Why does the British media keep undermining the NHS?
Rewind a few years back and NHS and its workers were considered the heroes of the country. The then prime minister Boris Johnson even had us stood outside clapping the efforts of doctors, nurses and other medical professionals, who were working tirelessly through a grim and gruelling global health crisis.
But with the pandemic in the dust, a distant memory in the rearview mirror, the media – who had lauded the NHS workers as our guardian angels through the darkest of times, is throwing those same people under the bus.
The truth is, doctors and nurses aren’t heroes or angels. They are highly skilled, highly competent medical professionals, who deserve to be paid as such.
With nurses, junior doctors, ambulance workers and many others in the health sector striking over pay and conditions, the media has revealed itself.
How does the media undermine the NHS?
The newspapers have been dominated by strike action across the country for many months. Most front pages will picture striking NHS workers but won’t use their front page headline to highlight how dire the pay for these professionals is.
They’ll label the NHS as ‘inefficient’, ‘in crisis’ and on the verge of collapsing but won’t acknowledge the NHS is underfunded, under-resourced and quietly privatised – most papers hide the fact Rupert Murdoch wants the NHS privatised.
The papers will blame immigrants but fail to mention the huge cuts to welfare and local authority support services which are putting greater pressure on hospitals.
Rarely do the newspapers highlight the true pressures facing NHS workers and the incredible work they do. They will blame individual trusts and hospitals for failures but won’t call out the government – who have the ultimate responsibility to protect, grow and support our NHS.
Take a look at how the papers reacted to the latest NHS strikes.
A four-day junior doctors’ strike began on 11 April and ran until the morning of 15 April.
Health secretary Steve Barclay said it was “unreasonable” for a 35% pay rise. But since 2008, junior doctors’ pay has stagnated. In real terms, their pay has fallen by 26%, and then if you factor in soaring inflation, the British Medical Association (BMA) is only really asking for a restoration in pay, rather than a real-term pay rise.
The good news for the striking NHS staff is that the majority of the British public supports them – including patients who have a health condition.
NHS workers need a pay rise – it’s estimated that nearly 5,000 of them use foodbanks on a daily basis and claps don’t change that. The government needs to pay up and the media need to get behind it.
‘Don’t get ill’
For many of the newspapers, the NHS strikes are met with stark warnings about how bad the situation is – all the cancelled appointments and the disruption – there’s little coverage of how badly NHS workers are paid. Notice the emphasis placed on ‘chaos’ ‘fear’ ‘mayhem’ and ‘extreme’ to describe the strikes.
“Don’t get ill!” said the Daily Express, with quotes from experts warning “It’s going to hurt.” The Times claimed the walkout will cause a month of disruption and says the NHS services will struggle to recover with cancer care expected to be one of the critical areas facing delays. The i reports thousands more patients than expected will not be treated because of the strike.
The Daily Express says a warning that nurses in England could be staging walkouts until Christmas will strike fear into people who rely on the health service. The Daily Telegraph warns that nurses will embark on what it calls “the most extreme strikes yet”, including “targeting” A&E departments. The Daily Mail warns of “fears of chaos if doctors and nurses strike together”. It says the NHS is braced for “a summer of mayhem” after nurses in the RCN rejected the latest 5% offer and one-off bonus payment.
The “i” says the planned May bank holiday walkout is a major blow for Rishi Sunak in the run-up to local elections. It quotes sources saying there is “little chance” of a new deal. Online, the Independent reports that the escalation in the nurses’ pay dispute amounts to the first all-out strike in NHS history, with “no exemptions for emergency care”. “Just how much more can NHS patients take?” it asks.
‘Tory neglect to blame’
For at least two of the newspapers, the failures of the Tory governments are to blame for the striking staff.
The Daily Mirror reported on the “shocking truth” about junior doctors’ wages. The paper says – according to a new campaign by the BMA – they are being paid as little as £14 an hour to carry out vital operations. “Surely this is not fair?” asks the Mirror, adding that the Tories still refuse to start pay discussions.
The Guardian reported on Tory “neglect” has been blamed for 3.6 million abandoned calls to NHS 111 in England in the past 12 months. It says the helpline is supposed to make it quicker and easier for patients to get the right advice or treatment they need but the paper says data produced for the Liberal Democrats suggest that callers are waiting so long to speak to someone, nearly one in five give up. The government says it is increasing the number of NHS 111 call handlers to 4,800.