Workers Revolutionary Party - ‘The whole trade union movement must take action to defend the NHS!’

The News Line: Feature Friday, 3 November 2006 ‘The whole trade union movement must take action to defend the NHS!’

UNISON leader DAVE PRENTIS (centre) joined with staff representing the entire NHS workforce at the launch of NHS Together on Wednesday morning

MANY thousands of NHS staff, from cleaners to doctors, from all over the country, were joined by members of the public fighting hospital closures in a mass lobby of parliament on Wednesday.

The November 1 action was the first action called by NHS Together – the coalition of TUC and non-TUC affiliated bodies who represent the workforce.

The day began with a photocall outside parliament and later saw trade unionists, anti-cuts campaigners and pensioners pour into Westminster to show their opposition to mass sackings, privatisation and hospital closures.

At the photocall, a spokesman for the doctors’ organisation, the British Medical Association (BMA), talked to News Line.

He said: ‘The main thing staff are demanding is to be listened to by the government over NHS reform.
‘The fact that all the health unions are here today, should give them an indication of the level of concern amongst frontline staff about the cuts, the level of redundancies and fragmentation of services.

‘Compulsory redundancies create an atmosphere of enormous unrest,’ he added.

Dominic Lewis, a recently qualified nurse from the University of Greenwich and a UNISON member, said: ‘I think all unions should be involved in this struggle.

‘The more voices we have, the less we can be ignored.’

He added: ‘Because of the job cuts, our supernumerary status is ignored and we’re used to make up the numbers on the wards, rather than given adequate time to fulfil our training outcomes, and that’s a really common complaint.

‘On qualification, there aren’t jobs waiting for us. It’s a real hunt.

‘I live in south-east London but I’m looking at jobs as far afield as Hackney.

‘You go on NHS Jobs and of all the staff nurses’ posts, there will be about ten maximum that will be suitable for a newly-qualified nurse.

‘If you can imagine, there’s 1,000 of us qualifying twice a year and we’re all going for the same few jobs.’

Frank Forde, chair of Bournewood Health UNISON branch, said: ‘The NHS in Surrey is being threatened on all sides by aggressive marketeering by this Labour government.

‘Two hospitals have been threatened with closure – the Royal Surrey in Guildford and Ashford and St Peters, based in Chertsey and Ashford.

‘We recently attended a mass rally in Guildford, in the Tory heartlands, where the Shadow Cabinet turned out, along with UNISON and other bodies, eminent surgeons from the Royal Surrey, and Liberal Democrat councillors and Labour councillors.

‘In excess of 6,000 people attended and there was a large media presence.

‘Our message to your newspaper is please support Middle England, which is in crisis.

‘Our NHS is under threat from privatisation on a massive scale and overseas bodies – i.e. insurance companies from places like America and Germany and France.

‘If we have to do this with a Labour government in, god knows what it would be like with a Conservative government in.’

He added: ‘Lots of our brothers and sisters are coming from all parts of the UK today to support us. This concerns every member of society, trade unionists, all professions.

‘This is the envy of the world, the NHS, and my friends abroad are astonished at what’s happening at the present.

‘We’re a very active branch and we organised a free coach for non-union and non-political people to come up today from Surrey.’

At Westminster Central Halls, workers were massing for the lobby of parliament and to hear speakers at a rally to launch NHS Together.

While the rally was taking place, Malkiat Bilku, the leader of the successful Hillingdon Hospital workers strike, and a UNISON shop steward at Hillingdon, told News Line: ‘The whole trade union movement should take action to defend the NHS and people’s jobs and conditions.

‘Hospitals are closing down, wards are closing down and people are being sacked, even doctors and nurses.

‘What Margaret Thatcher started, Blair is still doing it to the doctors and nurses and the people who really need to be treated by the NHS.

‘Remember when we were sacked, we didn’t ask for anything at all.

‘The private company just wanted to cut our wages to make profit, but they picked on the wrong people.

‘I think every union should take strike action to defend the NHS.

‘The TUC must call action by the whole trade union movement.’

Inside Westminster Central Halls, where all the unions had stalls, Andrew Rowland, vice-chair of the BMA junior doctors committee, spoke at length to News Line.

He said: ‘There are a lot of difficulties facing junior doctors and a lot of these come down to the financial state of the NHS and the way it’s being run at the moment.

‘For example, in order to balance the books because of the NHS deficit, Strategic Health Authorities – like the one covering Southampton for instance – have essentially cut the educational budget for junior doctors, saying explicitly that it is due to the financial situation.

‘It means that the money that’s given to junior doctors as part of their study leave – so they can go on educational courses which are part of their training to become a consultant or GP – is being cut.

‘Really it means the access to these educational activities is vastly reduced and that represents a real threat to patient care in the future.

‘These doctors are reliant on these educational courses to make sure they are trained to the highest possible standards in the future.’

He added: ‘Privatisation has gone too far and our members are worried that privatisation is continuing and about the effect that’s having on the morale of staff and the care of patients.

‘What our members asked us to do in May was sign up to the Keep the NHS Public campaign, which is what the junior doctors committee have done.

‘We would like the government to reaffirm the true values of the NHS as stated at its outset and what it was created for.

‘What’s happening here is a very good development, that the unions are pulling together to show the strength of feeling about the NHS.

‘The people in parliament are elected there – the issue is whether the people who vote them in have confidence in what they are doing.

‘I think people are worried and doctors feel there is a real pressure on them.

‘They are given targets by the government and are being asked to work within increasingly strict financial boundaries.’

Opening the rally at Westminster Central Halls, UNISON Head of Health Karen Jennings said: ‘This is an extremely important and historic event, all NHS unions – TUC affiliates and non-TUC affiliates – coming together as one, under the umbrella of the TUC, to make it crystal clear to politicians that the NHS is as important to people who work in it as it is to the people who use it.’

RCN nurses’ leader Beverly Malone said: ‘It’s our NHS, it’s our success story, we love and breathe its values.

‘The NHS has delivered social justice as well as quality care, making a difference rather than making a profit, transforming our lives and our society for the better.’

She condemned the government for making ‘reforms’ at ‘breakneck speed with eyes closed shut to the dangers ahead and ears closed to the warnings that a crash is imminent.’

Kevin Coyne, of Amicus, said: ‘The turnout here is a testament to your determination.’

He said that the ‘untested reforms’, and in particular the government’s ‘emphasis on competition’, were at the heart of the crisis in the NHS.

‘The government has lost its way. Our role is to bring the government back on track.

‘Amicus is opposed to the fragmentation and creeping privatisation of the NHS and is committed to fighting job losses. I believe we will win.’

UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis said: ‘Thousands of our members are at parliament lobbying their MPs.’

He said NHS staff ‘who have delivered so much’ deserved ‘more from this government than the failed privatisation policies.’

He said that after nine years the Labour government was making a ‘dangerous change in direction, with no discussion and no involvement of patients and those who provide the services.

‘The NHS is threatened as never before.

‘There are daily reports of cuts and redundancies and 80 per cent of nurses and physios who graduated in June have yet to get a job in our health service.

‘It’s a disgrace. A national tragedy is unfolding before our very eyes.

‘This has been the “best year’’ for private companies taking over the NHS!

‘NHS Logistics – a success story, having won the government’s own award for excellence – hived off to a German parcel company. Gratuitous privatisation.’

Prentis said that ‘in the past four months over 100,000 people have mobilised to save their local hospitals’, attacking MPs and government ministers trying to grab votes by joining protests against the policies they voted for and implemented in government.

He said that ‘the next few months will be critical’, pleading for the government to ‘listen to the people’.

He urged the government to keep faith ‘with those who’ve kept faith with the government, our NHS workers. . . Get to our MPs and our government and get them back in tune with the very people who voted them into office. . . before it’s too late.’

UNISON member Carole Shields, a paramedic, also addressed the rally.

She said: ‘I work for the London Ambulance Service, the largest ambulance service in the world.
‘Every single patient is important to us,’ she stressed. ‘We save lives.’

But, she said, a very disturbing and life-threatening development was now taking place that was leaving London Ambulance Service staff feeling angry and frustrated.

Ambulance crews could no longer simply take patients to hospital and hand them over to their colleagues in casualty.

‘No one is free to take in our patients,’ she said, adding that this was having a ‘knock-on effect’ on the ambulance service.

‘Nurses are overworked, there are not enough of them, and sometimes there are not enough beds and patients are transported miles out of London.

‘My colleague had to take a woman to a neo-natal bed in Portsmouth. It was three hours’ drive away and took that ambulance out of service for six hours.

‘There’s now a real feeling of sadness amongst my colleagues,’ Shields continued.

‘We want the government to listen to us when we tell them the truth about what’s happening, before the NHS descends into a shambles.’

Sally Russell, from Net Mums, spoke about the impact of cuts to the number of Health Visitors.

As the rally continued inside the hall, opponents of hospital closures around Britain were rallying and demonstrating outside.

Don Wilkes a member of the Keep The Horton General campaign, said: ‘The “General” is because we want to maintain a general hospital.

‘We came here today obviously because we’re under threat ourselves, but we feel there is a bigger picture.

‘This is a political thing. We are fighting against closure or reduction of services within our own hospital, but this is happening all over the country and therefore we feel to join a movement like Keep the NHS Public is part and parcel of our fight.

‘We will carry on maintaining the fight we have had locally.

‘So far this year we have had a rally which attracted up to 5,000 people, a hands around the hospital by 2,500 people, and then a march the other week, which attracted 3,000 people in spite of the torrential rain.

‘And we lobbied our MP Tony Baldry at parliament.’

As he was speaking there were loud chants of ‘Hands off the Horton’.

He continued: ‘There has to be a massive rally by the trade union movement to save District General Hospitals and stop all the cuts to the NHS.

‘We should be improving the services, not reducing them.

‘They’re making cuts so they take services 25 miles away, forcing patients to go as far afield as Oxford, even for services like emergency surgery, maternity and paediatrics.’

The rally continued throughout the day inside Westminster Central Halls.

Another speaker was Jacky Davis, a consultant radiologist from London and a member of the BMA Council.

She warned: ‘Local hospitals will be replaced by privately-run privately-owned polyclinics.

‘Patients, pensioners and healthcare workers are coming onto the streets against what is happening.
‘I hope the government is listening.’

She added: ‘The NHS is being privatised under the radar and without debate and with the public not told of the long-term consequences.’

She urged: ‘Call a halt to the privatisation and break-up of the NHS.

‘The NHS will keep going as long as there are people who have the faith to fight for it. I see those people today and they’re ready to fight.’

Gail Cartmail, assistant general secretary of Amicus, spoke about the number of Health Visitors being at an ‘all-time low’ and added that there were ‘no jobs for speech and language therapists’.

She warned that vital services were being ‘cut to the bone’.

News Line also spoke to health workers as they queued to lobby parliament.

Doris Smith, a retired Amicus member from Lewisham, said: ‘As a result of an NHS Forum meeting, we decided we should form a campaign group.

‘More people are joining us all the time and seven councillors have written letters of support to us and we’ve had the backing of two union branches.’