A coalition to defend #ourNHS

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Integrated Care Monitor: the NHS England consultation

Safety Watch

Help us log the safety hazards undermining our NHS

Subcos/WOCs

new forms of privatisation

We gather as wide a range of information as possible on the fight to defend NHS jobs against the new outsourcing. Check out the page HERE

Find your local campaign

Click on the link here and then on the map or enter your town, city or postcode to find organisations near you fighting to defend OUR NHS.

Check the health of your local NHS

The TUC and NHS Support Federation have joined forces to publish an excellent tool which allows you to check the health of the NHS in your area.

Enter your postcode and find out what the shortfall is in GPs, hospital staff and hospital beds in your local area as a result of 8 years of Tory austerity – then email your MP and spread the link to your friends, family and neighbours.

Click here for the NHS Health Checker tool

Analysis

Read this report compiled in June 2018. It was commissioned by UNISON Eastern Region to give members and representatives a realistic analysis of the situation in each STP area.

Critique of Five Year Forward View, STPs and ACOs and much MORE
STPs: How serious are the proposals?
Detailed analysis published by LSBU, with all 44 summaries available HERE
What NHS Finance chiefs think about STPs
Response to this from Nigel Edwards, Nuffield Trust Will the NHS really need fewer beds in the future?, available HERE

Council Fightback

Some councils are taking a stand against STPs – but many are not, and are actively collaborating in plans which lack any public endorsement.

read more here

Debating the Future of Social Care

Discussion article from Bob Hudson

Fighting Privatisation
and PFI

Get the latest

STILL USEFUL: MUST READ ...

NHS for Sale
Myths, Lies and Deception

by Jacky Davis, John Lister and David Wrigley

More information here

Help us do even more in 2019

2018 – our third year – has been a busy year for Health Campaigns Together.

Despite having no office, no paid staff and minimal resources we have published FOUR quarterly issues of our newspaper, run stalls at THREE major union conferences, spoken at and publicised public meetings all over England, and worked with allies to build

TWO major demonstrations in London (February 3 and June 30)
A ground-breaking conference on Social Care in Birmingham
A mass petition exposing NHS England’s secretive Integrated Care Provider contract

But all this and much more other work has drained our limited resources. To step up the effort further next year, and drive forward the campaign to Make Our NHS Safe For All, we need to raise more funds.

So, in the season of gift-giving, we are appealing to all those organisations and individuals who support what we are doing to put Health Campaigns Together on your gift list this year.

Please send us a donation, as large as you can afford, to help us achieve even more in 2019. Anyone donating who wishes to do so can join our regular mailing list and keep in touch with what we are doing.

Anything you donate, either as a one-off donation or as a regular standing order, will go towards supporting the work of the campaign.

It’s best for us if you can make direct payments online to our Coop Bank account, Sort Code 08-92-99, Account Number 65797921 but please email us at healthcampaignstogether@gmail.com to let us know how much you have paid.

If you are unable to make payments online, cheques are very welcome. Please make out to Health Campaigns Together, and send to us c/o 102 Corve Street, Ludlow SY8 1EB.

Health Campaigns Together
newspaper No 12 - ALL SOLD!

As we go into our 4th year of publication, order now for issue 13 (January 2019) to avoid disappointment.

Features will include the Safety Campaign, reports from our Social Care Conference, updates on the Winter Crisis and a review of a new book on PFI.

Order and pay in advance for any sized bundles of all 4 issues in 2019 ONLINE NOW and SAVE 10% of the normal cost! Hurry, offer ends January 5 2019.

Every issue is FREE to read online. For campaigning, order bundles ONLINE NOW.

DID YOU MISS OUR EARLIER ISSUES? Download back issues of the newspaper here

Social Care conference a big success

Well over 100 people from all over England took part in the successful Reclaim Social Care conference called by Health Campaigns Together in Birmingham on November 17, in collaboration with the Socialist Health Association, the National Pensioners Convention and others.

More pictures and reports, along with background facts and info on social care, are available HERE.

June 30: tens of thousands celebrate and demonstrate for #OurNHS70

See HERE for a collection of news, video and pictures from the day

CALENDAR of events

Saturday 15th December 2018
11.00am

Save Our Services in Surrey
March against the cuts and rally for public safety

Woking Borough Council Offices
Gloucester Square,
Woking GU21 6YL

Save Our Services in Surrey, supported by the Surrey Fire Brigades Union (FBU), Railworkers Union (RMT) and UNISON, the public sector union, have called for a major display of public anger against Tory austerity in Surrey and beyond.

Already cuts in public services have compromised public safety – fire services have been cut to the bone. Closures of fire stations are still planned. The proposed removal of guards from our trains is yet another example of a callous disregard for public safety. Local Health Services have been cut.

The scale of local authority cuts across all services has already been disastrous yet Surrey County Council are now consulting on millions of pounds of further cuts in Childrens Centres, Waste Management, Libraries, Concessionary Bus Fares and Children with Special Educational Needs (SEND).

Austerity is not a necessity – it is a political choice.

Our councillors should be standing up to the government and saying NO. We cannot take any more cuts. We need a reversal of the cuts and a massive injection of public funding to restore our much-needed public services. The outgoing council leader even said in his speech this month, that this government has to take responsibility for taking money away from local authorities and the current state of public services.

We will have speakers at the rally in Jubilee Square from the trade unions involved in organising the event (FBU, RMT, UNISON) and county councillors from the Labour Party, Green Party and the independent Residents Groups as well as the Socialist Party and Save Our Services in Surrey. The call will be for an immediate general election and an end to austerity.

We call on anyone concerned about the state of our public services and who is willing to help fight back against austerity to join us.
This will be a peaceful, family-oriented event. We will gather outside Woking BC Offices and march around the mainly pedestrian areas to Jubilee Square for the speeches. Bring home-made banners and placards and be ready to make some noise.

Website

Monday 17th December 2018
12pm until at least 1pm

Taking our fight to court
Protest vigil

South Tyneside Hospital
(Harton Lane Entrance)
South Shields NE34 0PL

A Judicial Review challenging phase-1 of the downgrading and closure of vital acute health services in South Tyneside will take place at the Administrative Court in Leeds over 3 days from Tuesday 18th to Thursday 20th of December 2018.

The day before the court case begins we will hold a protest vigil at the Harton Lane entrance to South Tyneside Hospital to remind people of our fight and the ongoing service restructuring that is paving the way for increased privatisation here and throughout England.
For more information and details of how to join us at the hearing in Leeds please download our leaflet (PDF)

Newsblog

Public Statement from Hands Off HRI re CHFT Press Release

“The Calderdale and Huddersfield Trust has now confirmed their intent to use government funding to transfer all acute and emergency care to Halifax ...

Read the full item, and other breaking news

Info links

Links to important new information on other websites

Plan to end Huddersfield A&E gets green light – campaigners see red KONP update on the latest developments in the long-running battle to save Huddersfield Royal Infirmary, and challenge spurious -- and potentially dangerously misleading -- plans which claim to be retaining an A&E but in reality leave only an urgent care centre.

Capita failure over cervical screening letters more extensive than thought Guardian reports on the latest updated numbers of women affected by the most recent high profile fiasco by contractors Capita in their 7-year contract for support services to primary care: the company argues that not many of the test results were abnormal so relatively few suffered harm. Lucky, but not convincing.

Hospitals 'in red zone' with record numbers of A&E patients Guardian report on latest NHS figures which show:
"• 87.6% of patients arriving at A&E were treated within four hours, far off the 95% target and the lowest proportion ever for November.
• 94.2% of hospital beds were full last week, well above the 85% figure that evidence shows is the safe limit for bed occupancy.
• A&E units had to divert patients to another hospital 25 times last week, of which 11 occurred at the troubled Worcestershire acute hospitals trust.
• 10,675 patients had to spend at least 30 minutes with ambulance crews before being handed over to A&E staff, in breach of NHS rules which say that should never happen."

Pensioner poverty rises as benefits freeze bites More indications that the continued austerity regime is not only making many people's lives miserable but undermining their health and shortening lives.

Life expectancy drops for Britain's poor for first time since Second World War Mirror report underlining widespread concerns at a reversal of the previous long term trend towards longer life expectancy.

NHS waiting lists for lung and bowel treatments double since Conservative-led government came to power, analysis shows Independent report on new figures clearly lays blame on austerity policies imposed since 2010.

Search our info links database, or read ALL of them here

Join Us – Affiliate NOW

Major national affiliates now include UNISON, Unite, NEU (Teachers’ union) and FBU. But for strong campaigning we need local union branches and regional bodies to affiliate along with campaigners. The Green Party has also affiliated – and we welcome CLPs and other Labour Party bodies. HCT remains non-party, but very political – join us now!

INTERNATIONAL

PUBLICATIONS

Into the RED ZONE
A briefing paper for MPs and councillors of all parties, and health campaigners in England
(Summer 2017)
Fighting Naylor Review asset-stripping: Fourteen Questions to ask on the Naylor Review 2017
More publications and back issues

TRADE UNIONS

VIDEOS

Links to YouTube and other clips

NHS BILL

After 2017 election: press Labour MPs to prioritise NHS

RESOURCES

From June election, campaign guidelines … and more

Hospital Mi££ions

Enjoy HOSPITAL MILLIONS, the pre-ACO version of our interactive Board game of investment and shameless speculation: fun and education online for up to four players.

“I never knew privatisation could be such fun” – J. Hunt (Surrey)

“Only an idiot wouldn’t like this. I hated it.” – D. Davis (Brussels)

Click here to play