NHS
Private health centres fall flat
Rob Ray interviews a leading health watchdog on the rollout of Independent Sector Treatment Centres, which have faced strong criticism as heralding the start of privatisation for the NHS.
A leading NHS watchdog has attacked the government’s excuses for continuing their flagship Independent Sector Treatment Centre (ISTC) programme, even in the face of criticism from their own health committee.
ISTCs are private-sector providers of operations which are currently being licensed by the government as an alternative to the NHS.
NHS to start advertising
The government has announced plans to introduce marketing into the NHS alongside a pay-per-patient funding system that would see hospitals compete for patients and funds.
The plans come despite the apparent NHS 'budget crisis', which the government says makes their program of hospital closures and part-privatisations a neccessity. In recent months a series of mass demonstrations against these cuts have seen thousands take to the streets in towns accross the country.
Occupy and win - a manual for fighting hospital closures
A pamphlet produced in 1984 by London Health Emergency which is a guide for hospital workers on how - and why - to occupy hospitals to prevent their closure.
Introduction
libcom.org have scanned and put this text online today (in November 2006) since the issue of widespread hospital closures is again sadly very pressing - though this time round by a Labour government.
NHS staff protest outside parliament
Hundreds of NHS workers from 16 different Trade Unions rallied outside Parliament yesterday in opposition to health service privatisation.
United under the banner "NHS Together", doctors, nurses, midwives and support staff rallied in Parliament Square to protest at the pace of NHS reform, financial cutbacks and the government's use of the private sector in health care provision. The protestors were also joined by members of the National Pensioners Convention and the Keep Our NHS Public group.
Physiotherapy students protest against unemployment
Hundreds of physiotherapy students and graduates have converged on Holyrood to lobby MSPs over their "limited chances" of finding employment.
A Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) poll found that four months after graduating, 81% of physiotherapists were still looking for their first job. The CSP claimed that 28,000 patients were currently on a waiting list to see a physiotherapist. The Scottish Executive said a number of recruitment initiatives were under way.
Mass demonstrations against NHS cuts
Thousands of people have been marching today against the ongoing NHS cuts that are part of ‘cost saving’ privatisation measures designed to create a for-profit health service.
Police said that 7,000 turned out in Haywards Heath, West Sussex, where local press and even Tory MPs (despite privatisation being a core Tory policy) have been publicly speaking out in support of the march against cuts at the local hospital.
Health
Our analysis of what is wrong with the UK health system and National Health Service, the reasons behind it, and what we as ordinary people can do about it.
One-day national NHS strike
Workers at the supply agency NHS Logistics have walked out on a symbolic one-day strike to protest the planned privatisation of the logistics service, in the first national NHS strike for 18 years.
NHS Logistics is due to be sold to the transport company DHL at the beginning of October, and little more action is planned except potential further one-day strikes. According to Unison, other public-sector workers including fire-fighters and nurses have been visiting the pickets to show solidarity.
Three day strike at Whipps Cross Hospital
This week there was an escalation in the long running dispute betweeen cleaners, porters and switchboard staff, and their private employers at Whipps Cross Hospital in East London.
By yesterday lunchtime approximately forty workers were on the picket line for the first of three days of strike action involving around 200 members of staff, members of Unison. They are striking to gain "Agenda for Change" levels of wages, agreed three years ago but ignored by Rentokil Initial since they were due to come into force earlier this year.
More NHS Cuts?
Submitted by Joseph Kay on Aug 18 2006 08:12
BBC Report
Interesting points:
> apparently the plan is to centralise A&E into regional 'super centres' (the out of town superstore for health?)
