Sign up to save the NHS

I’ve just signed a petition to Save the NHS. Right now the government is rushing through plans which experts, and groups representing doctors and nurses, warn could break the NHS up and hand control to private health companies. It's also a huge waste of money at a time when funding is already squeezed with beds and wards being cut.

It worked when enough of us signed the petition against privatising England's forests. The more of us that sign up to Save the NHS, the more chance we have of winning. Please sign now:

http://www.38degrees.org.uk/NHS-petition

Debate AV in Kilburn on Wednesday

From Yes to AVA Campaign

Next Wednesday, April 27th, there's a debate on AV taking place at St Mary's church in Kilburn.

It will be chaired by Geoff Martin, Editor of the Ham and High newspaper, and will feature Andrew Marshall and David Aaranovitch arguing for a Yes vote, and Chris Philp and Terry Paul for a No vote.

You can book your place here: http://avhustingsstmarykilburn.eventbrite.com/

This is a great opportunity to introduce anyone who is still undecided to our arguments, so if you have friends or family who are not quite sure, please encourage them to come along.

The organisers are also asking for people to submit questions in advance. Make sure the right things gets discussed by contacting the host via the website http://avhustingsstmarykilburn.eventbrite.com/

Download the low-down on threat to NHS

Download this very useful broadsheet HERE

Green Party Urges Nurses to Unite Against Health Reforms

The Green Party's health spokesperson has called on nurses to unite against the draft Health and Social Care Bill.

Stuart Jeffery, himself a registered nurse, has written to the Royal College of Nursing's president, Andrea Spyropoulos, and its general secretary, Peter Carter, calling for the RCN to come out fighting against the devastating changes to the NHS being driven through by the coalition government. He has pointed out that the internal market deprives the NHS of up to half a million nurses.

Stuart Jeffery said: "At a time when nurses are propping up the NHS with increasing levels of unpaid overtime and clinicians are becoming concerned about the NHS reforms, the RCN needs to take a strong stance against the government's NHS reforms. The quality of care is suffering as cuts bite into the NHS, and yet the government wants to waste even more increasing the scope of the internal market and in privatising more hospitals. This is simply immoral.

"There is enough money tied up in running the internal market to fund up to an additional 500 000 nurses, far more than we need, yet the government is wedded to the idea that a market can run the NHS. It is time to challenge the 'market knows best' attitude which will spell the end of the NHS. I have written to the RCN urging them to come out fighting against the immoral health bill and to fight to save the NHS. I hope they take note.

"Nurses have key roles to play in health care. Fighting to keep the NHS running, and out of the hands of corporate sharks, is one of them. Let us hope the RCN takes up the challenge."

Defending the NHS in Brent - May a Month of Action

The 'thinking space' on NHS 'reforms' (privatisation) has provided an opportunity for local campaigning organisations to call a public meeting to enable local people to hear the views of GP, health workers, service users and MPs on the proposals.

Brent Trades Union Council, Brent Fightback and the Campaign to Defend Brent's Health Services have combined to organise 'Defend Our Health Service' to be held on Thursday May 12th at Willesden Green Library, 95 High Road, NW10 2SF.

The following extract from a blog by Russell Razzaque on the Independent website LINK sets out the reality of the reforms:

Working within the NHS today, I have witnessed first hand the sheer confusion and, in some quarters, borderline panic, that has ensued as a result of the governments recent announcements. PCTs were established as the purchasers in the system. These are massive strategic planning decisions that involve many billions of pounds. Overnight, the government plan to remove all of them, and hand the totality of their powers over to GPs. They have not described how GPs – with no training in accounting or management – can take up this role. They have not provided guidance as to how GPs might pool together to achieve this. As the so called “GP consortia” can be as large or as small as anyone chooses, a chaotic bout of “run around” has ensued with GPs trying to partner up with each other across boroughs and local boundaries, unsure which way to go.

The PCTs have already started to dismantle and in London, staff with no future are haemorrhaging in droves, leaving a skeletal operation alone to determine the allocation of billions worth of spending. The Chair of The Royal College of GPs has described the proposed changes as the end of the NHS as we know it. The BMA, the Royal College of Nursing and several of the specialist medical Royal Colleges have spoken out against it. Calls to phase it in and start with a series of gradually building pilots have fallen on deaf ears. No one is sure how it will work or how adversely it will effect patient care. The very people who will be tasked with implementing such rapid change are already utterly perplexed by it. That is because they are supposed to be. It is an engineered shock. All the while, waiting in the wings, with a metaphorical defibrillator, will be the private sector. The large American insurance based corporations are eyeing the soon to explode UK healthcare market with salivating mouths. The vacuum that is being created, is being created for them. They will be hired to do the commissioning by and instead of GPs who are, through no fault of their own, clearly untrained and unable to do it. And it won’t be long thereafter before these same private organisations start hiring themselves as providers instead of NHS Trusts, many of which will ultimately go bust.

The government are, in fact, proposing to rig the market in their favour by requiring every single contract to go for competitive tendering. This means that, even if there is a high performing Trust with which the local population is happy, they will still have to submit themselves for retendering to the commissioners on a regular basis who will then be legally obliged to consider private sector organisations as part of the process. Subjecting hospitals to the instability of a retendering process could be disastrous. I have seen it happen myself. Staff numbers will fluctuate wildly as doctors and nurses, unsure if their organisation will survive, start moving between providers – just as they do in, say, the banking sector. This will potentially destroy continuity of care, as well as in-patient and emergency service provision which relies on regular staff numbers round the clock. A hospital shutting down as a result of losing a bid to a private sector provider, who has undercut their costs as a way of breaking into the UK market – rather than failing to provide an adequate service – could be a potentially dangerous event resulting in the collapse of secondary health care provision for the entire local area. This is why unfettered free markets are a bad idea for health care, and why the US experience has led to a hard fought reversal away from marketization. This is also why, if they were asked to vote for it, the public never would. In fact, in the last election they clearly did not. The Conservative manifesto, with its “no major reorganisations” commitment gave exactly the opposite impression. The only way such drastic privatisation can ever be achieved is through a short sharp shock to the system. Nick Boles, the pro Cameron Conservative MP, laid it out starkly, “’Chaotic’ in our vocabulary is a good thing.” Friedman would be proud. As he himself said, “only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change”. This is clearly not chaos by incompetence. It is chaos by design.

Brent Fightback will be conducting a public survey about the proposals in Wembley in early May and are organising a contingent to take part in the 'March to Save the NHS' which takes place on Tuesday May 17th (Assemble 4.30pm at University College Hospital, Gower Street, WC1 to march to the Department of Health, Whitehall.

Further information on Keep Our NHS Public

Cuts we can and can't afford

Brent Allotment Revolt - savour the speeches and oppose Coalition's threat to allotments

In an earlier blog LINK I reported on the extremely lively Allotments Forum where allottees took Cllr Powney to task over allotment rent increases and other issues.  The meeting was notable for its wide range of contributions ranging from dry detailed legal challenge to passionate speeches about the plight of pensioners.

The full flavour of the meeting can now be savoured through reading the official notes of the meeting HERE

Meanwhile the Coalition Government is threatened the future of allotments. Its 'Review of Statutory Duties' aimed at removing duties which are seen as a 'burden' on local authorities inccludes the duty to provide sufficient allotments for people who want them in an area. This would not only threaten future allotments, but present ones, and could make allotments susceptible for closure and redevelopment for housing.

A campaign is developing against these proposals. Follow this LINK to go to the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners for further information and links to the response form. Deadline is April 25th 2011.  Chris Wells has suggested responses to questions 6 and 9 HERE

Primary School Temporary Classes - My full statement

The Wembley and Willesden Observer today publishes a short quote from me about the provision of temporary classes in Brent primary schools as a result of the shortage in school places. The quote was part of a longer statement which puts the issue into context. I reproduce the original full statement below. Only the last paragraph was published:

Brent Council is still running to stand still on the issue of providing additional primary school places - and even then not quite succeeding.  A long-term strategy involving a review of provision and demand across the borough seems just as far away as when I suggested it several years ago. The Council's capacity to devise such a strategy, including a consideration of the educational implications, is now limited by the staffing cuts it has had to make and the redundancies of many experienced senior personnel.

I was pleased to see officers' acknowledge that in the case of a possible expansion of the Capital City Academy into primary provision the impact on nearby Donnington Primary School would need to be considered. This was a principle  they failed to acknowledge in the proposals for primary provision at Preston Manor.

However I am concerned at possible future actions outlined in the Executive document which include: 

more all-through schools providing for children from 4-19 years, we need an informed public debate about the advantages and disadvantages of such schools; 

the possible expansion of primary schools into 5 forms of entry giving a primary school of more than 1,000 5-11 year olds. I think these are far too large and that young children need a smaller, 'family' style environment in which to feel safe and happy;

and an increase in class sizes above 30 in the junior phase (7-11). The maximum class size of 30 has been hard fought for and still compares poorly with the much smaller class sizes in the private sector. 

There is a real danger that in the absence of a 'champion' for the values of primary education within the Council,  that expansion will be just a matter of cramming increasing numbers into any available space, ignoring the impact on the quality of teaching and learning and children's vital first experience of school.

Martin Francis
Brent Green Party spokesperson on children and families