Hackney KONP 
Next meeting 
6: 30pm Tuesday 22nd January 2019 
Well St Surgery, 28 Shore Rd, E9 7TA. ​
New campaigners welcome!
Click here to link to ELHCP's page on Estates. Scroll to the bottom of the page to download the Octoebr 2018 Estate Strategy.
STOP PRESS 27th OCTOBER 2018
Stop huge changes planned for NHS in Hackney! 
In late October 2018, East London Health & Care Partnership (ELHCP) quietly released a Strategic Estates Plan covering all NE London. This could involve huge changes in Hackney's NHS including:
  • downgrading Homerton from a general hospital to an elective (ie planned) care centre
  • move all Mental Health beds from Homerton Hospital out of Hackney to Mile End
  • provide NHS 'care of older people' services in a remote outer-London hospital
  • sell off land at St Leonards for housing - rather than use it for much needed Hackney services - eg NHS step-down and rehabilitation services that could free up acute beds; long-term care of older people, Mental Health services
There are no plans for consultation on these proposed major changes - despite clear legal obligations for wide consultation.
Hackney KONP demands full consultation engagement with the local community and involvement in any re-design of NHS services for Hackney people. 
​
Does the UK spend too much on healthcare?
The government tells us it's becoming too expensive to fund our healthcare. But here is an OECD comparison (using latest figures from November 2017) of how UK spending on health (per head of population, in US$)  compares with some other countries.
Hackney Devolution Pilot Business Plan
November 2017
Read Hackney's proposals here
"Delivering improvements to health and wellbeing through health and social care"  Integration Hackney Devolution Partners report, November 2017 

​KONP's initial response is given opposite.
​Hackney KONPs questions and concerns about the devolution business plan. Details here 
Hackney KONP has significant concerns about the proposals for future health and social care services in the borough, including:
  • inadequate planning for population growth
  • future of Homerton A&E
  • the 'discharge to assess' scheme 
  • potential moves towards a contract-based ICO
  • lack of step-down and rehab facilities
  • workforce issues
  • use of NHS estate
  • location of sites in places of worship
PFI:   How Come We're still Paying for This?  
Launch of Marion Macalpine & Helen Mercer's photographic exhibition & PFI booklet
at Portcullis House, Parliament. 20th March 2018
John McDonnell, Labour Shadow Chancellor Helen Mercer from People vs PFI
Government proposals for the NHS: Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) which are set to 'evolve into' Integrated Care Organisations (ICOs). 
Government proposals will replace the publicly provided NHS with Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) and Integrated Care Organisations (ICOs). 'Integrated' is simply the new (cosier-sounding) name for 'Accountable' Care Organisations (ACOs). These are US-style commercial, non-NHS bodies, which are set to run health and social services without proper public consultation and without Parliamentary scrutiny. ICOs can be given full responsibility for running NHS and social care services, and will be governed solely by company and contract law, not by parliament. No one doubts the need for improved co-ordination of health and social care. But we want to see it delivered through directly provided state services - not by for profit companies. 
Click here to hear what Dr Graham Winyard, former Deputy Chief Medical Officer and Medical Director, NHS England has to say about ACOs.  (scroll down to below Chris Ham's presentation).
 In Spring of 2018, ACOs will be the subject of a legal challenge through judicial review - with Allyson Pollock, Sue Richards and Graham Winyard amongst the claimants.
Picture
The Tories want to destroy our NHS. NHS England is driving the NHS towards a privatised and insurance-based system, leaving a defunded rump NHS for those who can't pay. Since 2015, the NHS has been completely reorganised, and this has occurred completely under the radar, with no new legislation (and, arguably, illegally), no parliamentary scrutiny and no consultation with staff or local communities.

The 44 new Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships (STPs) across England are required to cut NHS spending by £22 billion by 2020 compared with 2015 spending levels.  

The NE London STP is called the East London Health and Care Partnership (ELHCP). It covers Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Newham, City of London, Waltham Forest, Barking, Havering and Redbridge. The population of this area is set to grow by 18% - numbers equivalent to the City of Leicester, yet health bosses are tasked with making cuts of £850 million from a local health service which is on it's knees. The Royal London Hospital, built through the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), has saddled NE London NHS with massive debts, while social care has suffered up to 25% cuts since 2010. The A&E at King George's Hospital Romford, and 200 acute beds are set to close. This will have a major impact on the local community and put further pressure on other NE London services.

ELHCP proposals for Hackney could mean: Homerton Hospital downgraded from a District General Hospital (DGH) that currently offers a full range of  treatment to an Elective (ie planned) Care Centre specialising in just one type of medicine - with Hackney residents having to travel to other parts of the ELHCP area for other routine treatments. A&E is likely to be downgraded. Under current proposals, Hackney's mental health beds would be moved out of Homerton and out of Hackney to Mile End, meaning patients lose vital community contacts. ELHCP proposals could also see important NHS property and sites sold off to plug revenue gaps and used for housing rather than the NHS and social care services we need. Hackney KONP is calling for full community engagement and consultation over these plans.

Since 2017, NHS England requires STPs to move towards procuring huge 10-15yr £multi-billion commercial contracts for Integrated Care Providers (ICPs). These are single organisations combining all the health (and, often, social care) services across a  Whilst we all want to see better integration of services, the Health & Social Care Act (2012) remains in place, requiring services to be put out to tender. The size and configuration of ACOs will be particularly attractive to giant healthcare corporates that run similar health organisations in the USA, so we risk wholesale takeover of the NHS by multinational corporates.

Meanwhile, following publication of the Naylor Report, NHS England has launched Project Phoenix, a joint venture with major corporations that involves the greatest firesale ever of hundreds of valuable NHS sites, and up to £5bn of private capital investment for new NHS developments - the 2017 version of the scandal that is PFI. 

Many hospital trusts are transferring staff to wholly managed but private Subsidiary Companies ('SubCos') where wages, pension rights and other terms and conditions of employment can be cut.

Other initiatives including the private GP At Hand are offering a cut-down app-based GP service for patients and creating huge problems from traditional GPs by cherry-picking younger, fitter, and therefore less costly patients leaving traditional GPs managing patient with higher needs.

BUT WE AIM TO STOP THIS
  • Campaigners across England and locally in NE London aim to stop this. Join our campaign groups
  • Lobby your local councillors and MP. Demand that they oppose all cuts in services 
  • Demand an end to the market in NHS services; reverse privatisation
  • No to the closure of King Georges A&E and closure of further beds at the hospital​

The Labour Party Conference of September 2017 unanimously passed a motion pledging to campaign to reverse NHS cuts and privatisation and bring the NHS back into public ownership. We intend to hold them to that, including through demands on councils to oppose local cuts and plans for ACOs or ACSs. Labour Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell also pledged to abolish PFIs.​

​This is the website for Hackney and City Keep Our NHS Public (Hackney KONP).
It includes information about:
NHS privatisation
how much of the NHS has been privatised? What services are privatised and what are the main corporations involved in privatisation? Detailed information via the link above. Photo courtesy of Marion Macalpine 
The market in NHS services from New Labour governments to 2017  
Plans to privatise the NHS have been developed over decades and successive governments have worked hand in glove with corporates to achieve this.  Here is a link to information a brief history of privatisation in the NHS.
Naylor Report and Sell-off of NHS property and estates.
The Naylor Report of 2017 sets out proposals to sell off NHS property that is 'underused'.
Naylor uses the Carter Review to decide what counts as 'inefficient use' - based on a crude measure of space used for clinical activities. So other use - like play rooms for children or facilities for visitors are 'inefficient'!.  

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December 2017: Virgin threats net £2m settlement from NHS in Surrey
When Virgin Care failed to win an £82m contract for children's services in Surrey, they sued the six Community Commissioning Groups (CCGs). Although the CCGs initially said they were satisfied that the procurement had been run fairly, the legal costs of fighting Virgin in court would have been immense. The settlement paid to Virgin is understood to be in excess of £2m - money desperately needed for NHS clinical services in Surrey. 
North East London Sustainability & Transformation Plan (STP) (aka Slash, Trash & Privatise plan). 
The local NE London plan is one of 44 covering all England. It is secret, by order of NHS England. The NE London plan involves three parts: 
The NHS Bill (aka NHS Reinstatement Bill) has been presented to Parliament in previous years by Caroline Lucas (Green Party) MP and by Margaret Greenwood MP. In 2018 it is due to be reintroduced by Eleanor Smith Labour MP for Wolverhampton. The Bill is supported by Diane Abbott, Hackney North MP and Shadow Secretary of State for Health. Click for more information. 
Don't privatise Homerton Hospital's pathology lab 
Contractors building a new pathology lab at the Homerton have gone bust, leaving the Homerton with massive debts. There are huge questions to be answered about the contract with the builders - but most urgently, managers are now considering proposals to privatise the pathology services. Homerton pathology provides an excellent responsive and high quality service. Privatisation is a huge concern.  Don't let them destroy our excellent local service.
Sign the petition at the link.
Govt NHS policy has one aim and one aim only: bring system to its knees so sell-off to friends can be sold as answer
Govt imposing £22 bn 'efficiency savings' (cuts) on NHS on top of £20 bn cuts of past 5 years. 
click above for Twitter link to National Health Action Party
WHAT'S HAPPENING TO OUR NHS?
The government is tearing the NHS apart through funding cuts and privatisation, putting private profits ahead of patients. We urgently need new legislation to restore our NHS.

NHS POLITICAL HISTORY
Click here for an excellent account by Professor Ray Tallis of the development of the NHS and the political attacks that threaten its very existence. (TLS article, September 2016) 

SPENDING ON NHS
Government claims the NHS is 'unaffordable' and 'unsustainable'.  Think-tanks funded by vested interests regularly make proposals for NHS payments - £10 for GP or A&E visits,  £75 'hotel costs' for an overnight hospital stay and so on.  Yet England spends far less on healthcare than France or Germany.  And billions of NHS cash is wasted through costs of the NHS market, PFI schemes and private profit. 

COSTS OF MANAGING A MARKET IN HEALTHCARE
Before the NHS market was introduced, just 5% of the budget went on administration. The introduction of the market meant splitting the NHS into separate 'purchaser' and 'provider' arms and huge additional legal and administrative costs of buying and selling services, tendering and managing contracts. By 2010 administration stood at 14% of the NHS budget.  Since the Health & Social Care Act of 2012 has forced more services to be marketised.   Abolishing the NHS market and returning to pre-market administration cost levels would save between £4.5bn- £10bn every year!  

PRIVATE FINANCE INITIATIVE (PFI)
Billions of NHS funding is squandered on extortionate PFI contracts.  The Department of Health has 118 PFI schemes with a capital value of £11.6bn. But repayments on these schemes will amount to a staggering £79.1bn. PFI repayments are already bankrupting some NHS trusts and the costs are rising steeply. 

PRIVATISATION OF NHS SERVICES
More than £12bn worth of NHS contracts have been awarded to the private sector, siphoning NHS funds into private profits.  The EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and CETA trade treaties will force all NHS services to be tendered. Sustainability & Transformation Plans will force a huge new wave of privatisation from 2017.

SUSTAINABILITY & TRANSFORMATION PLANS (STPs) - aka Slash Trash & Privatise plans
New STP plans will slash £millions from local budgets through cuts and closures and impose new models of care with fewer hospital beds, less doctors and professional staff, privatised services and risks to patient care and safety. 

FUTURE OF THE ENGLISH NHS
These policies are wrecking the NHS.  Government is on course to replace our healthcare system with  US-style, hugely expensive, privatised and insurance-based healthcare.  The NHS will remain, but only as a residual and greatly underfunded service of last resort, and caring for unprofitable cases.  Our aim is to stop this!

INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS
Until recently the NHS has provided outstanding and very cost-effective healthcare.  We've paid less for our healthcare, enjoyed better health outcomes and better satisfaction rates than almost every other country.  Click link above for details of the 2014 Commonwealth Fund study, with NHS data up to 2010.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO SUPPORT THE NHS
Click here to support the Pollock-Roderick NHS Bill that will reinstate the NHS and to email MPs and parliamentary candidates asking them to support this bill. 
MODEL MOTION SUPPORTING THE NHS BILL -
for trades unions, political parties, mumsnet, tweeting. Ask your friends and family to promote this Bill too.
We are the Hackney and City branch of the national campaign Keep Our NHS Public (KONP). We are campaigning for a publicly funded, publicly provided and publicly accountable National Health Service, both locally and nationally.  We campaign against UK government measures to undermine the NHS by promoting marketisation, privatisation, and fragmentation and against cuts and reductions in NHS services. We aim to highlight and oppose the impact of these UK government policies on our local NHS services. More info.
Hackney Keep Our NHS Public (KONPH)
Next meeting (no meeting in August)
Tuesday 22nd January 2019
6:30 pm Well St Surgery, 28 Shore Rd, London E9 7TA
new campaigners welcome
KONP national demands:
  • End privatisation of the NHS and bring back government responsibility, ownership and accountability.
  • Repeal the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and enact the Pollock-Roderick NHS Bill;
  • End expensive and compulsory competition, reject the Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP) and reverse all foundation trust plans. 
  • Commit to 4% real terms annual increase in funding from taxation to provide a comprehensive, publicly provided, top quality NHS for all, safe staffing levels and fair conditions for staff.
  • Halt harmful cost-driven NHS cuts and closures. Any service reconfigurations must be driven by evidence-based clinical need, not cost, and be subject to meaningful public consultation;
  • Halt all new private finance initiatives (PFIs). Independent review of PFI deals with effective action to reduce unfair PFI debts.

CAMPAIGNING WITH (among many others)

What can we do to save the NHS?
Join our campaigns to save the NHS and protect our rights to comprehensive, high quality health services, free at the point of delivery:
  • follow other links on the website to campaigns in your own area, or specific issues
More info here...