- After local council success of Health Concern campaigners, a retired consultant sets his sights on parliament.
Jeevan Vasagar.
Richard Taylor spent 23 years working at Kidderminster hospital in Hereford and Worcester. Now he paces its grounds pointing at buildings that are being gutted or mothballed. Guardian Unlimited
Monday March 26, 2001
- Labour's David Lock yesterday became the government minister most at risk of losing his seat after the Liberal Democrats backed an independent standing on an NHS protest platform in Mr Lock's volatile Wyre Forest constituency.
Kidderminster Health Concern's candidate Richard Taylor, a retired consultant, has enjoyed a groundswell of support for his campaign against the downgrading of Kidderminster hospital's facil ities, and his party already holds the balance of power on Wyre Forest district council. Guardian Society
Thursday May 17, 2001
- The author, a retired consultant, is contesting the Labour-held marginal of Wyre Forest in Worcestershire as one of a local group protesting at hospital cuts.
Richard Taylor
Guardian
Tuesday May 22, 2001
- Dr Richard Taylor (rtd) is standing for the Independent Kidderminster Hospital and Health Concern party. Astonishingly, he might win, defeating David Lock, a government minister. Martin Bell thinks he will win, and is coming to speak for him. Whatever happens, Dr Taylor will hugely influence the result, and thus scare all the mainstream parties.
Guardian
Wednesday May 23, 2001
- Ex-doctor offers voice of honesty
Guardian
Saturday June 9, 2001
- Seeing eye to eye.
Public
Finance 15 June 2001
- Why I lost to a man in a white coat, by David Lock.
Public
Finance 29 June 2001
- Dr Richard Taylor, the new independent MP for Wyre Forest, in his first
month in parliament explains how it feels to be the new boy in the
Commons. Guardian
Unlimited, Thursday July 5, 2001
- Kidderminster MP hails call for hospital upgrade.
Public
Finance 5 October 2001
- Richard Taylor was the star turn of the last election a retired doctor who
stood as an independent and scored a symbolic victory over Labour. His one
goal was to save Kidderminster hospital. Eight months on, it is still destined
for partial redevelopment. So what chance do single-issue campaigns, like his,
have of bucking national policy? Andy Beckett Guardian
Saturday March 9, 2002
- Whatever happened to ... Kidderminster hospital?
Iain Hollingshead
Saturday
April 29, 2006 The Guardian
- How
Middle England turned into a nation of reconfiguration rebels.
A wave of protests has swept across the country over the past few months,
bringing thousands on to the streets. It has been sparked by increasing public
anger over cuts, closures and service changes in the NHS that has erupted on a
huge scale. Geoff Martin, head of campaigns at the pressure group Health
Emergency, says there has been 'nothing like it since the poll tax'. The level
of public anger seems to have taken the Department of Health by surprise.
Public anger over NHS 'cuts' has seen 10,000 marching in Worthing, 7,000 in
Haywards Heath and another 5,000 in Hastings,
Sussex. Banbury in
Oxfordshire has seen a protest by 5,000 people, with a similar number on
the streets of Surrey commuter town Epsom. The wave of anger is something quite
new in these places: none is known as a hotbed of militancy. In Huntingdon,
police put a limit of 300 on the number of demonstrators, but 1,000 turned out
anyway. The protest has taken in a 3,000-strong gathering in
Nottingham, a march of 4,000 in
Ludlow and - most remarkable of all - a demonstration of 27,000 people in
sparsely populated
Cornwall. It is not the easiest time to be an NHS manager. Elsewhere, the
protesters have taken their grievances to the
ballot box, with hospital
campaigners elected to local councils in Kirklees and the London borough of
Enfield. In the wake of Dr Taylor's 2001 election win in
Kidderminster, the government introduced measures aimed at making
reconfigurations more acceptable to the public - and less dangerous
politically. The independent reconfiguration panel was set up to advise on
contested changes, and new guidance, Keeping the NHS Local: a new direction of
travel, specified that options for change must be developed 'with people, not
for them' right from the outset, 'before minds are made up'. But somewhere
along the line, the smooth new mechanisms seem to have broken down, and the
public unrest shows no sign of abating. Lee Billingham, chair of Worthing Keep
Our NHS Public, says: 'Kidderminster at that time was a fairly isolated
example. The difference now is it's a national attack, with up to 60 accident
and emergencies going.' The situation is different for other reasons, too. This
time the banners have been raised against a background of widespread public
concern at the effects of NHS deficits. Billingham agrees that public anger
over the NHS is increasingly generalised, linking reconfiguration, financial
deficits and 'broader issues: the market and privatisation'. He describes
Worthing as 'Middle England'. But 10,000 people marched through the town in
August to protest at moves to downgrade its hospital, while 6,000 people linked
hands in a human chain around the buildings last month. 'As far as I know
there's never been a demonstration of that size in Worthing, ever. Nothing on
that scale.' And in Worthing at least, managers have not succeeded in
persuading the public of their arguments. A rally at the end of the August
protest was 'the angriest public meeting I've ever seen', he says. 'The chief
executive of the SHA and her assistant came to address it. They were barracked
and heckled - they were visibly shaken. I don't think they were expecting how
angry people would be. They said it was OK, it was modernisation, there would
be services in the community - and people were laughing. They were in fits of
laughter.' The Kidderminster effect still haunts Labour, leading government
members to join their opposition counterparts on the NHS protests. Chief whip
Jacqui Smith, a former health minister, recently helped deliver a 16,000-strong
petition in favour of retaining maternity services in
Redditch. In north
London's Enfield public anger over moves to remove A& E and other services
from Chase Farm Hospital has made the political situation more complicated than
ever. Enfield councillor Kate Wilkinson is one of two Save Chase Farm
candidates elected in May, when nine health campaigners picked up 12,500 votes
between them. She says there have been attempts to close the hospital's A& E
under both Labour and Conservative governments, but the entire council has
unanimously rejected all four options for reconfiguration now under discussion
in a pre-consultation engagement phase. 'None retains a fully functioning A& E
or women's and children's services staying at our hospital,' Wilkinson
explains. 'It really is incredible. Everyone's up in arms. We are planning
another large protest in December - the anniversary of the one last year [with
5,000 people].'
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Health Service Journal 23 November 2006
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