Keep on campaigning to save the NHS

the march to defend the Liverpool Women’s hospital

Felicity Dowling on the need to keep building all the campaigns to defend the NHS

Across the country there are hundreds of campaigns to defend local hospitals, maternity provision and  Accident and Emergency and local NHS services, including action against private GP providers. Campaigns like keep our NHS public, call 999 for the NHS, the NHS Action party  and others have national reach. Thousands of individuals, local and national groups, doing whatever they can to spread the word of what is happening to the NHS. In 2014 campaigners marched from Jarrow to Parliament, others are organising leaflets and stalls, calling public meetings and conferences. Local demonstrations are happening across the country.

Nationally there are attempts to bring the campaigners together into a coordinated national campaign, but new campaigns spring up all the time. Those at work in the NHS see what is happening, are tired and over stretched, and find it hard to manage workloads and stress, let alone balance family responsibilities. Fortunately, the Junior doctors are fighting back. The struggle of the Junior Doctors is of fundamental importance but they must not be left to fight alone.

Government policies are driving through huge levels of privatisation. Virgin have a legal team to protect their privatisation endeavours The Country has now been divided into 44 footprint areas and within these areas, health and social care are supposed to produce plans to balance the books despite major shortage of funds. In some areas, at least, councillors have not been involved but chief officers have been involved. Even chief executives have been prepared in some places to call the plans disasters, but the exclusion of elected councillors is a disgrace.

Accident and Emergency and maternity appear to be the main areas facing closure or “reorganisation”.

At last, Labour, under Jeremy Corbyn, is talking of re nationalising the NHS but sections of Labour are still tied into the privatisation agenda Owen Smith was a lobbyist for big pharma. Diane abbot contrasts strongly with the previous opposition spokesperson in support for the Junior Doctors and full opposition to the privatisation process

This fight back will take a national mass movement to defend the NHS. Convincing people of the danger and asking them to protest is painstaking work especially when doctors head up proposals for closure.

Maternity is massively underfunded. The tariff provided by the government to pay for each birth is inadequate to meet Royal College Standards of staffing. Midwives are over worked and report stress at work. One in 4 women report being left alone in labour when they wanted someone there. The bursaries to fund midwife training has been abolished yet many who train to ne midwives are older people who need the bursary to even think about training

The maternity review has been tied into the Sustainability and Transformation plans. The maternity review is full of fine words and grand ambition but fails to mention shortages of midwives or major underfunding. There is a major move to close local obstetrician level care, leaving mothers to travel for considerable time if things go wrong in labour. Across the country women are campaigning on this. The indicators of successful care are now based on how few interventions are required at the birth, including how few epidurals and caesareans. Many mothers would wish for a straight forward natural child birth but many women have good reason not to want this. One in two women having their first baby at home need transfer to a hospital. Home births are not a route to save money.

Anyone having a baby at home needs good quality back up care in the event of emergency. Babies lives depend on it and sometimes women’s lives too. These transfers, these interventions save lives. Private providers are being funded and supported, indeed provided with NHS insurance, despite serious concern over them at Wirral CCG and from the Care Quality Commission.

NICE changed it guidance recently to accept the “caseload” model of midwifery favoured by the pioneer privatising midwifery companies.

We want an NHS free at the point of need, paid for from general taxation, the best available treatment, a comprehensive range of treatments, publically provided and removed from market mechanisms (which waste so much time money and effort). We need well-funded and well trained staff working reasonable, numbers of hours with a decent workload. The research basis of the NHS must be protected and privateers removed.

Up till 2014 the NHS was the most efficient health service in the world. Privatisation and cuts are killing it. Like in the railways privatisation reduces quality and costs more.

Local and national campaigns must continue; it must become a mass movement. Every single interested person can help with this. It cannot be left to politicians of any of the parties that have assisted privatisation. For Corbyn to get his re nationalisation of the NHS through the Parliamentary Labour Party, he will need this mass movement.

Huge international financial groups with access to the media and to vast resources now have vested interests in the NHS, there are administrators trained in privatisation, and “ninja“  privatisation companies, who  are skilled in pushing their agendas but they cannot with stand a mass movement. “Change is a combat sport.’ So said Strategic Project Team co-founder, Stephen Dunn, at SPT anniversary celebration. A “ninja” team of privatisers advise on how next to extend private involvement. This team is employed by different NHS bodies.

For six years, these ‘change-makers’ have been, in their words, ‘supporting the brave’ and ‘encouraging the timid’ to reform health services and hand them over to the private sector.

It takes a few well funded skilled people to push through privatisation and they do not  need to rouse the city as we do.

Local councillors must with stand against the pressures in Sustainability and Transformation plans and really represent their electorate’s interests and defend the NHS.

The unions too in the hospitals must organise afresh and support their members in defending jobs, working conditions and in defending the NHS. The culture of fear, where staff feel they cannot speak out must change. A whole new approach is needed  if we are to keep the NHS.

I am involved in the fight to keep the Liverpool Women’s Hospital a good safe and internationally renowned hospital. Our demands:

Full public funding sufficient to allow Liverpool Women’s hospital to thrive, for all our sisters, mothers, daughters and babies

No privatisation or cuts

No loss of beds

Better funding for midwives and neo natal nurses

Full funding and an end to marketisation and privatisation of the NHS.

We do not believe that it is possible to consider these shocking proposals without understanding the background of the crisis in funding the NHS, the marketization It is dreadful to think they can even conceive of the notion of closing it. Support us on facebook and twitter and on our on line petition. Organise a campaign near you or get involved with local campaigns

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/save-liverpool-women-s-hospital