Below is the text of our KONP leaflet addressing the Labour Party
WE CALL ON LABOUR TO:
- STOP THE COALITION WRECKING OUR NHS
- GET THE NHS BACK INTO PUBLIC OWNERSHIP
- ALLOCATE THE FUNDS NEEDED TO PROVIDE EXCELLENT HEALTH CARE FOR ALL
Unfortunately past Labour Governments have promoted marketisation and privatisation and it is clear that the Scots, the Jarrow NHS marchers and the general public don’t trust the Labour Party with the NHS.
However this is a fresh opportunity for Labour to be bold, stand up for the principles on which the NHS was founded and lead from the front.
A good start would be to use Clive Efford’s Private Members Bill to put forward the comprehensive programme for the reinstatement of the NHS outlined in a Bill drawn up by Professor Allyson Pollock, longstanding critic of NHS privatisation and PFI and barrister Peter Roderick . This would:
- reinstate the government’s duty to provide a national health service
- re-establish district health authorities that will plan and organise services to match local need
- abolish competition and marketised bodies such as NHS trusts, NHS foundation trusts and clinical commissioning groups
- re-establish community health councils to represent patients and public interests
- prohibit Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP) and other international treaties without the approval of Parliament
IT IS NOT ENOUGH just to amend the Health & Social Care Act 2012
AND NOT ENOUGH to say the NHS will be the “preferred provider”. EU procurement regulations and TTIP do not permit this in a tender.
WE NEED TO END MARKETISATION AND PRIVATISATION ALTOGETHER
Markets mean permanent, cost-driven, reorganisation
A winning tender always involves new ways to save costs - by closing sites, changing staffing structures, reducing wages or qualifications required. Management priorities change, systems change, networks are disrupted. Everything is in a constant state of flux, highly disruptive to work and staff morale. Reorganisations force staff to focus on saving their job or finding new work. Endless reorganisations, driven by cost not clinical need, are an inevitable consequence of the market in health. Local services come to reflect provider priorities and not local needs.
Markets are very expensive and waste resources
NHS resources are squandered on massive legal and transaction costs of procurement - £10bn last year. Corporations with the best lawyers and PR win tenders, not the best clinicians. Vast amounts of public funding are syphoned into private profit. Contracts force services to focus on a small set of performance indicators instead of on clinical and service priorities. Services that should cooperate are forced into competition, with devastating impact on care co-ordination.
To end privatisation and save the NHS we must end marketisation (abolish the purchaser-provider split) as they have done in Scotland and Wales.
New health authorities would allow services to be planned according to local need and changes to be driven by clinical need, not cost. This is what the Pollock-Roderick Bill would deliver and needs to be in the Efford Bill.
Incorporate the Pollock-Roderick Bill in full into the Efford Bill. Reinstate our NHS. Fund “best in the world” health care!
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