary GOT WORSE has got worse. The NHS seems only a short distance from the death bod. While the number of in patients has risen from 5.8 million to 6.3 million, the number of beds has declined! In 1968 there were 432,140 beds, but in 1973 there were only 403.521 (DHSS Teport, 1973). Similarly, the number of hospital beds per thousand members of the population has fallen. In 1949 it was 10.3, by 1968 it had bec ome 9,4, and in 1973 8.7.
on the wane. When you do manage to get in it is a matter of the fastest possible turn-round time. In the last five years the number of patients wing a bed in a year has risen from 11 to 16. Although part of this can be accounted for by scientific and medical advance, it shows the enormous pressure and strain being put on the NHS by lack of finance.
being allocated to health there are some sectors of the NHS which will not benefit. You would think that it would be 'social to take care of the geriatrics and psychiatries. The White Paper states.
will be maintained in the geriatric, mental illness and mental handicap fields"
present state of those arcas. But let us not provide the animunition, we tum to no belier source than the National Westeinster Bank Review (February 1975):
ic hospitals, and those lor the chronically wick and for psychiatric cases have not re ceived their share of resources Thete are still bospitals for the mentally ill where one.
LOW will be maintained, but those are levels which are abysmally and "socially low.
on the health sector:
to be deferred: and many schemes are crucial part of the 'social wage', the the next five years expenditure on law and order will rise by 20%. The coffers for coppers will be full.
happy one'. but it looks a lot more promising than a hospital patient's! Harold would be better calling ther In the 1968-73 period the situation *The squeeze on liv going to be more s than even the bolde minister has yet da CAPITALIS V ME