Jeremy Corbyn Election 2017

Thank you, thank you there much for inviting me to Conference. I feel

very honoured to have been invited and very pleased to be here today.

Because I want to thank you and everyone in the nursing profession

and in the national health service for all the work that you do and the

way that you often get criticised but in fact, people working in the

national health service because they love their work, the profession and

they basically do it because they want us all to be healthy so thank

you all very much indeed for everything you do!

APPLAUSE And our politicians owe you a great

duty, a duty to ensure that you can work with unity and that you are not

held back from providing the best possible standard of service to all

occupations. Because I do understand the stress of many of you go through

every day, I talk frequently to local GPs in my own area as well as

nurses in my local hospital. -- your patience. I have worked with trade

unions in the National Health Service and I want to outline to you

today what Labour wants to offer to you in the general election. We are

ready to step in and save the NHS from the cuts and privatisation that

have happened over the past seven years. Everyday I ensure that our

general election team is fully aware of the importance of the National

Health Service, at headquarters in London the walls are decorated with

original posters from the 1940s, saying, Labour's health service

covers everyone. And the Tories voted against it. Nothing embodies

our campaign theme for the many not the few, better than the National

Health Service. Universal lifelong health care free at the point of

need. However, our health service is actually being dismantled by

stealth. Over the past seven years our national health service has been

driven into crisis after crisis. And E departments struggling to cope,

waiting lists soaring, and we saw last week, the Tory cuts have

exposed patients services to cyber attack. I want to pay a huge tribute

to be staff in the way they responded to this terrible cyber

attack, the stress you must have faced dying to keep patients safe

must have been intense and still is. This is just another example of the

storm reclaims all of you go to every day to keep our country

healthy. -- the extraordinary lengths. I was talking to junior

doctors and nurses at the James Paget Hospital in great Yarmouth on

Saturday, like many, all its operations had been cancelled

because of the cyber attack, frankly it's highway robbery against all of

us, we have to have their investment in our NHS to protect all the

systems so we are not held to ransom by criminals who are doing us all

damage and doing us all down. You stepped up to protect our patients

and thank you so much for what you do. Our NHS is under threat from

privatisation which was brought in by the health and is an act. The

privatisation has gone on a huge scale, ?13 billion of taxpayers

money handed over the last year to private companies, to profit from

our NHS services. Aneurin Bevan once said of the National Health Service

it will only last as long as there are folk with faith left to fight

for it. I said to everyone, remember those words, those prescient words

and in all my life I've involved in campaigns to support and defend the

national Health Service and I know that every hospital has friends,

every GP surgery has friends. There are millions of people in this

country utterly determined to defend the principle of a national health

service, free at the point of use for everybody in our society, we are

here in Devon's legacy. -- Bevan's. In hospitals, health centres and

communities across the land many people listen carefully to this

election and think very carefully about their future. People for whom

working in the NHS is a privilege and a pleasure. Like so many in

public service every four, people work in it and believe in the

principles of the NHS. A service like no other. Not a service which

checks your bank balance before it checks your blood pressure. I'm

always astonished when I talk to people from the United States, we

talk to each other in a normal way about each other's health, that's

the normal conversation, and any in the United States talk about the

quality of the private health insurance they've got, they lack

what we have which is one of the most civilised things about our

country, but is our national health service. We are utterly determined

to defend it. APPLAUSE

I want to say something about the state of nursing. Britain is not

being run for the many, it's not been one for the majority and across

our country I believe people are being held back. If you are a

student nurse without a bursary, doing a second job to make ends

meet, you're being held back. If you worry about your children because

they can't get together a deposit for a home or afford the deposit to

rent a private lace, then you're being held back. If you manage a

ward in a hospital and you can't free up beds because of the cuts in

social care then you have a problem. The government is holding you back,

stopping you from doing properly the job you were trained and proud to

do. We either sick richest country in the world, it cannot be right

that we have these problems, it cannot be right that trained nurses

are leaving the profession for other jobs. -- we are at the sixth

richest. It can't be right that tax giveaways for the richest and big

business have been put in front of the needs of funding our national

health service, social care and proper treatment for all NHS staff.

The RCN, your union, has found that nursing shortages have doubled in

the past four years. We could have 40,000 fewer nurses than we need by

2026. Your pay has fallen 14% in real terms since 2010, and you don't

work any fewer hours for it. That is the record the government has left

us. I wish there could be a public debate on this record with Theresa

May but she seems reluctant to have that public discussion.

APPLAUSE CHEERING

Last week a dog from Leeds told her she was considering quitting the NHS

after 12 years of service. Because of crippling front line

staff shortages which have worsened as the result of government failure

to properly invest in the NHS. She asked why Jeremy Hunt had been

reappointed do moralise the entire workforce, there is apparently no

answer to that question, you have to apparently asked Jeremy Hunt when he

makes itself available to answer questions! LAUGHTER which I'm sure

is only a matter of time I'm sure, he's going to be pitching up any

time soon. But we do need a government that recognises the truth

of what's happening. And what is the real scale of the crisis. Because if

you're a try minister in a party that once called itself the nasty

party you have to wonder about their attitude towards a national Health

Service and then pretend we support working people and the National

Health Service. Com on, we are not fools! We need a government that

will stand up for the hundreds of thousands of workers in this country

who are not being paid the minimum wage, the 6 million who get less

than the living wage, zero hours contracts and employment agency

malpractice, we need decent working conditions for everybody in our

society. Because, if you charge people tribunal fees, you cannot get

justice in the workplace, I think we need a different approach to

employment as a whole. And therefore, the Labour Party is

putting forward a very different agenda of workers rights, employment

rights, proper funding of public services in this election.

APPLAUSE Can you imagine what the NHS would

be like in five years' time if we carried on with this underfunding,

carried on with this level of Tamara libation in the workforce? It would

be unrecognisable as a National Health Service in name. Cut back,

broken up and plundered by private organisations. I want to make it

very clear that the Labour Party is determined to put the NHS back on

its feet. To move towards a national social care service to give everyone

the care and dignity they deserve. And make an outer reality of the

parity of esteem between mental and physical health a reality. I feel

very passionately about the NHS but I also feel very passionately about

mental health services and social care services. We have 1 million

people, often very vulnerable people, not getting the social care

they need. Many, often women, give up jobs in order to care for elderly

relatives because the service isn't there to do it for them. And our

mental health service, where 6000 mental health nurses have lost their

jobs in seven years, is under strain. Many of us will have some

kind of mental health service in our lifetime. It is not much help if you

are told to wait six months before you get any effective therapy for

that crisis. I pay tribute to and thank all those that work in our

mental health services but I am determined that parity of esteem

will be a reality and there will be a properly funded mental health

service all over this country in the future.

And today we are making it very clear that we are pledging an extra

7.4 billion a year for the National Health Service throughout the next

Parliament, including 2 billion annually to modernise buildings and

IT systems. This funding settlement will allow us to guarantee access to

treatment within 18 weeks, cutting 1 million from the NHS waiting lists

by the end of that Parliament, ensuring that those needing accident

Emergency services are seen within four hours, helping another 1

million people each year, delivering the cancer care strategy for England

in fall by 2020. That will help do .5 million people who are living

with cancer. -- 2.5 million people who are living with cancer. Create a

new winter fund to protect patients from the problems we saw earlier

this year. This is our new deal for NHS patients. It will give NHS staff

the support they need and deserve to give the best possible service to

patients and will guarantee that level of service. We will ensure the

standards that the Conservatives have failed to deliver and which

patients are legally entitled to our met in the future. But we also

recognise that great services depend on retaining staff by rewarding them

properly. Everyone in the NHS goes above and beyond everyday what they

have to do. Your ballot result yesterday showed how angry and

frustrated your members are after a 14% cut in real pay over the past

seven years. We will not put you in that position. We will lift the

public sector pay cap and hand back decisions on pay to an independent

paid a decent wage and very paid a decent wage and very

importantly we will fund training and restore the bursaries for

nurses, the vital funding the Tories cut.

Last week I was in Worcester talking to students nurses, those that had

access to the student nurse bursary. They were telling me they had come

into nursing after doing other jobs and the career paths, and they had

decided they thing was there calling and they had come into it. And they

-- nursing was there calling. And they told me how much they were

looking forward to working in hospitals and in the community and

they told me how proud they were of all of it. And I asked all of them

whether they would be doing this without a nursing bursary and they

said it would only be possible if you had a partner who earned enough

to be able to find you through the training to become a nurse. It is

utterly short-sighted and counter-productive and totally

unfair on the student nurses of tomorrow, on the nursing profession

of tomorrow and on the community of today. I am utterly determined we

will bring back the nursing bursary so there isn't a nursing staff

crisis in five years, ten years and 15 years' time. Let's invest for the

future. This election will define the future

of the National Health Service has almost no other has. Labour founded

the National Health Service. We believe passionately and very

strongly in the National Health Service and we want to restore it to

good health. It is central to our ideas of transforming Britain, to

create a fairer society for the many, not the few. Tomorrow we will

set out our policies in full in our manifesto. You may think you've read

it already! But the real one, the marked copy, will come out tomorrow

morning and you will see it then. And I'm very proud of the work that

has gone into that manifesto. I'm very proud of the help and support

we have been given and the advice from people well beyond the Labour

Party who have advised as an content to let an aspect of policy that we

will be producing tomorrow. -- advised us on the content and

aspects of policy. It will be fair to all aspects of our society and it

will be fully costed. Every last line of it will be fully costed.

Because we want to transform this country together. We do things

better together. We do things better together to transform it for a

better society. Only a few weeks remain to get that message across to

show you how we want to hand power back to the people of this country

so everyone in this country has a real stake in the future. Future,

Britain, for the many, not few. I want to conclude my speech by saying

this. Those that work in the NHS represent all that is good in our

country and our society. NHS represents that collective endeavour

to make sure that we are all able to cope with illnesses and cope with

stress. But there are also aspects of inequality within our society

that the NHS has got to cope with. Shorter life expectancy in the

poorest parts of our country. Those that become addicted to many

substances because of the misery of the lives they lead. Those that live

in poor quality housing, likely to get ill. Those that go through

enormous stress, likely to suffer mental health conditions. The NHS is

great and it is wonderful but we also need to reform other aspects of

our society so that we all lead healthier, richer lives. I am very

honoured to be invited here today. I am very grateful to the work you do

in keeping us healthy and I want to work with all of you in the future

to improve the health, their happiness, their self-esteem and the

opportunities for everybody in our society. Thank you very much for

inviting me to talk to you today. Now questions? Mr Corbyn, I believe

you and I both have leak issues because you have answered some of

the questions we are going to ask you. I promise I didn't see them

before. I am absolutely sure you didn't. Our members are well

prepared, so we have got some. I would like to ask a question of you

from one of our members, Clare in from one of our members, Clare in

the south-east region. As nurses, why should we vote for you and have

confidence in your leadership? How will you benefit our profession? I

believe strongly in the National Health Service. Thank you for your

question, Clare. I believe that the NHS has got to be always free at the

point of use. I believe that nurses have got to be properly treated and

that is why I have outlined our proposal bringing back the nurse

bursary but also bringing back the ability of all unions in the NHS to

negotiate pay and conditions by lifting the public sector pay cap.

There is also the question of the protection of staff within our NHS

and staffing levels within the NHS, and we will ensure that there is a

legally enforceable staffing level in hospitals, because many of you

work very hard, and I suspect pretty well everyone in this conference

centre today often works well beyond the hours that you are paid for

because you won't leave until the patient has been settled, until a

bed has been found, until the next stage of treatment has been dealt

with. And the stress levels within NHS staff are absolutely huge

because you believe and care about it. It is up to us as politicians

who want to see a good NHS to make sure that you have the funding and

resources to deliver the service and I am determined that we will do just

that. Thank you. Will you take two questions? Of course. Ed and Coral.

Good morning, Mr Corbyn. I am the voting member and the chair of the

RCN mental health Forum. You have answered my question in part but I

would like to ask you how you will as Prime Minister or in opposition,

hopefully not, protect and promote the needs of people experiencing

mental illness and will you appoint a minister for mental health? Coral,

voting member, children and young people's acute-care forum. How will

your party generate the money the NHS needs to function and develop

the services everyone in this room believes the public has a right to

expect. Thank you for both of those questions. Ed, first of all, on the

issues of mental health, yes, there will be a mental health ministers

specifically dedicated towards that. Because if parity of esteem which

was one of the amendments to the health and social care bill is to

mean anything then it has got to be chased all the way through this

system. It is also a question of attitudes in society as well. I

would want a minister for mental health services to also be looking

at school mental health services, college mental health services,

workplace mental health services. It is also about our attitudes in

society because the stigma attached to those going through stress in

society is horrible. Often it means career paths are damaged as a result

of it. I think we have got to be serious about this as society. I

have talked to a lot of young people who go through a lot of stress and

frightened to talk about it. They are frightened they are going to be

labelled and they are frightened that they won't be able to get any

help. Too many end up taking their own lives because they are in a

desperate and lonely place. We need to have a change of attitude as

as proper funding, and I want to see as proper funding, and I want to see

that we actually do achieve that, and that is why I have appointed

Shadow Cabinet member to deal with mental health issues around the

Shadow Cabinet table. I take it very, very seriously indeed. Thank

you very much for your question. Coral's question about children and

young people and the funding of the NHS. All our proposals are fully

costed and fully funded. They all rely on either moving existing

budgets or changing taxation levels for corporate and the very top end

of our society. 95% of people in this country will have no tax

increase, no National Insurance increase, no VAT increase by us. We

want to make sure there is a redistribution of wealth. It can't

be right that we live in a country where the richest 100 people have

assets of 600 billion. It can't be right. I want to see a fair

We will give of the statements and distribution of our wealth.

We will give of the statements and details are not tomorrow but we are

very, very clear, we want to be a responsible government, responsible

to the people of this country, responsible for and in public

services in an efficient, effective way to helping people they are

designed to help and support, and support, and the NHS is the best

example of that. Thank you. APPLAUSE

Matthew Sidebottom and can I have surely tears. Matthew. Matthew

Sidebottom Sheffield branch. I'm now expected to work in this demanding

job until I'm 68. You think this assay for my patients, for me, and

not, what are you going to do about it?

APPLAUSE Shelley...

Heidi, become. From the south-east region, it can be restart work to

set save staffing levels for all health settings? -- safe staffing

levels. Yes, on Matthew's question, I think 68, as they say is too late!

And going to have to ask you to be very patient for another 24 hours.

LAUGHTER you don't look anywhere near 68 to me either. You wouldn't

want to disappoint all these nurses. The media will keep a secret! I know

there's nobody else watching or listening. I will let you know

later. OK. You're absolutely right, I get that, you will to wait until

tomorrow for that but I do recognise the stress levels that have gone

with so many and the way in which the WASPI women have been

short-changed. Shelley, your point about staffing levels is so true, I

referred to it about hospitals in my speech, they are often quite

dangerous and it means nurses can't do their jobs properly because they

don't have time to talk to patients and actually, you all know this,

when you go into hospital it's a frightening thing, they want to be

able to discuss the condition and what so many people who have been in

hospital say to me is, they are full of aberration for the nurses and all

the staff in the hospital, recognise how hard-working they are but they

don't have time to talk to the patient and understand the holistic

person there in front of them and so say first Ave levels are important

to cover all the obvious needs of their also important for the

well-being of the patient. We want to legislate to insure it staffing

levels maintained in hospitals but directed nice the staffing issues

that apply in the community, apply in mental health particularly also

apply in GPs surgeries. Because... If you're understaffed in a mental

health unit and you don't have time to talk to the people you are there

to look after, things can become very, very difficult and it actually

puts the understaffed people on duty often at risk, as a result of that

so I'm very clear, I do, I think and hope I understand the situation

which is why I want to put all these resources into the NHS to ensure

proper, fair and safe staffing levels all across and we will do

that. APPLAUSE

I am aware of time, I have one last question and it would be remiss if I

didn't Arscott, this is an half of you all, as a Labour Party man of an

entire lifetime and someone who has worked with trade unions, I'm full

of aberration for you as an organisation and a union. For what

you've done and what you represent. -- admiration. The professional

aspect of your work and the work done by the Royal Oak all which

helps Ospreys our thoughts and policies. I fully understand the

momentous decision you taken because you been so badly treated by the

last few years with frozen pay, overwork, under staffing levels and

the threat of the sustainability and transformation plans around the

hospitals which by the way, John Ashworth said and I fully support,

he wants to suspend and look at again so we can ensure there is

proper accident and emergency access all across the country. -- the Royal

Oak in which helps us frame. While Germany Hungary Main Secretary of

State I hope you will take heed of the decision you've taken, take heed

and recognise you deserve to be properly rewarded for what you do,

for all of us. Thank you for your decision yesterday, thank you for

your work as an RCN, on behalf of all of us who love and admire and

support I National Health Service. Hanky very much. -- while Jeremy

Hunt remains.