Boris Johnson will promise to keep charging thousands of patients, visitors and personnel to park outside hospitals and the announcement is set to come in the Conservative’s manifesto, which only ends charges for a portion of patients, staff and visitors.
Most NHS staff on daytime shifts and the preponderance of outpatients will still be stung with charges to park outside hospitals but Labour’s manifesto pledges to stop the charges for patients, visitors and staff.
It would only apply to protected groups including the aged, disabled, terminally or gravely sick patients and their families plus NHS nurses working night shifts.
Labour has described the charges as a ‘tax on the sick’ and this is another hollow assurance that proves just how out of touch the Tories are and they attempt to tinker when the country requires actual change.
Under this proposal NHS workers on daytime shifts and the preponderance of outpatients will have to pay for parking, leaving people out of pocket just for using public services.
In Wales, Labour has shown it’s possible to conclude this tax on sickness and if the Tories are genuinely engaged on stopping this dilemma they’ll have to go further and match Labour’s promise to ban all charges.
Young people can’t afford to buy a home, older people are going without the care they require, the NHS is heading into the worst winter crisis on record and millions of kids are growing up in poverty.
The only people who profit from this no hope manifesto are big businesses and the super-rich who don’t want to see the actual change this country requires and this election is a once in a generation opportunity to choose a Labour government that will change our country, with a manifesto that proposes real change and will take on the vested interests holding people back.
The pledge will be financed with £78 million a year for hospitals in England and £216 million in capital funding for 19 hospitals to build multistorey car parks.
Overall, the Tories said their manifesto will announce:
- No rise in Income Tax, National Insurance or VAT for five years
- £78m a year to fund partial free NHS hospital parking for a select few in ‘vulnerable groups’ – disabled people, frequent outpatient attendees, gravely ill patients, visitors to relatives who have an extended stay in hospital or their carers, and staff on night shifts
- Raise the threshold for National Insurance to £9,500 next year, which he says will mean a £100 tax cut for 31 million workers – though experts say it won’t help the poorest who already don’t pay NI
- Keep pensions triple lock, winter fuel payment and the older person’s bus pass
- £1bn for extra childcare on school premises after lessons and during holidays in a bid to get 250,000 more primary school children onsite childcare over the summer. This is £250m a year for 3 years to boost term-time and holiday provision in schools; and £250m capital for the first year to kick-start the plan by getting staff, equipment or premises
- £6.3bn making social housing more energy efficient
- Keep energy price cap
- A new ban on exporting plastic waste to poorer countries outside OECD
- £2bn over four years for a national programme to fill potholes
But he won’t give automatic free TV licences to over 75s, stating that will continue to be the BBC’s responsibility despite the Tories breaking an earlier promise to protect the benefit.
As it stands, where this Tory government social care policies are concerned, a person has to sell their family home to finance private for-profit care homes of about £1,500 a week.
Although once a person’s funds are down to the point where they can claim benefits, then it’s covered by the state and then there are those NHS chiefs making £300,000 a year and then claim back £149 on a parking ticket on their expenses.
But then the Conservatives enjoy taxing the sick because they see it as completely normal and it’s representative of this clown government, making staff, doctors and nurses pay, rather than give it for free.
But then this government has never had to visit a hospital long term as a visitant, or a patient, as all theirs will be done privately, one law for them and another for the hard-working staff of the NHS.
