STRIKE for mandatory minimums

This is the text of a leaflet produced by the 4:1 Campaign for the NHS pay strike on November 24th. Download the leaflet here for printing and distributing on NHS picket lines.

The government’s pay cut is part of a determined policy to slash our salaries and reduce the cost of nursing in the NHS.  It is part of the same strategy to marketise and privatise our priceless NHS.  It is clear the government sees nurses as a cost to the NHS and not as a clinical resource with direct positive effect on patient outcomes and quality of care.  NHS Trusts are chronically under-staffed all over the UK, thousands of vacancies are left unfilled and Trusts are replacing qualified nurses with health care assistants, all with the intention of reducing their costs at the expense of patient care and outcomes.

It is time we took action to stop the erosion of our salaries but it’s also time we took action against the chronic understaffing, the constant poor care scandals and the exhausting and demoralising conditions nurses are working in.  We have taken the blame for poor care standards and have put up with atrocious staffing conditions for too long.  We need minimum qualified nurse to patient ratios and we need them to be made law.

A handy factsheet about immigrants and health tourism courtesy of the NHAP

A handy factsheet about immigrants and health tourism to help counter the UKIP lies:

Most immigrants who come here young, healthy, work+pay taxes. They pay in MORE than they take out: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/05/migration-target-useless-experts

Twice as many foreign visitors pay to use the NHS as exploit free health care: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/05/migration-target-useless-experts

UK is a net beneficiary of health tourism. Immigrants account for 4.5% of the population in England, but they are responsible for less than 2% of NHS expenditure: https://www.rsm.ac.uk/about-us/media-information/2014-media-releases/immigration-bill-will-pose-risk-to-public-health.aspx

Non-EEA migrants contribute 2% more in taxes than is spent on them, making them net contributors to the UK: https://www.rsm.ac.uk/about-us/media-information/2014-media-releases/immigration-bill-will-pose-risk-to-public-health.aspx

More British people get treatment abroad than foreigners get treatment here:http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/oct/24/medical-tourism-generates-millions-nhs-health

Medical tourism generates millions for NHS and wider economy: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/oct/24/medical-tourism-generates-millions-nhs-health

BMA warns income from charging migrants won’t even cover the cost of administration: http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/political/political-news/bma-rejects-plans-to-charge-migrants-for-nhs-care/20004087.article#.U86MZpRdWSo

Actual cost of health tourism = 0.06% of the total NHS budget: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/10/how-much-does-health-tourism-really-cost-nhs-its-not-%C2%A32bn

The NHS would collapse without immigrants – more than a third of registered doctors completed their primary medical qualification outside the UK: http://www.gmc-uk.org/State_of_medicine_Final_web.pdf_44213427.pdf

More than 5,000 nurses come to UK from EU, as training for home-grown staff has been cut: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/nhs/10828893/Number-of-foreign-nurses-up-50pc-in-a-year.html

Striking to lose – problems facing the NHS industrial action

Note: This article was written before the decision to call off local government strikes by UNISON, Unite and GMB.

The media is widely reporting the decision by NHS unions to stage the first strike over pay in 32 years. Contrary to the media reports, this action is not the result of widespread frustration over poor pay deals, but the fact that health unions finally decided to ballot their members for action, after 32 years of accepting pay deals. NHS staff have had 4 years of a pay freeze, and the 1% pay offer withdrawn by the government was only the latest in a long line of injustices heaped on NHS workers, including privatisations, cuts and scapegoating for the failures of government policy.

What is different now is the context; the NHS unions are facing both anger from their memberships, and a crisis of legitimacy. UNISON, UNITE and the RCN have presided over the wholesale destruction of the NHS at the hands of the Tory government. While UNITE has been willing to act oppositionally, backing community campaigns and local demonstrations, the leaderships of UNISON and the RCN have been completely acquiescent to the governments agenda, the RCN even collaborating with the government over the Health and Social Care Bill.

With this legacy behind them the, withdrawal of the governments pay offer forced the unions to ballot over pay in order to shore up their credibility, and maintain the appearance of opposition to the government after allowing their members to take a kicking for the last 4 years with no serious attempts at confronting the governments agenda.

Cameron’s plan for 7 day a week GP access is an empty populist pledge

Reaction to David Cameron’s pledge of 7 day a week GP access from co-leader Dr Clive Peedell  (below) and London GP, Dr Louise Irvine.

NHA’s Dr Louise Irvine, London GP and prospective parliamentary candidate for SW Surrey, the seat of Jeremy Hunt:

“This is utter nonsense. It is an empty populist pledge. Many of the pilot schemes that he claims have been a success haven’t even got off the ground, so where’s the evidence that they are effective?​

£100 million cannot even begin to make up for the loss of funding to maintain existing GP services never mind extending them to 7 days.

£100 million is about £2/person/year. For an average GP practice of 6000 patients that means an extra £12000 a year. For that the practice would have to be open 60% longer than currently (from 52.5 hours to 84 hours a week) and pay doctors, nurses and admin staff to be there. That would be approximately 1500 extra hours a year – £8 for every extra hour opened. That would not even pay for a receptionist for the surgery never mind the medical staff to provide the service.

This is a bad joke and shows how disdainful the Tories are of ordinary people and their health services. Instead of recognising and tackling the real crisis in general practice – not enough GPs, £1 billion of funding cuts to GP services over past 5 years and a recruitment crisis where young doctors are not choosing general practice and older ones are retiring early – Cameron is pretending that if you give a measly £100 million that will somehow sort the problems in general practice.

National Health Action Party - Support for NHS Strike

Statement from the National Health Action Party

Health workers in England are to stage a four-hour strike on 13 October, the Unison union has announced.Up to half a million NHS staff could take part in the strike action over pay, after being denied a 1% salary rise by the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, despite a recommendation by the independent Pay Review Body. It will be the first NHS strike in 32 years.

Statement from Dr Clive Peedell, co-leader of the National Health Action Party:

“We can’t run the NHS without suitable staff, we can’t improve the NHS without more staff, and we can’t recruit staff if pay keeps falling behind inflation and comparable jobs.

“The nationally agreed pay system established in the last decade is now under sustained attack. It’s outrageous that Jeremy Hunt has refused even a meagre 1% pay rise for many NHS staff. It’s also disingenuous to claim there has to be a choice between paying staff at agreed rates and inflicting savage cuts, especially when those cuts flow from the 5-year spending freeze brought in by his government.

“The fact that NHS staff have been driven to take strike action speaks volumes for the damaging, morale-sapping policies this government has inflicted on them.

For these reasons, we support this strike action.”

What strategy for the NHS pay strike?

With both UNISON and UNITE balloting for strike action and action short of a strike in the NHS, there is an urgent need for discussion among health activists of how we ensure the strikes are successful and strengthen our fight for to save the NHS, and don't result in disillusionment and disorganisation of our members.

While a ballot for action is welcome in the NHS, and long overdue, there are serious problems with the action the leaderships of UNISON and UNITE are proposing.

How can we save the NHS?

This pamphlet is a contribution to the debate over how we organise and campaign to save the NHS. It has been produced by the International Socialist Network and is available to download and distribute.

Banner at the Block the bridge action

What will it take to save the NHS? Almost all avenues have been tried in one way or another. This pamphlet attempts to advance a strategy for uniting the different forces involved in NHS campaigns into a movement which can mobilize the great mass of NHS staff and our patients, the public, in the mass social movement that is needed to halt the programme of cuts and privatisation dismantling the NHS. It does not focus on the attacks, by successive Tory and Labour governments, but rather the response of unions, professional bodies and grassroots activists.

Why is there no national campaign to save the NHS?

This is a repost of an old article I wrote in 2012, about the lack of action by the unions and professional organisations to defend the NHS. Given how little action they have organised in the two years following this articles publication, its time those of us committed to defending the NHS take the lead and organise a national movement to save it.

Why, in the face of massive opposition, is more not being done to stop the government’s privatisation of the NHS?

Aneurin Bevan famously said that “The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it” With the Health and Social Care Bill lurching ever closer to being passed, the big question in activists minds is; where is the national campaign to stop it? The jewel in the crown of the welfare state is about to be stolen from us, about to be handed over to greedy entrepreneurs and private finance. Britain could soon be a place where profit is made out of sickness.

Save our Surgeries on the 66th birthday of the NHS

July 5 marked the 66th birthday of the NHS. Unfortunately it was no cause for celebration as the government continues its attempts to dismantle the NHS. To mark the day, hundreds marched through the streets of East London in protest against cuts to GP funding which threaten to devastate GP services in some of the most deprived parts of the country.

As part of their attacks on the NHS, the government is changing the way funding is allocated to GP services. Traditionally funding has been allocated based on deprivation, with greater funding based on greater need. This has now been changed to allocate more funds to areas with older, rather than more deprived, populations. Given that life expectancy is shorter in more deprived areas, and longer in wealthier areas, this change is resulting in funding being reallocated from poorer to richer areas, increasing health inequalities and depriving those areas most in need of the resources to run vital services.

Statement on Unison London Regions treatment of NHS activist

I write as a dedicated UNISON activist in the NHS who is facing obstructive and bullying treatment from regional officials, and sometimes from branch officials.

When attempting to organise members to oppose cuts to vital services and try and halt the privatisation of our NHS, I have found my activity called into question or curtailed frequently by officials of the largest union in the public sector, which purports to be defending the NHS.

I am asking UNISON nationally and the NEC to investigate these abuses and ensure that members democratic rights are protected within and without the union, and that they are not
obstructed in their vital work of trying to organise NHS workers to protect the NHS.

What kind of campaign do we need – a review of RCN report “Running the Red Light”

This review was written by a member of the 4:1 Campaign. I reproduce it here as its a valuable contribution to the discussion of what sort of strategy nurses need to effect change in the NHS.

Despite growing calls for mandatory minimum nurse-patient ratios, government cuts are reducing the number of nurses on the wards.

In 2013 three high profile investigations (Francis, Keogh and Berwick) identified inadequate nursing levels as a key factor in high mortality rates and poor patient safety. On the back of these findings, the RCN’s Running the Red Light report warns of a critical nursing crisis.

The report finds that 5,870 full-time equivalent nursing posts have been cut since May 2010 and an estimated 20,000 posts are being kept vacant. 27% of NHS employers have plans to further reduce the nursing workforce this year. By the government’s own reckoning there will be a shortage of 47,545 nurses by 2016 (with a worse case scenario of nearly 200,000 shortfall).

Some trusts are now recruiting but there are not enough student nurses to fill the vacancies. Since 2010 there has been a 15% drop in the number of student nurse placements. 22% of trusts are actively recruiting overseas with a further 9% exploring this option.

The report argues that trusts are not commissioning the universities to train the next generation of nurses. But there is also a problem of retention; many newly qualified nurses leave the profession within a few years, driven away by impossible working conditions.