I want to write to Lord Warner
Lord Warner: ...say are well above average risks of disaster and on which there seems to be a collective governmental denial of the seriousness of the challenges and dangers we face in both areas. Even without Brexit, the NHS has to cope with major challenges to its sustainability, which is why this House set up the Select Committee on this subject. I was a member of that committee which, after collecting...
Lord Warner: ...adult social care budget at least in line with the growth of the NHS, which is another recommendation from this House’s Select Committee? Thirdly, there are the serious workforce issues caused by Brexit mishandling. There are some 60,000 EU nationals working in the NHS, many of them doctors and nurses, as well as 90,000 working in social care, a high proportion of them in the London...
Lord Warner: ...when pharmaceutical investment here is already on a downward trajectory, and at the very time when we need this investment to be increasing under the Government’s own industrial strategy post Brexit, as the Minister has rightly said. But the money is going down from big pharma investing in this country and the Bill has not helped reverse that trend. Delaying patients’ and NHS access to...
Lord Warner: ...them for several decades to come, looks to many like another own goal. The Government’s insistence that they can reduce net migration to tens of thousands does not seem to be believed even by the Brexit Secretary, let alone by much of the public. A level of public distrust is building before withdrawal negotiations have even started, and that distrust is being fuelled further by the...
Lord Warner: ...any high-technology industry, at over £330,000 per employee. One in four of the world’s top prescription medicines was discovered and developed in the UK. All this will be put at serious risk by Brexit, as the Prime Minister seems to recognise in the new industrial strategy that she recently announced. We know that through Brexit the UK will lose the European pharmaceutical regulator,...
Lord Warner: ...which has not had the public attention it merits. I say at the outset that I am a remainer who believes we made a massive error of collective judgment on 23 June. However, whatever your views on Brexit, the NHS and social care sectors now face a very uncertain future if they are prevented from recruiting at scale from both within and outside the EU. Far from releasing resources for the...
Lord Warner: ...schools that they have to recruit people to fill those slots through UCAS clearing. One-fifth of middle grades in the junior grades are vacant. In this situation—with people emigrating and with Brexit—we cannot expect young people to join this profession. The Secretary of State has to take some responsibility for changing that culture, bringing in some people to help change it and...