WE WELCOME the Oxford Mail’s editorial comment on finding ways to ensure hospitals and other services in the county are able to recruit staff, given such low rates of pay for the majority of local healthcare and public services workers, and soaring housing costs.

For too long, nursing and work in the caring professions has been seen as a vocation for which the individual is expected to work for very low levels of pay to satisfy their altruistic vision.

But no one now, especially in these days of significant austerity, can afford to spend nearly half their pay on housing (49 per cent in Oxfordshire, against 29 per cent average across England). Managers on attractive bonuses certainly are not suffering the privations of those working at ward level.

Ian Hudspeth on BBC Oxford recently highlighted the fact that the county council is unable to offer fairer rates of pay because of the rights of self-governing academies to choose how low their pay rates are.

Today’s letters

Yet when profits for private companies are paramount – witness the legions of meagrely paid home care assistants sprouting up across the UK and other services hived off to the private sector – we can only expect such anomalies to exist.

Recruitment for police, teachers, nurses and others has been a problem for a long time in Oxfordshire because of the high cost of housing. Many are now being dragged into a new generation of the working poor and may be forced to move away from the region, which could have devastating effects on our local public services and small businesses. The chickens are coming home to roost.

That’s why the National Health Action Party will be fighting the General Election on a platform to secure the long term future of the NHS and our public services through evidence-based policies that will stimulate economic growth and reduce wealth and health inequalities to deliver a much fairer and healthier society.

These policies include the reversal of marketisation and privatisation of the NHS and public services, a crackdown on tax evasion and dodging, and an end to the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) which is battering hospital trusts and is predicted to cost the taxpayer some £300bn in the next two decades.

This approach will allow investment in our public services, and put an end to the damaging and destructive era of austerity, espoused by the Westminster elite.

Dr Clive Peedell, co-leader of the National Health Action Party (NHAP) and NHAP prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) for Witney

Roseanne Edwards, NHAP PPC for Banbury

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