- Why the NHS is
on the ballot paper. Overview and scrutiny committee's (OSCs) of local
authorities can demand NHS chief executives appear before them and set their
own agendas of what they want to examine, as well as being consulted on major
NHS changes. As such they can have a big impact on reconfigurations, and
parties could campaign in local
elections on the claim that their party was the one
standing up most strongly for their local hospital. All this explains why
many councillors are making the NHS a bigger issue at elections than ever
before. For example in
Kirklees three Save Huddersfield NHS candidates could hold the balance of
power on the council if elected. The trio have been leading the campaign
against plans to move services from their local hospital to Halifax. Tens of
thousands of people have signed petitions and attended demonstrations. Service
changes at the hospital have recently been accepted by the trust but the group
is seeking a judicial review, and Kirklees council OSC has also expressed
reservations, referring changes to maternity services to the health secretary.
In West
Sussex, Conservative county council leader Henry Smith says the loss of
services at Crawley Hospital has had a big impact on local politics, and
recent job losses announced by Surrey and Sussex Healthcare trust are
uppermost in residents' minds. The East Sussex committee, which covers an area
where the health service has struggled in recent years, has a high profile and
a reputation for tough questioning. In
Rochdale the OSC supported a proposed restructuring of services, which has
been attacked as a downgrading of local services. Local Liberal Democrat MP
Paul Rowen has steadfastly opposed changes and his party sees it as a major
issue in the local elections. OSCs look set to become the forums on which
public concern about local service redesigns are vocalised.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Health Service Journal 4 May 2006
- Volatile voters
get a glimpse of the post-Blair landscape. A Save
Huddersfield NHS candidate was elected in the West Yorkshire borough of
Kirklees in last week's local elections.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of
Observer 7 May 2006
- Shock sinks in
over BNP councillors. Residents have blamed job cuts at the University
Hospital of North
Staffordshire for the surprise success of the BNP in the recent local
council elections.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Stoke Sentinel 9 May 2006
- Local protests
bring in votes. Local opposition to NHS reorganisations provided the
catalyst for single-issue party candidates standing in last week's local
elections. GP Dr Jacqueline Gunsell was elected to
Kirklees council on the Save Huddersfield Health Campaign ticket. She was
one of three candidates standing in protest at plans to move services from
their local hospital in Halifax. She won with 2,176 votes, a majority of 700
over the second placed Liberal Democrats. The Save Chase Farm Hospital Party
won two seats on Conservative-controlled
Enfield council. It fielded nine candidates who are opposed to proposals
to close the hospital's accident emergency service as part of a wider
reconfiguration. A total of 12,456 people voted for the party whose policy is
opposition to the closure of A& E
and to any changes to existing women and children's services. The Independent
Kidderminster Hospital and Health Concern Group gained one new seat on
Wyre Forest council and is now the second largest party after the
Conservatives.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Health Service Journal 11 May 2006
- Blair's market
madness wrecking the NHS. The Socialist says: "The deprived areas of
Langwith, Creswell and Normanton in
Derby are guinea pigs in Labour's plan to privatise primary health care… [UnitedHealth
Europe] has little interest in Langwith and probably won't make much money
there. For them the big prize is a head start in bidding for control of the
budgets that pay for hospital treatments… 130 angry people were at the Keep Our
NHS Public meeting in Langwith where speaker John Lister welcomed health
campaigner and Socialist Party member Jackie Grunsell's victory in the
Huddersfield council election.
Along with victories for health campaigners in
Kidderminster, he said: 'When people get a choice they're voting strongly
for candidates that support the NHS.' In a passionate defence of the NHS
founding principles, that treatment should be available to all no matter where
they lived or how much money they had, local GP Dr. Elizabeth Barrett, said, 'To
dismember the NHS limb by limb is an act of social vandalism.'"
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of
Socialist 18 May 2006
-
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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