Email #18

Dear Harriet

We have just got back from our GP. I am back on anti depressants because my mood has taken a sky dive over the last few weeks-from my emails you can probably see why. My son also had an appointment so that he can be referred to establish the cause of the seizure he had a few weeks ago.

Luckily it isnt too bad trying to get an appointment to see the particular GP we needed to see, and I only needed to wait just over a week.  However in the past I have had to wait nearly a month to see a specific GP and the national average is around 2 weeks to see a GP.

Quite honestly it shouldnt be so difficult to get to see a GP and this is bad enough, but we dont even know how long we could be waiting for him to see a consultant.  The latest figures show that the average patient waits around 18 weeks to be seen by a hospital physician.  This is the worst set of figures for seven years.

Of course the incumbent government has a plan: its going to stop publishing these statistics.

It is unacceptable to society that a government should behave in this way but this is par for the course with this government as they have made it quite clear that they have no intention of providing the true figures of deaths caused by the DWP despite a court ruling that they must.  It seems the incumbent government believes they are above the law; above reproach of any kind.

And yet it feels able to make cuts of £12 billion stating that the current welfare cost is "unsustainable".  Surely what is unsustainable is their economic plans if they feel it is acceptable to sell RBS as a loss and then claim their is not enough money to fund the welfare state.  Perhaps they need it explained to them that this is actually what national insurance is for: to insure each citizen for any potential welfare they may require.

Recently they have suggested that welfare should be paid in the form of a loan to be paid back.  Labour MUST appose any suggestion of this.  This is NOT how insurance works.  If you insure a car and pay your premium and then have an accident, you get compensation for the accident.  You are not then required to pay this back to your insurance company.  This is exactly what welfare is.  People pay their national insurance and then should they require welfare they get a sum of welfare.  Even if someone has never worked, they have relatives who have worked and everyone pays tax on benefits.  So everyone is paying into the system somewhere.

Labour needs to remember that the welfare state and NHS are their legacy and that they were set up for "cradle to grave" and "at the point of need".  Labour MUST stand up for these vital systems that so many people need.  There are few people who are never going to require any form of welfare, whether it be child benefit or state pension therefore it is needed by everyone, not just the unemployed.

Protect it.  Protect your legacy for every citizen.

Constituent, Labour Party member, Union member, sleep deprived carer, concerned citizen, self employed mother, mother of a teenager with ASD, socialist, environmentalist, Disabled Rights supporter, Jeremy Corbyn supporter, mother feeding her children with nectar points, defender of the vulnerable, advocate, logistics savant, concerned niece, grassroots activist, anti austerity campaigner, RNLI supporter, unashamed welfare state service user.