Leicester: Don't let them close our hospital

Save Our NHS Leicestershire on a national NHS demonstration in London 30 June 2018 (Click to enlarge)

Steve Score, Save Our NHS Leicestershire co-chair

When Boris Johnson falsely announced his government would build "40 new hospitals" at Tory conference a year ago, it turned out that in fact only six trusts were to get much delayed routine investment.

One of those was Leicester, promised £450 million for hospital "reconfiguration". The Save Our NHS Leicestershire campaign has been warning ever since that these plans involve the effective closure of one of the hospitals, in an area that serves over a million people.

The Leicester General Hospital is to be closed as an acute hospital, but will have a few non-acute services on site. Most of the land will be sold off for 'redevelopment'.

On this basis, the public consultation, which began on 28 September, has gone to great lengths to avoid the word 'closure', in order to disguise what is really happening from the public.

Socialist Party members play an important part in the campaign, established to continue momentum after the victory of the Save Glenfield Children's Heart Centre campaign (see 'Victory at Glenfield shows people power can save our NHS' at socialistparty.org.uk). The campaign is producing material, both physical and online, and planning events to explain what is happening.

You may wonder whether the middle of a pandemic is the right time for NHS bosses to begin a public consultation. No face-to-face public meetings or engagement can be carried out, excluding a large part of the public. The 1,700-page consultation document does not mention coronavirius or take account of the needs resulting from future waves of pandemic.

The plans might be OK if there was sufficient expansion of capacity and the number of beds to cope with a rising and ageing population, but there isn't. NHS bosses say the rest will be absorbed by an expansion of services in the community, but there are no details or explanation of where the money will come from for that.

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Finance appeal

The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.

The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.

The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.

The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.