Please Support the Campaign for the Reinstatement of a Publicly-Owned NHS

Ever since the Tory-led coalition government passed the wretched Health and Social Care Act in 2011 (after David Cameron blatantly lied to the British people, by falsely promising “no more of the tiresome, meddlesome, top-down re-structures that have dominated the last decade of the NHS”), privatisation of the greatest and most important institution in the UK, the NHS (National Health Service, founded in 1948), has been increasing to an alarming degree.

As Headway, the brain injury association, described the impact of the Health and Social Care Act, “The Secretary of State no longer has a duty to provide health services through the NHS, which increases the opportunity for private health care firms to deliver many services that were previously operated by the NHS.” The bill also replaced the bodies responsible for commissioning services — Primary Care Trusts and Strategic Health Authorities — with Clinical Commissioning Groups, nominally under the control of GPs (responsible for 60-80% of the NHS budget), but also providing another opportunity for private health care firms to infiltrate the NHS.

I campaigned against the passage of the Health and Social Care Act at the time (see here and here), and then became heavily involved in the successful campaign to save my local hospital, in Lewisham, in south east London, from savage cuts (see here, here and here). Last year I campaigned to resist the Tories’ spiteful response to Lewisham’s success, which became known as the “hospital closure clause” (see here and here), and covered the People’s March for the NHS, a grass-roots initiative that involved a recreation of the Jarrow March from the 1930s to save the NHS (see here and here).

One of the organisers of the People’s March for the NHS was Joanna Adams, who has continued to maintain a campaigning website, 999 Call for the NHS, which, on Saturday, had an open letter published in the Guardian, signed by numerous health professionals and high-profile supporters, which I’m posting below.

The letter also asks people to support a private member’s bill for the reinstatement of the NHS, which was introduced on March 11, 2015 by 12 MPs from five political parties — Caroline Lucas (Green, Brighton Pavilion), Andrew George (Liberal Democrat, St. Ives), John Pugh (Liberal Democrat, Southport), Michael Meacher (Labour, Oldham West and Royton), Chris Williamson (Labour, Derby North), Roger Godsiff (Labour, Birmingham Hall Green), Kelvin Hopkins (Labour, Luton North), Jeremy Corbyn (Labour, Islington North), John McDonnell (Labour, Hayes and Harlington), Dr. Eilidh Whiteford (SNP, Banff and Buchan), Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru, Arfon) and Katy Clark (Labour, North Ayrshire and Arran).

Also still on the books, it is worth noting, is a private member’s bill introduced by Clive Efford, the National Health Service (Amended Duties and Powers) Bill, which aims to repeal the worst aspects of the Health and Social Care Act. In November, as I explained here, Efford’s bill passed its second reading, when 241 MPs voted for it — whose names can be found here, and should be useful for pro-NHS campaigners. Both bills will be considered by the new Parliament, and it may be instructive for those who want to know more to read the analysis from last November, by academic and pro-NHS campaigner Caroline Molloy, of the strengths and weaknesses of Clive Efford’s bill.

Introducing the NHS reinstatement bill in March, Caroline Lucas wrote:

The Bill proposes to fully restore the NHS as an accountable public service — with time and flexibility for implementation — and so reversing 25 years of marketisation, for an NHS that is truly public, joined-up, fully protected and free at the point of delivery.

Scotland and Wales have already reversed marketisation and restored their NHS without immense upheaval. England can too.

Far from being another top-down, centralised re-structuring, the Bill — crucially — reinstates the Secretary of State’s responsibility for the provision of services, something the Health and Social Care Act 2012 (HSCA) severed. The Bill would strip away the costly market mechanisms that waste NHS money which could be spent on patient care.

Caroline Lucas said, “We must stop our NHS being whittled down to little more than a corporate logo. The public service we love is being dismantled and defined by bidding wars and market structures that waste billions which could be spent on patient care. Our public health service should be run with patients, not profit, at its heart. Its rescue package must be rigorous and comprehensive to fully protect it from the private sector. I’m honoured to be presenting just such a Bill and with such strong cross-party support.”

She added, “The NHS is a core part of our national identity — but as things stand, it’s under immediate and growing threat.  What the founders of our NHS achieved was radical and far-reaching — and we have a duty to ensure that reinstating their vision of the publicly provided NHS we still want is at the heart of our General Election debate.”

If you’d like to add your name to the open letter from ‘999 Call for the NHS,’ please visit this page.

Also, on the eve of the General Election, the Campaign for the NHS Reinstatement Bill 2015 is asking people to write to the candidates in their constituencies to ask them to support the bill for the reinstatement of the NHS, which you can do here.

The bill has the support of many MPs and candidates, and you can find details here.

Please do get involved if you care about the NHS, and please also note the Labour Party’s position. As described in the Guardian on April 21, “the Labour manifesto commits to repealing the Health and Social Care Act 2012 passed by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition. It would end competition between providers, in favour of making NHS organisations the preferred providers of services, impose a cap on profits made by companies providing clinical services and ensure the NHS was protected from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) Treaty.” Good news, if Labour can beat the Tories to No. 10 on May 7 — and if they stick to their promises. Clearly, though, whatever else may be up in the air, the future of the NHS in England is particularly threatened if the Tories manage to stay in power.

See below for the ‘999 Call For The NHS’ letter to the Guardian:

Support the bill to reinstate the NHS

Letter to the Guardian, May 1, 2015

On 11 March, the NHS bill 2015 was presented in parliament with cross-party support. Its policies would comprehensively reinstate the NHS throughout England. The bill’s policies restore the secretary of state for health’s duty to provide universal listed health services throughout England based on people’s needs and not their ability to pay. The bill abolishes the expensive internal and external market, stops the break up of the NHS and returns the NHS to public control and accountability. This is vital to protect the NHS from EU trade treaties and others in the pipeline like the TTIP.

It will end the high costs to the NHS of PFI schemes. By making PFI debts a Treasury responsibility, it removes the exorbitant costs of PFI from the NHS and enables the state to negotiate restoration of PFI services and assets into public ownership. The British Medical Association, representing 150,000 doctors, has stated publicly that its members want a publicly funded and publicly provided National Health Service. It supports the principles behind the legislation which the NHS bill proposes.

Many MPs and parliamentary candidates and some political parties now support the Bill. We urge the public to support the NHS bill 2015 and to ensure that their parliamentary candidates now commit to supporting the reinstatement of the NHS through the bill, and to ensuring it is in the first Queen’s speech after the election.

Joanna Adams, founder, 999 Call For The NHS campaign group

Dr. Jackie Applebee, GP, chair, Tower Hamlets BMA

Lady Joan Bakewell, broadcaster and writer

Alan Bennett, author

Natalie Bennett, leader, Green party

Dr. Naureen Bhatti, GP, Limehouse

Dr. Kambiz Boomla, Ex-chair, City and East London Medical Committee

William Boyd, author

Lord Melvyn Bragg, author and broadcaster

Sandra Carey, midwife

Janet Chadwick, nurse practitioner

Marcus Chown, author, journalist and broadcaster

Ben Clements, community mental health nurse

Dr. Liz Davies, Reader in Child Protection

Dr. Robert Delamont, consultant neurologist

Dolmen Domikles, mental health worker, Sussex NHS Foundation Trust

Fiona Duby, international health & development consultant

Dr. Paul Evans, director, NHS Support Federation

Sir Richard Eyre, film, TV, theatre and opera director

Craig Farlow, ‘300-miler’, 999 People’s Jarrow March 2014

Dr Richard Fielding, professor, medical psychology in public health

Joe Finlayson, community mental health nurse

Dr. Peter Fisher, president, Doctors for the NHS

Shirley Franklin, Defend Whittington Hospital Coalition

Dr. Patrick French, Doctors For The NHS

Dr. Wendy Geraghty, lead clinician, Lewisham CAMHS

Dr. Bob Gill, GP, National Health Action Party

Roger Graef, TV/film producer and director

Jacqueline Gruhn, commissioner, adult care

Alun Hamnett, senior technical officer, blood and transplant

Earl of Harewood, film and theatre producer

Paul Hardman, paramedic

Jean Hay-Burns, psychotherapist

Carolyn Heads, quality & HR manager

John Hilary, executive director, War on Want

Dr. Kate Hudson, general secretary, CND

Christine Hyde, retired, ‘300-miler’

Dr. Bridget Innes, out-of-hours GP

Dr. Louise Irvine, chair, Save Lewisham Hospital campaign

Dr. Coral Jones, GP, Hackney and TTIP activist

Ben Judd, team manager, AWP NHS Trust

Linda Kaucher, StopTTIP

Dr. Jeremiah Kelly, researcher

Lady Helena Kennedy, barrister

Neshane Kunanathan, biomedical scientist

Dr. Alan Lawlor, chemist

Dr. Anna Livingstone, GP, CCG clinical lead, Tower Hamlets

Ken Loach, filmmaker

Professor Rajan Madhok, retired NHS medical director, ‘300-miler’

John McCarthy, writer and broadcaster

Sir Jonathan Miller, theatre and opera director

Sienna Miller, actor

Caroline Molloy, editor, OurNHS, openDemocracy

Michael Morpurgo, writer, co-founder, Farms for City Children

Clare Morpurgo, co-founder, Farms for City Children

Anita Nuckhir, occupational therapist

Dr. Katherine Oliver, general manager

Dr. Tony O’Sullivan, Lewisham consultant paediatrician

Lord David Owen, former health minister and neurologist

Janet Patrick, children’s social care expert

Clive Peedell, co-leader, National Health Action Party

Peter Pinkney, president, RMT Union

Professor Allyson Pollock, professor of public health research and policy

Alexandra Pringle, group editor-in-chief, Bloomsbury Publishing

Jonathan Pryce, actor

Sir Steven Redgrave, five-times Olympic Gold medal oarsman

Professor Chris Redman, professor emeritus of obstetric medicine

Professor Sue Richards, co-chair, Keep Our NHS Public (KONP)

Dr. Adam Riley, consultant

Peter Roderick, barrister, drafter of NHS bill

Dr. Hermione Roy, consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist

Dr. Helen Salisbury, GP

Professor Wendy Savage, president, Keep Our NHS Public (KONP)

Dr. Alex Scott-Samuel, joint chair, Politics of Health Group

Dr. Ron Singer, chair, doctors’ section of Unite

David Skidmore, A&E nurse

Annie Smedley, senior OT, NHS

Stephen Smith, ambulance EMT2

Clive Stafford Smith, international human rights lawyer

Rick Stroud, author and film director

Dr. Richard Walshaw, scientist

Dr. Eric Watts, chair, Doctors for the NHS

Dr. Charles Webster, official historian of the NHS

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers). He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, the co-director of “We Stand With Shaker,” calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US).

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, and “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.