Tulip Siddiq 

• IT is no secret falling staff numbers and poor morale are hurting our National Health Service.

The insistence on a cruel public sector pay cap has seen record numbers of medical professionals leave and many others deterred from joining. Poor management and short-term thinking is damaging, and the decision to sell off NHS Professionals (NHSP) is just the latest example.

NHSP was created in 2001 to provide a “bank” of staff who could work flexibly across the service. It is used by over 60 NHS trusts and saves the NHS £70million a year by supplying staff more cheaply than private sector agencies.

More than 100,000 general and specialist doctors, midwives, and other healthcare professionals have registered to work flexibly through NHSP.

True to form, the government is selling 75 per cent of their stake in NHSP, with the option of selling their remaining 25 per cent within five years. Although the NHS is struggling with the excessive sums spent on agency staff, the answer is not more privatisation.

If the Tories actually respected NHS staff, there might not be such a need to rely on agency staff in the first place.

I am proud Labour’s manifesto committed to returning the health service to expert public control and, as such, I am pleased we have asked the National Audit Office to look into why Jeremy Hunt is selling NHSP, a profitable and effective company.

This is in addition to our plans to reinstate the powers of the health secretary to have overall responsibility for the NHS and to introduce a new legal duty on NHS England to ensure excess private profits are not made at the expense of patient care.

The consequences of Brexit, the public sector pay cap, and the removal of bursaries pose a toxic concoction of uncertainty. It is high time the government paused its tried and tested path of selling key assets for short-term gain.

TULIP SIDDIQ MP
Labour, Hampstead & Kilburn