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From The Socialist newspaper, 5 February 2020
NHS: Save stroke beds in Coventry and Warwickshire
Save our NHS, photo Mary Finch (Click to enlarge)
Coventry and Warwickshire will lose 30 stroke beds when existing facilities in hospitals in Nuneaton and Warwick close. All future emergency care for stroke patients will be centralised in Coventry, putting pressure on already-stretched facilities.
Warwickshire patients previously would have gone to more local facilities, but will now be taken to Coventry. Additional ambulance travel times could put lives at risk
Under the plans, 70% of stroke patients who have received emergency treatment will then be discharged to at-home care, at a time when community health and social services are already overstretched and underfunded.
The remaining 30% will be relocated to Nuneaton and Leamington, increasing the cost and difficulties of travel and inevitably reducing visits from some families, just at the time when patients need most support.
NHS managers claim the redesigned service will provide better care, but admit there are "insufficient specialist stroke consultants to operate an improved and effective service within the current configuration." They are essentially making a virtue out of a necessity, reducing emergency treatment locations to match staff shortages.
It's underfunding that is forcing the redesign of services, taking them further away from local communities. And underfunding should be tackled not local people disadvantaged.
Activists from Coventry and Rugby Keep Our NHS Public, including Socialist Party members, have collected nearly 500 signatures opposing the plan to cut stroke beds
Health campaigners and trade unionists should demand a national demonstration to unite the dozens of similar campaigns around the country, with national trade union action to force the end of these Tory 'rationalisations', and win proper national funding for the NHS.
Dave Nellist, Coventry Socialist Party
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In The Socialist 5 February 2020:
News
6.5 million working poor: Fight to end low pay
Labour leadership contest and public ownership
Coronavirus exposes capitalism's weaknesses in healthcare and economy
Record dissatisfaction with democracy: capitalism's dead end
Refuges turn away 64% of women - set no-cuts budgets now!
Grenfell watch: Unions challenge 'mockery of justice'
Rail
Nationalise the railways: For an integrated public transport system
Expensive, overcrowded and unreliable: Renationalise the railways!
Cancel the franchise, not our trains
Will the North get investment and transport infrastructure?
What we think
'Post-Brexit' era of crisis ahead
Workplace news
Huge victory for Bromley library workers after 241 days on indefinite strike!
14 more days of university strikes over pensions, pay and conditions
500 BBC journalists' jobs under threat
Newham council tax workers' pay victory
No to academisation of east London schools!
Ealing tax office workers strike against closure
NHS
Outrageous waiting times will put lives at risk
NHS: Save stroke beds in Coventry and Warwickshire
International
Syria: Assad regime consolidates power after brutal counterrevolution
Israel/Palestine: Trump 'peace plan' promises further conflict
Campaigns
Socialist Party calls anti-austerity protest on Budget Day
Sadiq Khan "out-Tories" himself to defend tech firms' tax bonanza
Reading Labour council: Stop privatising our leisure services
The rich fund the Tories and Blairites, so help fund the working-class fightback
Support the working-class press in 2020
Defend and fight for warm, safe housing for Samira and everyone
Alternative Burns Night success
Readers' opinion
Liverpool council: "No more cuts" - Is Joe Anderson serious?
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