HELL is other people, according to the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. You might be excused for thinking that those currently running the UK are taking his statement a little too seriously.

Certainly there seems to be precious little appreciation of the contributions made by key groups of individuals. In fact, the emphasis always seems to be about money rather than those people money is supposed to serve.

Take the situation of workers in our public services. We have been told by the Government that there is no alternative to slashing public spending. That hundreds of thousands of people have to lose their jobs for the greater good. That it is irresponsible to do otherwise. As a result, posts remain unfilled or are deleted. And vital public servants have received no meaningful pay rise since greedy bankers crashed the economy in 2008.

The consequences of this misguided, and often cruel, approach are now coming to haunt us all. The NHS is particularly affected. One in 11 posts is vacant with the situation especially bad among the nursing workforce. According to figures released by the regulator, NHS Improvement, for the April to June period, 11.8 per cent of nurse posts were not filled - a shortage of nearly 42,000. In addition, 9.3 per cent of doctor posts were vacant, representing a shortage of 11,500. Overall, 9.2 per cent of all posts across the NHS were not filled, nearly 108,000 in total.

An obvious consequence of unfilled posts is that operations repeatedly get cancelled or delayed, wasting expensive resources. Some patients find themselves staying in hospital longer than necessary for a lack of people hired for rehabilitation and social care work.

Of course, it is hard to believe the Government is not deliberately creating this ‘people crisis’. After all, they have recently scrapped training bursaries for nurses. And if you need doctors then surely you invest heavily in training more of them. None of this is rocket science.

A deficit of £519 million has been forecast for this year by NHS Providers, the body which represents NHS trusts. Underfunding means health providers simply cannot afford to hire the necessary people. All this at a time when waiting-time targets for A&E and planned operations continue to be missed to an alarming degree.

Not hiring people has consequences for more than just service users. Those working in the NHS find themselves put under increasing stress and pressure. Result: droves of dedicated professionals ‘burn out’ or simply leave.

Meanwhile, spending on temporary staff via private employment agencies is going over budget. This is wonderful if you want to transfer large amounts of public money to private bank accounts, in the spirit of privatisation beloved by our Government. It is, however, bad for the rest of us. Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst at the King’s Fund think tank, said the shortage of nurses was at risk of becoming a “national emergency”.

So widespread is our people crisis in the public services that just about every vital area of life seems to be affected. Police, firefighters, prison officers, teachers, the list goes on. And the private sector too is suffering from a failure to invest in people.

British Steel, for example, is cutting 400 jobs at its sites in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, blaming a weak pound and euro for driving up costs. Almost 10 per cent of its 5,000-strong workforce is due to be shed in a bid, according to the firm, to “streamline” its operations and secure a long-term future.

No one would deny the world market for steel is challenging and by no means a level playing field. Yet there is a paradox here: British Steel posted a £21 million profit for the first three months of 2018. Once again, it appears to be ordinary people rather than shareholders who pay the price.

It is high time we put more emphasis on consistently treating people as our most precious asset rather than exploiting their labour for the interests of a wealthy minority. The truth is that we all rely on each other. That means investing in all our people through life-long learning opportunities and professional training, as well as making sure crucial public services are properly funded.