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Recent articles by Richard Duckworth
"Fight Cuts & Austerity" Bristol's May Day March - 4th May - 11am May 01 13 UK Green Party helps impose cuts in Bristol Apr 23 13 "Fight Cuts & Austerity" - Join Bristol's May Day March Apr 23 13 Unite union appeals to Labour to save the National Health Service bristol |
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opinion/analysis
 Tuesday February 05, 2013 19:27 by Richard Duckworth
 Britain’s largest trade union, Unite, held a public meeting in Bristol last week, “Health Reforms or Health Emergency”, with the stated aim of providing the public with “a chance to vent its anger at the government’s privatisation of the NHS”. The meeting was attended by approximately seventy people, mainly composed of local trade union representatives and members of Unite’s National Industrial Sector Committee, who were shipped in to go through the motions of opposition. Considering that they are 60,000 health workers in the South West and 10,000 in Bristol alone that are at the centre of a huge attack on their working conditions by a pay cartel of hospital trusts, the turnout was pitiful. Unite’s claims of being a “fightback union” carries little weight among health workers, who have drawn lessons from the years of inaction and systematic betrayal of their struggles and “give backs” to management. The meeting was opened with a meandering and dispirited contribution from Unite Head of Health Rachael Maskell, who outlined the devastating results of the Conservative/Liberal government £20 billion cuts to the National Health Service (NHS). Maskell informed the meeting how the cuts were resulting in “shedding jobs and we are not talking just a handful of jobs but hundreds and thousands of jobs… For some of our members they have lost over a third of their income already under this government and there is more to come”. She said she was not “painting a pretty picture” of the state the NHS and that the only objective of the government’s health reforms was to “maximise profit out of this industry”. Maskell is incapable of explaining how under the watch of a union she says serves “the best interests of its members” a social counter-revolution is being carried out, resulting in the dismantling of the health service and massive job losses. Unite and the other health unions protested that the South West pay cartel was a Trojan horse constructed by the government and trust executives to overturn national pay and work conditions, but have done nothing to oppose it. Instead they used the formation of the cartel as an excuse to agree a national deal without a fight in November 2012. Cuts to wages and conditions include many of those demanded by the pay cartel—the introduction of performance-based incremental progression, an end to sickness absence enhancements and removal of accelerated pay progression for some workers. The health unions have prevented any kind of united struggle developing amongst health workers, patients, youth, the wider public and other workers under attack. This has taken the form of channelling any struggle against the £20 billion cuts into fruitless petitions, demonstrations and lobbying to “send a message” to the very people who view the NHS as a sixty year mistake that should be dismantled lock, stock and barrel. Prime Minster David Cameron, Chancellor George Osborne and Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt, et al couldn’t give two hoots for the begging letters of the trade unions. Of course no mention was made of the how the unions agreed to reduced pension benefits (Maskell referred to it as the “big pensions robbery”) at the same time as the retirement age was increased. Addressing the two year pay freeze imposed in 2010, she informed the meeting that NHS workers’ wages will not be frozen this year but will still be cut, saying, “We had a pay freeze and we don’t know what’s going to be happening from April, but it could well be that we get a one percent but it may not be one percent, in real terms a pay cut.” Maskell ended her speech with a call “to fight this. It’s a tough, tough challenge, but we have to fight it and we have to fight it on every single level… We have to fight back, we can’t capitulate.” She proposed nothing concrete. It was left to Bristol NHS Trust’s Staff Side Secretary, and Amicus union national executive council member (and Respect party member), Gill George, to masquerade as a representative of a radical, progressive “left wing” within the impotent and treacherous unions. George outlined how the Labour Party unreservedly supports public spending cuts, pay cuts for public sector workers, attacks on public pensions and that Labour MPs and councillors are not “throwing themselves behind every fight to defend the NHS”. However, she still continued to peddle the illusion that it was possible to have a “robust discussion with Labour” that will convince them to “oppose the cuts, pledge for absolute clarity to stop and reverse the privatisation of the NHS and build a campaign…and call a national demonstration to save the NHS.” It would have been just a little too uncomfortable for George to remind the meeting that the last Labour government was responsible for creating record levels of social inequality, initiated the privatisation of the NHS via its PFI programme, introduced a minimum wage that in reality legalised destitution levels of pay and was composed of war criminals who enthusiastically supported the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan (George is a member of the Stop the War Coalition). George then proceeded to promote the claim that it was possible “to take the fight forward…led by the unions who are up for a fight” and that the Trades Union Congress (TUC) was seriously “consulting at the moment on a general strike.” She called for the TUC to hold a national demonstration for the NHS, arguing that “Unite as the biggest union in the TUC, biggest union in Britain, union with excellent fight back policies, I think it’s the job of Unite to call that demonstration” and that “the Labour Party should join this call”.
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Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25The NHS needs a change of attitude from within. It is not all about money and poor management - tho both do not help. A lot of it is about the attitude of people within the NHS.
It may be wise to wait for todays report, which I understand will make suggestions that Stafford was not a one off, before taking any action that may backfire.
A lot of us within the NHS feel think and believe that a General Strike is the only way to save the NHS, and to get the self-serving Tory sociopaths out of office, and to end their insane austerity measures which allows the 1% to enrich themselves further at the expense of the 99%
Any 1 NHS worker is worth more than any 99 Tories!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21341766
A general strike will do what?
Hack off those wanting treatment and give them even more cause for concern?
Please stop hiding you political agenda behind the obvious problems that we have with the NHS.
We know you are trying to hype up your own political bandwagon - but it does not work - people see right through the hype and the spin.
A general strike is exactly what the country needs right now, and with the NHS at the centre of it, we can't lose.
And at the same time the tories will show themselves up for the heartless greedy bastards they really are, they have always sought to undermine and destroy OUR NHS, then privatise health-care in this country.
I take it that is written by someone who is employed within the NHS on a "nice little earner" and an even better pension and who judged by the recent report is more keen on protecting their own (OUR) cushdy jobs than protecting and actually looking after patients!
The Stafford Hospital report is a real eye opener, does anyone REALLY think that a general strike now given all the recent incidences of appalling NHS care would get any support at all from the general public?
Little wonder they do not want their (OUR) cozy jobs to be looked at!
On Saturday 25,000 people marched through the South East London borough of Lewisham, to protest the threat to close Lewisham hospital’s Accident & Emergency unit and to downgrade its maternity ward.
Workers, college and university students, retirees and families marched past Lewisham Hospital and rallied in Mountsfield Park. Workers at factories, hospitals, fire stations and shops stood and cheered the protest.
The closure and downgrading are part of government-appointed special administrator Mathew Kershaw’s proposals to dissolve the South London NHS Trust (SLHT) which runs Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup, Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich and the Princess Royal University Hospital in Bromley. The Trust serves a population of 1.7 million across six boroughs.
Last July the Conservative/Liberal Democrat government appointed Kershaw under the “Regime for Unsustainable NHS Providers” due to debts largely accrued under forced Private Finance Initiative (PFI) schemes. This is the first time such a measure has been used since passed into law by the last Labour government’s 2009 Health Act.
Although Lewisham is not part of SLHT, it is being drawn into a major restructuring process with widespread closures and selling off. The government is planning to deploy the same provisions against 21 other National Health Service Trusts.
In contrast to workers sentiment on the protest to defend National Health Service (NHS) service provision throughout Britain and a struggle against the Tory/Lib-Dem coalition, the protest was organised by Save Lewisham Hospital campaign that boasts of support from Tory, Liberal Democrat and Labour Party MPs. The chair of the rally cited Bob Stewart, Conservative Party MP for Beckenham as a supporter of the campaign as well as Simon Hughes, a senior Liberal Democrat. Right wing journalist and radio host Nick Ferrari was also invited to speak and said hospitals “have closed” and will “continue” to close, but the closure of Lewisham hospital is so “unjust”.
Lewisham East Labour Party MP Heidi Alexander said she spoke on behalf of all Lewisham MPs when asking why a “successful” and “solvent” hospital is being used to solve NHS problems elsewhere.
Socialist Equality Party campaigners opposed such efforts to isolate the fate of Lewisham hospital from the fate of the NHS nationally. Thousands of copies of the statements “Fight back needed to defend the National Health Service” and “Government prepares to dissolve South London National Health Service Trust” were distributed. (These and other statements on the SEP’s NHS Fightback initiative are available here:
Chris, a student at Kings College in London was among those who spoke to the campaigning team about why he was attending the demonstration. “I’m angry at the amount of money I have to pay to go to university! I’m angry that they took away my EMA! At them making my mum redundant last year, and there’s no jobs for her to get! That’s because the economy is in such a horrible condition, because of what they’ve done. There are many, many reasons.”
He continued, “The NHS is the greatest thing we have in this country. It’s the best thing that came out of World War II for sure. I used to go to the hospital in Sidcup, but that was closed down. I was planning to go to the one in Lewisham, now that’s being closed down. I will have to go to the one in Woolwich, which is really far from me. And already when you go, there are massive queues. I can’t imagine how it can cope with the other two hospitals closing down.”
Asked what he thought of the role of the Labour Party, Chris said, “Didn’t the Labour Party start the privatisation, not that long ago? They’re just as bad. They don’t say that they want to stop the cuts. They want to make cuts just like the Tories do. I don’t see how they’re any better. They’re all conspiring against you. The people at the top of the unions remind me of the politicians, corrupt, power-hungry.”
Kevin, a social worker, explained, “I’ve used Lewisham A&E before—the whole family have—and I can’t imagine how we would do without it. Woolwich [A&E] looks like a warzone already. I’m old enough to know that every time a Tory government (or a coalition in this case) come in they’ll start chipping away at funding for the NHS, because fundamentally they don’t believe in it. They want it to be like America with everyone paying into insurance companies. Americans pay three times more for their health care than we do here in Britain for the NHS. British people want the NHS to stay. It’s as simple as that.”
Stacey, a teacher, said, “I think the NHS needs the funding. It is a fantastic concept and it should be defended. If there are attacks on it they would be essentially coming from capitalist firms seeing opportunities for profit. Everybody should have equal opportunity to get the services and treatment they deserve, irrespective of where they are in the country. I think it’s very important that the NHS remains in the governance of the country, in public ownership. We have to have health available to everyone on the planet. The NHS is a model.”
Stephanie explained, “The A&E has saved the lives of three members of my family. If we hadn’t been so close, we all would have died. I had anaphylactic shock from a wasp sting. My husband had a stroke. My son had meningitis, very badly. They saved all of our lives! If we’d had to go up to Woolwich, none of us would be alive today.”
Janis, a Lewisham resident said, “If you close the A&E and Maternity then basically you’re closing Lewisham Hospital. We can’t afford to lose the hospital and there’s no need… It’s just had a new A&E department built at the cost of millions of pounds. It’s a good hospital. It serves the public. It’s outrageous that anyone should think of closing it! This is symptomatic of the larger attack. The NHS is the larger case and Lewisham Hospital doesn’t stand independent of that.”
Emma said, “I’m here because I don’t want to see Lewisham A&E close. It’s a perfectly good hospital. It’s had lots of investment in it. It’s running really well. It’s tragic! I’ve had such good value out of the NHS really. I feel really sad to think that the care that I’ve had from the NHS over the last couple of years might not be available for other people. Obviously there are locally specific issues, such as the debt of the neighbouring trust. But it is part of a wider policy of PFI and NHS cuts—neither of which I agree with.”
Michael, a local government worker said, “I’m totally against the closure of the A&E of Lewisham Hospital. All of that traffic will have to be diverted to other hospitals, which are overwhelmed already. Then there’s the distance that residents would have to travel, which is totally unreasonable. We’re paying into this service, but it’s being diminished bit by bit by bit, and we’re paying more and more and more. Those who’ve got money can pay for private health care and get the best service. But if you don’t, you need to deal with what’s there. So we working class people need to stand up and say something.”
Received on my mob.
"Stafford NHS Trust has been Twinned with Dignitas Switzerland."
With jokes like that going the rounds, if anyone thinks that the general public will stand for more of the same from the NHS and its employees at ALL levels, then they are very much mistaken.
NHS enemies will declare the service broken.
But it is not.
Mid Staffs will be used to justify further reforms – and of the very kind that contributed to that horror in the first place.
NHS: no one is safe, shouted the Times front page, among others in the rightwing press. The horror story of cruelty and neglect in Mid Staffs arrives as a ready-made justification for this government's fragmentation of the NHS. You don't need much political nous to detect Jeremy Hunt and his press softening up the public for the idea that the private sector now taking over many NHS contracts will better prevent such outrages in future. With 1.3m patients seen every 36 hours, the NHS, they say, is a Red Army-sized monolith beyond quality control.
The health service is painfully tarred by this appalling event – and Robert Francis QC is quite right to say it could happen again. Anywhere things can go badly awry, as five other hospitals fall under suspicion. But that frightener needs to be balanced by reading the enormous NHS patient surveys showing these things are rare: more than 90% of patients leaving hospital say their care was good or very good. Ipsos Mori's long series of opinion polling tells a story of high appreciation. The recent unprecedented drop in public attitudes towards the NHS in the British Social Attitudes survey was caused by alarm at the government's NHS and Social Care Act.
Much indignation this week has fixed on nurses: Cameron used the moment to call for performance-related pay. "Bring back Matron!" some cried, again, imagining some ubiquitous Hattie Jacques. Surely, MPs said, running a ward is easy? It's not rocket science for nice nurses to care kindly, keep people clean and out of pain, feed the frail and answer bedside buzzers? But it's not easy at all. It requires good functioning of a highly complex well-oiled machine.
On the day of the Francis report, I visited one of the nation's best hospitals, directed to University College Hospital London on the advice of both the Care Quality Commission and the Royal College of Nursing. Talking to ward sisters here, you soon see what a remarkably tough managerial job it is to care for 36 patients with different conditions, on a rapid turnover. Simple things – from ordering pens, fixing a printer or mending a bash in the wall made by a clumsy porter – take many calls and much frustration. Hiring new nursing assistants means sifting 250 applications from the inefficient NHS jobs website. What a time it takes to arrange discharging patients needing community care from different local authorities, district nurses and GPs, while doctors chafe at beds not emptied fast enough for new cases. Bed occupancy is near 100%, as in most hospitals: scrupulous care over infection control is a constant worry, as is preventing bedsores. Cleaning and housekeeping needs supervising, so do the ward's stores.
As for care, patients with dementia have red water jugs and trays, so everyone knows they can't help themselves: at mealtimes nurses stand in each bay, ensuring everyone is helped to eat and drink. No central nursing station tempts staff to hang around: they do paperwork at benches beside patients. Supervising 30 staff means watching to see they obey the hospital code: "safety, kindness, team-work and improving." Ward sisters complain they spend less than half their time hands-on nursing, but they do start each day at 7am, helping to wash and breakfast patients to prove they are not "too posh to wash".
However good they are at their difficult job, they all said the same: the system is what matters, from the top board to all those departments behind the scenes, including the "bureaucrats" politicians like to sneer at. Short-staffing wrecked decent care at Mid Staffs but the key at UCLH is the board's decision to make nursing quality the priority. The board guarantees the right number of staff for each ward, calculated on case-mix with a formula used by 10 other university hospitals. If ever nursing levels fall in a ward, beds are closed. And as that means a drop in income, the board's orders are that nursing must be kept at the prescribed level with no use of expensive agency temps.
Is everything here 100%? No, I have heard occasional grumbles from UCLH patients who say some wards are better than others: perfection amid such complexity is probably beyond human possibility. Though most NHS patients are well satisfied, let no one think it's easy.
Francis delivers a solemn warning: what destroyed Mid Staffs was the rush to cut £10m to become a foundation trust. Don't let finance drive out quality, he warns. But his wise suggestion that care and finance be regulated together by Monitor joining the Care Quality Commission has been summarily rejected by Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary.
With the NHS suffering its harshest squeeze, Sir David Nicholson, head of the NHS Commissioning Board, may rue the day the £20bn cut from day-to-day running was dubbed "the Nicholson challenge". The Mail and victims' families call for his head, for his regional role at the time of the scandal. But the government was quick to clasp him tight. As the shaky new edifice totters towards April's start day, he is seen as the one firm hand to step in whenever disaster looms.
He may face a far bigger question over the next two years: why did he not speak out against this vast and reckless re-disorganisation when he might have stopped it? He joked sardonically that it is "big enough to see from space", as £3bn is squandered on 90,000 staff moving jobs, while 6,000 nursing jobs are lost. He failed to blow the whistle, when he might have sunk this plan.
Francis calls for a new NHS culture of "candour" with fear banished and whistleblowing encouraged. But gagging clauses, self-censorship and dread of speaking out is rife. Read the press releases of the NHS Confederation, representing managers, to see just how craven they have been over the Lansley plan. They supported government all the way, despite knowing all the pitfalls in the tangled spaghetti of a management organogram they are expected to run. Royal Colleges objected, but managers blindly obeyed: this was not so in the 1980s and 1990s. Unless their attitude changes, there will be no openness for staff in the service they manage.
Balancing agonisingly tight finance with good quality will be phenomenally difficult, requiring honesty about hard choices ahead. The danger is that NHS enemies will seize on the current crunch to declare the service broken. But they should remember how Danny Boyle's Olympic spirit revealed a strength of public passion they defy at their peril.
Polly Toynbee.
And oh how I wish it were true!
Yes the rules say that water jugs should be red to signify those that need help.
Trouble is the rules get bent.
Like the wards where the do not test for C.dif because Clostridium difficille is as the name describes - difficult to culture and so identify.
And if you do not look for it - you can "honestly" say you have not found it!
The NHS DOES need reform.
What the public feel about how their loved ones are treated is NOT dictated by some huge pantomime event from the Olympics - nor is it overly influenced by the spin of a Guardian Hack like Poly Toynbee.
They ARE influenced by real events and the damning verdict of the subsequent enquiries.
It was not just poor management - though goodness knows that played a part.
A very high proportion was simply NHS employees not giving a toss for those in their care.
No amount of cut and paste silly articles will change THAT damning verdict.
When do we want it?
NOW!
Let's get these greedy self-serving conservative scum out of our NHS NOW!
'The NHS DOES need reform.'
Indeed it does. We're having an issue with staff shortages, and those who are there being burnt out, over-worked, massively stressed and consequently unable to provide high quality care.
The solution, however, is not to privatise care so that even more corners will be cut so as to make hospitals profitable. Its to employ more people and spend more money on healthcare. Which when you have a rabidly neoliberal government is never going to be the case.
How does an organisation like the NHS fit in with the Anarchist scheme of things?
The previous reforms under NGMs and Trust status by Blairs government in 2004 gave rise to the problems within the NHS that now need to be dealt with.
Indeed the abuse carried out at Stafford was when Labour was in power.
I am no Conservative supporter - but I despair at the ignorance of reality shown in some of the posts above.
The timing of when events took place are lost on the rabid anti anti anti's.
I say to you - SOD OFF! - We want an NHS that works for patients - Blairs reforms are to blame for most of the problems. Your stupid spin blaming those in government now is laughable!
Calling for General Strike might let you get your juvenile rocks of but what that will do for patients is obviously beyond your comprehension. Such a call will get short shrift by those who have had experience of the appalling care offered by some NHS facilities.
And sadly - that is a large number of people.
The only real future for the NHS, its patients, its users, the caring staff, and the country generally, is to take out this Tory Toffs government by any means necessary.
I do not give a shit if the Tories are in power or what - politician are all the same as far as I am concerned.
The problem of Stafford NHS Hosp Trust took place whilst the pseudo tories blair and brown were in power. And it was NOT just management it was general nhs employees appalling attitude to patients that was just as much the issue.
trying to make out that the idiots now in charge have sole responsibility is really stupid - does anyone really think that the NHS's problems will be changed by removing cameron and his poodle and putting in millibrand? Get real PLEASE!
A change of government is not what is needed - it is a change of attitude within the NHS.
Best thing about the latest recommendations is the idea of criminal responsibility for those devoid of the ability to do their jobs properly or simply not caring enough to do so.
Of course those who do not wish to have their cosy lifestyles come under such scrutiny will scream and shout and call for a change of government and to "get the tories out" or a general strike or some such other nonsense - but it is all so much displacement activity by people out of touch with public opinion.
Wake up and smell the hibiscrub (or more likely the lake of it )
I doubt those asking for a general strike or a change of government have anything to do with the NHS and certainly have never experienced a loved one suffer in the likes of Stafford Hospitals.
With you sister!
Me too Carol :)
You have many more friends than you realise Carol, a lot of people are with you and ready to stand by your side, ignore the stupid reactionary 1%er, we are the 99%, and we know what nurses are really worth!!!
Being a so called "reactionary" in the eyes of the few who want the money but not the responsibility? - then so be it.
Oh and - 99% my arse!
The good people in the NHS know that change is needed. The poor ones just want more of the same and "please don't make a fuss patients - I want a quiet life - and if that means you have to drink water out of a water vase because I cannot be arsed to do my job properly then that is just tough - inn't !"
Patients died because of poor management and lack of care - read the reports.
If you went to the patient groups and said you wanted to have a strike to protect the status quo - you would get a REAL taste of "reactionaries".
I suggest you do that rather than trying to defend the indefensible.
Our best hope for the future is to organise for a general strike on May 1st, if that is too soon, then in the summer, say June 21st.
I am having my nails done on the 1st May and I am on holiday last two weeks of June
What about September? - October looks good also.
Just to correct something. Gill George would be offended (I suspect) as being described as a member of Respect. She is, in fact, a member of the Socialist Workers Party.
I have been a union rep for years, and in my work-life I have come to know almost every other union worker in the south-west.
As a matter of principle I have taken 6 months leave from my job in the NHS for the purposes of campaigning full-time to get these greedy selfish self-serving tory bastards out of office by any means necessary!
Top of my agenda is bringing on a general strike at the first opportunity!
'Emergency queues hit 10-year high with over 230,000 patients waiting more than four hours to be seen'
More than 230,000 patients waited in excess of four hours to be seen in accident and emergency departments in the last three months of 2012.
The figure is an increase of 38 per cent over the previous quarter.
The number of patients waiting to be admitted to a ward after emergency treatment was also at a ten-year high.
Critics said the figures were a clear sign that NHS cuts were biting. Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said: ‘A&E departments are suffering their worst winter for a decade.’
The figures come from researchers at the King’s Fund, which also found growing numbers of NHS managers warning that health care had suffered in the past 12 months.
The government’s target that no more than five per cent of patients must wait more than four hours to be seen in A&E is also close to being breached.
Dr Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said ‘efficiency savings must not come at the expense of patient care’.
He added: ‘We cannot continue to ignore the warnings about the detrimental effects of increasing financial pressure.’
The Department of Health said it was trying to move away from time targets, and that a four-hour measure was ‘too narrow’.
People were spending longer in A&E departments because they were providing a more comprehensive service than in the past, it claimed.
The Tories have always hated the whole concept of 'Universal health-care' they see it as being 'socialist' and therefore it must be destroyed and privatised.
"Consulting on a general strike".
Is that the one where the unions lock the cancer patients out of the hospitals? Just like you did in the 1970's? How nice.