Save our NHS!


6,000 protest in Forest of Dean

SIX THOUSAND people, one in seven of all Forest of Dean residents
joined a protest rally on 31 May against devastating cuts in
Gloucestershire which could decimate health services in the Forest of
Dean in particular.

Dilke Hospital in Cinderford and Lydney Memorial Hospital are to be
axed, along with a care home for the elderly in Cinderford.

About 90% of those who attended left with Socialist Party leaflets in
their hands, and 88 copies of the socialist were sold. Local people are
determined to fight back against these cuts.

Lee Hyett

Barnsley Hospital

BARNSLEY HOSPITAL’S Chief Executive has announced that the hospital
may be restricted to providing an ‘accident and emergency’ service only,
due to a total budget shortfall of between £5 million and £14 million.

These proposals, only part of a catalogue of cuts being considered,
come only 12 months after the hospital became a Trust and spent millions
on improving patient care and maternity services.

UNISON and the GMB are planning to oppose the cuts including linking
up with the Save Our NHS campaign in Huddersfield. More in future
issues.

Angie Waller

Private firm grabs GP services

BLAIR’S GOVERNMENT has taken another step towards opening up the
whole NHS to market forces. Barking and Dagenham Primary Care Trust
(PCT) has signed a £5 million deal with Care UK, a private firm that
runs hospitals and care homes, to provide GP services for 7,000
patients.

Care UK has little experience of running direct services for
patients. Many doctors fear these firms will take GPs and nurses away
from the NHS and destabilise local GP networks. Private firms compete
for patients and won’t treat people with complex or long term needs,
such as care of the elderly. They prefer more profitable treatments such
as ‘elective surgery’, hip replacements etc

Companies like Care UK see these GP services as ‘loss leaders’ to get
their hands on NHS money. Care UK and other firms likely to bid for
these deals own their own care homes and hospital facilities – they will
tend to send patients to their own firm’s facilities rather than to NHS
units.


New Labour’s ‘choice’…

THE GOVERNMENT are spending vast amounts of money and time in pushing
‘patient choice’ on where to go for surgery in the NHS. Since January
patients have in theory had a choice of at least four hospitals, one of
them a private centre, for any non-emergency treatment. Now you can add
to this ‘choice’ the foundation hospitals and any private centre
anywhere.

But a recent survey suggests that this choice could widen health
inequalities. The Kings Fund health ‘think tank’ survey found that
middle-class people with a high degree of formal education often chose
the best hospital while people without such qualifications chose the
local hospital.

The government are fanatical about any measures that benefit private
firms. It made them ignore the tendency for the more educated NHS users
to use the scheme like they do the education system. Other people have
to choose what was feasible.

Most patients say they like to have some choice locally but the
things they want most are cleanliness, reliability, and reasonable
efficiency in their own local hospital. That would be better served by
increased funding in all local services rather than encouraging a
two-tier service which results in hospital or ward closures.

… does not compute

THE NEW NHS computer system is running at least two years behind
schedule and £14 billion over budget. Costs have trebled from an early
estimation of £6.2 billion to the present £20 billion. To give a
comparison, the total deficits of all the NHS Trusts which are
threatening so many job losses only amount to around £800 million.

This isn’t just another expensive information technology catastrophe
like those that brought huge problems for government departments such as
the DWP but big profits for the IT bosses.

The government was so keen on offering patients a so-called "choice"
of hospitals that they ordered an over-complex network. Two-thirds of
GPs say the "Choose and Book" programme was not a good use of NHS
resources. Only 6% always use it while 85% say they want an inquiry into
the system.

Wouldn’t it have been better to make it easier for GPs to book
appointments at local hospitals? Most patients want to go there anyway.
Obviously, desperation to encourage privatisation has just increased the
NHS’s financial woes.


We say:

  • No to NHS job losses, cuts and closures.
  • End health privatisation and the ‘internal market.’
  • Link up the campaigns already in existence, locally and
    nationally, to defend all our services.
  • Bring all health care into one nationally planned, properly
    financed and publicly owned service free at the point of use.
  • No more money from the health unions for New Labour, whose
    pro-market policies are wrecking the NHS. Build the Campaign for a New
    Workers’ Party.

Building the Waltham Forest Save our NHS campaign

Two Socialist Party members took a petition around the on-site
accommodation at Whipps Cross hospital and sold eight papers, with
fifteen people interested in getting involved in the Waltham Forest Save
Our NHS campaign.

Ben Robinson, Leyton

Everyone was angry that their jobs were under threat while the
consultant overseeing the cuts was on £1,200 per day. Doctors, midwives,
nurses, and cleaners couldn’t understand why there was money to pay so
many people "walking around with clipboards" whilst wards and operating
theatres were being closed.

We met highly qualified people who had come from all over the world
to work in healthcare, and faced deportation if they lost their jobs.
One nurse told us: "If I lose my job here, there is nowhere to go. They
are cutting jobs all over the country".

People want to fight back against the attacks. A few years ago,
Socialist Party members at the hospital Unison branch led a struggle
against management’s attempts to cut cleaners’ wages by paying them
different rates.

We met workers who regularly buy the socialist, and so knew about the
campaigns we are involved in across the country, especially in Stoke and
Huddersfield.

Many people simply felt that enough was enough – they welcomed our
campaign and not only wanted to get involved themselves, but were
encouraging their workmates to get involved too.