Campaign groups combine to fight NHS cost-cutting

11:38am Tuesday 23rd January 2007

Comments (0)   Have your say »

TWO campaign groups are uniting against NHS cuts and privatisation after a national conference.

Last weekend in Euston, London, 30 branches of the Keep Our NHS Public campaign from across the country voiced concerns over the effects the private sector will have on hospitals and services.

Now the Greenwich branch of Keep Our NHS Public is to work with Bexley's Who Cares campaign to protest against proposed healthcare changes in their areas.

These include the Department of Health's (DoH) proposal to create two independent treatment centres at Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup, and St George's Hospital, Tooting.

The centres will be run by private company, Clinicenta, and will be supported by 10 community clinics, offering outpatient and minor procedure services in Bromley, Woolwich and Croydon.

They are part of the second phase of the DoH's £3.75bn treatment centre programme, which aims to reduce waiting times and give patients more choice.

But the Keep Our NHS Public campaign believes it will further destabilise hospitals, such as Queen Mary's and Woolwich's Queen Elizabeth Hospital, because it will divert money from the NHS to profit-making firms.

Members of the Who Cares campaign, run by manufacturing union Amicus, are also protesting against cuts in primary care services.

They include cutting district nursing hours from 15 to 12 hours a day by cutting the twilight service and the scrapping of personal, social, health and education nurses from primary schools.

Nurses will be replaced by normal teaching staff as part of the new sexual health service being implemented by the end of March.

The group organised a public meeting last month which gained the support of Erith and Thamesmead MP John Austin.

'FED UP WITH FAILURE TO LISTEN'

• Bexley Who Cares campaigner Caroline Riddell said: "We are fed up with the lack of consultation and failure to listen to users of the service.

"We are never told how much they are going to save in the proposals.

"We look forward to working with the Greenwich branch and launching some kind of regional campaign to save our NHS."

• Keep Our NHS Public chairman Frances Hook added: "I am excited to work with Bexley.

"It will make our campaign much stronger and we hope to work with the Lewisham group too.

"It's better to work together to stop the fragmentation and privatisation of the NHS."

• A Lewisham Keep Our NHS Public Campaign meeting will take place at 7.30pm on February 7 at the Civic Suite, Catford.