Kissing the NHS Goodbye? The NHS Bill – Saving the NHS from May and Trump Use your vote to save the #NHS

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May 3, 2017 by Protect Our NHS

 

This election will be critical in deciding the future of the NHS and all public services.

And the public meeting we’re hosting on 18th May now takes on a different complexion coming as it does just three weeks before the #GE2017. [Download a poster here]

The ‘manifesto’ position of Protect Our NHS (PoNHS) is simple:  we want to see a properly funded NHS and the reversal of the privatisation, fragmentation and rationing of our health services.

And this important event, entitled ‘The NHS Bill – Saving the NHS from May and Trump’,  brings together a panel of national and local experts who will share their extensive knowledge and experience of the issues facing the NHS and explain why the proposed NHS Bill is the real long-term solution to the crisis facing the NHS.

This is a crisis that is not caused by ‘abuse’ of the NHS by migrants, or health tourists, or the elderly, or over-weight smokers and drinkers. Conservative under-funding and the selling off of healthcare services are deliberate political policy decisions.

Many people don’t realise that the NHS is being dismantled and sold off bit by bit. That’s because the Government denies that it’s happening on a serious scale and because that famous blue NHS logo is still being used, even after privatisation.

BUT the facts tell a different story.

• 170 NHS GP surgeries are now owned by the 5 biggest private companies in private health care
• Manchester health leaders have just launched the biggest ever NHS tender as a £6bn contract is put on the market
• Here in the South West, Virgin Care have recently won a £700m contract in Bath and North East Somerset community health services, adding to their growing portfolio in Devon and Wiltshire.

Under the latest guise of the Sustainability and Transformation Plans, which will reduce health spend over the next 4 years by £305 million here in the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire region, imposed without public consultation and in defiance of local government resistance, the Government is accelerating the drive towards US-style healthcare.

PoNHS Coordinator and one of the meeting’s organisers, Mavis Zutshi, comments

“Theresa May’s readiness to offer up the NHS to Donald Trump in the negotiations for a UK – US trade deal now makes perfect sense … we are already seeing the packaging up of local health services into marketable parcels that will be attractive to private health companies. Ironically, Manchester could find that its re-packaged health and care service goes to an American health care giant.”

However, by Election Day we will all be clearer about where all the political parties stand on the NHS. And we will be reporting on them.

For the time being, we know the Greens are committed to the NHS Bill.

And while Labour has today pledged to halt the Sustainability and Transformation Plans, only 36 Labour MPs and 1 LibDem MP have come out in support of the NHS Bill.

It’s down to the public to fight for the NHS. The NHS needs your support now, more than ever before. 

Use your vote to save the #NHS

The meeting will take place on Thursday 18 May 2017 at 7.30 pm at The Trinity Centre, Trinity Road, Bristol, BS2 0NW  (info@3ca.org.uk)

The meeting is free – donations gratefully received. Book your ticket below.

www.eventbrite.com/e/the-nhs-reinstatement-bill-saving-the-nhs-from-trump-and-may-tickets-32725539971

The speakers are:

Peter Roderick, (lawyer and co-author with Professor Allyson Pollock of the NHS Bill to fully re-instate a publicly-owned, publicly-funded and publicly-run Health Service)

Caroline Molloy (editor of Our NHS/Open Democracy and health activist involved in successful campaigns against hospital privatisation in Gloucestershire)

Dr Rachel Grech (South Bristol GP, watch Three Biscuits and a Coffee – A day in the life of a GP)

For further information about the meeting contact protectournhs@gmail.com or Mavis Zutshi at mavis.zutshi@me.com or 07713133457 or Mike Campbell campbell.dongola@blueyonder.co.uk or 07891432224

www.protectournhs.wordpress.com

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Twitter: @NHSour

The NHS – For People NOT for Profit