IT’s not only the the problems in the NHS that are, in the words of hopeless Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, “completely unacceptable.”

It’s his government’s disastrous stewardship of the NHS in England and the impact of the Tory austerity programme on the NHS in Scotland and Wales.

The symptoms of the crisis are well-known: overcrowded wards; long waiting times for routine operations; patients languishing on corridor trollies for beds; huge queues for accident and emergency treatment; and patients stuck in hospital because no community care places can be found for them.

Then there is the stress and despair felt by many overworked and underpaid staff and the financial straitjacket which limits the capacity of NHS trusts to alleviate the crisis.

With one in three nurses set to reach retirement age over the next decade, successive governments have ignored warnings from trade union and professional bodies that emergency measures were vital to stem the haemorrhage.

The response of Tory ministers and their Lib Dem sidekicks was to slash funding increases, cut the number of medical training places, poach more nurses from overseas and pay over the odds for agency staff to fill the gaps.

This has not worked. Although NHS staffing levels have risen since 2008, they have not kept pace with the needs of an ageing population.

In Britain today, there are 25,000 NHS vacancies across the medical and technical professions. Nursing vacancies have risen by 50 per cent since 2013 to about 18,000 in the NHS and 4,000 in the adult social care sector.

The situation will not be helped by the abolition this April of student bursaries for nurses, midwives and other health workers.

New recruits will have to borrow up to £20,000 extra for their accommodation and living costs, in addition to their tuition fee loans.

Other Tory responses to the NHS crisis have included the imposition of area-wide Sustainability and Transformation Plans across England.

While this reflects a belated recognition of the imperative to integrate health and social care at local level, the signs are that many will be used to cut beds, close hospitals and transfer more work into the parasitic private sector.

Then there is the impact of the Private Finance Initiative, pushing English NHS trusts to the brink of bankruptcy and the proposal to turn hospital staff into revenue and customs officers collecting payments from overseas “health tourists.”

Jeremy Hunt showed no signs of moving away from this divisive, diversionary and wasteful approach yesterday. But what he needs to do for the health of the NHS and the people it serves is clear enough.

Firstly he should reject quack remedies such as universal private health insurance, charges for hospital services and an even bigger role for the profiteers.

Then he could increase the annual rise in NHS funding to at least the 6 per cent enjoyed under the last Labour government, instead of the paltry 1-2 per cent planned over the next three years.

This must include more, not less, support for medical students — and the requisite terms and conditions to keep them in the NHS after they have qualified.

Central government could also assist local hospital buy-outs of PFI contracts to save the NHS billions in fees and repayments.

And if Hunt and his government are not prepared to finance such measures through progressive taxation and — in defiance of EU rules if necessary — low interest public-sector bonds, they should make way for a government that is.

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