The Socialist 4 October 2017

Solidarity with Catalonia

Solidarity with Catalonia - the people have the right to decide

Exemplary resistance by the people of Catalonia

Eyewitness: Irish socialist MP participates in events

The Tories must be driven out

Royal Mail workers set for national strike action

Unison attacks Barts deal after failing to ballot their members for strike action

RMT strikes against removal of train guards spreads

University of Leeds workers walk out

ThyssenKrupp - Tata steel merger

Revolutionary socialist Che Guevara 50 years on

Labour Party conference: Action against establishment sabotage still needed

Capitalism and human progress

Monarch abdicates responsibility to workers

Bending the knee v Trump

Tories wreck our NHS

£11,000 raised in three weeks for fighting fund

Why I joined: I wanted to change things

Chatsworth ward campaign replies to Tory MP's intervention

Surveying Labour councillors - will they fight cuts?

Leeds Socialist Students marks 'International Safe Abortion Day'

Protest outside Ukip conference against German far-right speaker

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Tories wreck our NHS

Save our NHS demo 4.3.17, photo Mary Finch (Click to enlarge)

Caroline Vincent, Leicester East Socialist Party

The NHS crisis is escalating as the Tories continue their mission to 'slash, trash and privatise' our health service.

Thanks to sustainability and transformation plans (STPs), hospitals are facing a bleak winter. Alarmingly, despite the fact that there are already too few inpatient beds for hospitals to cope, proposals have been made to cut back even further.

Last winter saw major alerts called across the country, with accident and emergency departments forced to close, as they could not endure the strain placed on underfunded services. Further cuts will be catastrophic.

Unbelievably there are now half as many hospital beds as there were 30 years ago.

A reason given is that patients with mental health issues can be cared for in their communities. Yet mental health services are another area in crisis, having faced devastating cuts.

And provision for care in the community to patients who are leaving, or at risk of going into hospital is woefully insufficient, only meeting half of demand.

This dire situation is compounded by closures of GP surgeries throughout the UK, with 202 practices having closed or merged in the year to June 2017.

There is now a serious shortage of GPs as a result of under investment in primary care.

Stress and rising workloads have led to an exodus of family doctors, which in turn puts pressure on A&Es, as people who can't get a doctor's appointment don't know where else to turn.

Patients, doctors and health workers all deserve better than this. The Tories see the NHS as an opportunity to line the pockets of their fat cat friends. That's why we need to fight back - for public health, not private wealth!

Socialist Party demands:

No cuts, closures or job losses in the NHS
Stop STPs and demand all councils refuse to cooperate with the plans
End the pay freeze! Decent pay for all NHS staff
Renationalise our NHS! Scrap PFI and privatisation schemes. Cancel all PFI debt
For mass action to defend the NHS with co-ordinated strike action at its heart
Reverse council cuts to social care to relieve the beds crisis
Nationalise the profiteering big drugs companies
For a comprehensive, high quality NHS, under democratic control, with care free at the point of use - a socialist NHS

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Catalonia

Solidarity with Catalonia - the people have the right to decide