Here is a tale of two realities. Both concern the well-being and prosperity of different groups of human beings.

One group is small, select and very well-heeled. Its members often have links with companies that make a handsome profit from privatisation of the NHS. The politicians who front this elite club, like Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt, would have you believe there is no serious underfunding in the NHS. That our free-at-the-point-of-use health service is safe in their hands. That privatisation is a good thing, leading to increased efficiency. According to Theresa May, the crisis in A&E is down to a surge in flu.

By comparison, the second group is huge, numbering nearly sixty million people. These are the ordinary folk who pay their taxes for effective, free health care – as their parents and grandparents paid before them - and quite reasonably expect the NHS to help them when needed. Yet all too often, this second group are finding that the NHS and social care systems do not work as they should.

The reality they experience is of growing shortages of doctors and nurses; of reduced beds in hospitals and even hospitals facing closure; of increased waiting times to see their GP; of ‘non-essential’ operations being cancelled due to bed-shortages and lack of qualified personnel, leaving people to wait and wait for treatment, often in severe pain.

York Press:

Under pressure: We need to save the NHS from underfunding and political incompetence, says Tim Murgatroyd

This second group of ordinary people have nothing but praise for over-worked, under-resourced health professionals in the NHS. The first, wealthy group have refused to allow health workers a pay rise for years - all to fund historically low taxes for themselves. So which of these groups is right? What is the truth?

Last week a letter winged its way to Theresa May, sent by 68 senior specialists in emergency medicine from across England and Wales. It contained a stark warning of the extent of the winter crisis in A&E caused by “severe and chronic” underfunding.

So bad is the situation that treatment is taking 10-12 hours from the decision to admit to finding a hospital bed. Because of this, last week people were dying on trolleys and sleeping in emergency departments. The doctors’ message was simple: they need more staff, more beds and more cash for social care.

Meanwhile, back in November 2017, legal action was launched by senior health professionals and campaigners against Jeremy Hunt and the Department of Health over their proposals to ‘restructure’ the NHS.

Heavyweight support came in December when Stephen Hawking joined the lawsuit, aiming to foil Hunt’s NHS shake-up and demanding a judicial review to ensure full parliamentary scrutiny of the proposals.

Ultimately, the Government’s plans to convert our NHS into a public/private enterprise are based on the US system. A private health insurance-based system which denies medical access to 44 million uninsured Americans. This despite the US spending more than 17 per cent of its national income on health care.

What a mess. You couldn’t make it up – nor would you want to. But solutions may be simpler than they seem.

Before Theresa May called her disastrous snap election, a little-discussed bill was put before Parliament by MP Margaret Greenwood.

She argued that the NHS could be saved as an effective service, free at the point of use. What we need to do is reinstate the Government’s duty to provide all the key NHS services and fund the service properly. That includes hospitals, medical and nursing services, mental health and community services. As well as training thousands of new nurses and doctors.

In other words, no more palming off our NHS to profit-driven companies like Virgin Care. No more ludicrously bureaucratic NHS foundation trusts and commissioning groups. Instead, a fully integrated, streamlined, truly national health and social care service, under local democratic control.

Some prizes are worth fighting for. We have learned the hard way that privatisation only benefits shareholders when it comes to health, railways, water and energy utilities. It is time to save our NHS from the Government’s ideologically-driven epidemic of incompetence, chronic underfunding, inefficiency and greed.