People's March for NHS, photo by Simon Elliott

People’s March for NHS, photo by Simon Elliott   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

The People’s March for the NHS

Alan Docherty, Teesside Socialist Party

The People’s March for the NHS is the brain child of a group of ‘mums’ from Darlington who are campaigning against the privatisation of the NHS. The march follows the footsteps of the Jarrow marchers back in 1936, and the 2011 march organised by Youth Fight for Jobs.

The NHS marchers will arrive in Parliament Square, London, on 6 September after covering approximately 300 miles and 23 towns and cities in over three weeks. The message from the ‘mums’ is a simple one; ‘that the NHS is owned by and loved by us and every effort will be made to stop it being sold off’.

The campaign is supported by several trade unions and a range of political groups including sections of the Labour Party, Green Party, and the People’s Assembly as well as the unaligned.

It demands the repeal of the Health and Social Care Act and is aiming for four things: Reverse the closure of NHS services; Halt the privatisation of NHS care; Return responsibility for delivering NHS services to the Secretary of State for Health; and to inform the public on what is happening to the NHS and build support for the NHS.

The march commenced on Saturday 16 August with a rally of about 500 people in Jarrow organised by the Northern region TUC. Amongst the platform speakers was Lizi Gray of Youth Fights for Jobs, who was one of the 2011 Jarrow marchers.

Despite claims from Stephen Hepburn, the Jarrow Labour MP, that Labour would, on day one of being re-elected, kick the privateers out of the NHS and reverse the cuts, Lizi told the crowd that the NHS was not safe in Labour’s hands. She called for a written commitment from them that they would reverse the cuts.

Rallies along route

Rallies are being planned along the route. The march reached Darlington, the organisers’ home town, on Monday 18th where a rally was held by Darlington Trades Council. The meeting, that attracted about 100 people, was addressed from the platform by the marchers, the Labour leader of Darlington council, and John Malcolm, a Unison Heath branch secretary and a Socialist Party member.
The meeting was lively, emotional, and inspiring, with plenty of discussion about the state of the NHS and what needs to be done to repair it.

The discussion broadened the debate, linking the fight against privatisation with the fight against cuts in pay and services, and with other public sector workers.

The meeting was reminded that a Labour government continued the process of privatisation of the NHS started by the Tories and laid the basis for the Con-Dems’ current policies, and that Labour does not have policies to reverse the cuts. Policies are needed to end the plunder of the NHS by private companies, scrap PFI contracts, nationalise the pharmaceutical companies, and reverse all the cuts in funding and staff.

The marchers made it clear that they would hold all MPs, regardless of party, to account in opposing the privatisation of the NHS.

The march has the potential to inspire a major campaign to demand an end to the privatisation of the NHS and the establishment of a fully funded free health service to meet the needs of public.

Unfortunately none of the main political parties would deliver on these demands. Labour is wedded to neoliberal policies that would keep the NHS open to the theft of public funds by the private sector.

We need to work for the establishment of a mass party that actually represents the interests of working class people. Only then would we have a party in whose hands the NHS was safe.


This version of this article was first posted on the Socialist Party website on 19 August 2014 and may vary slightly from the version subsequently printed in The Socialist.