Category Archives: Social fairness

“Patient choice” and NHS use of the private sector runs down NHS care and penalises the poor and elderly

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A recent study –  the first to look at the impact on NHS provision of diverting NHS funds to the private sector – shows that private sector contracts are associated with a decrease in NHS provision and an increase in treatment inequalities.

This finding brings home the urgent need for the NHS Reinstatement Bill, which was
successfully reintroduced to the House of Commons by Labour MP Margaret Greenwood on 13 July, with support from Labour, Green, and Lib Dem MPs.

Drafted by barrister Peter Roderick and Public Health Professor Allyson Pollock, the Bill proposes to fully restore the NHS as an accountable public service by reversing 25 years of marketisation, abolishing the purchaser-provider split, ending contracting, and re-establishing public bodies and public services accountable to local communities. Continue reading →

Controversial care.data scheme not exactly ditched after all, says Life Sciences Minister

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Many people are pleased about NHS England’s decision to ditch the care.data scheme to share patients’ confidential medical GP records across the whole range of NHS and social care organisations, because its patient consent and opt-out model was inadequate.

But although the headlines said one thing, the small print said another: it turns out that Life Sciences Minister George Freeman has announced that although the scheme will now be scrapped, work on setting up a system for shared confidential patient data will now be taken forward by the National Information Board.

It sounds like a case of the more things change, the more they stay the same. Continue reading →

Hospital cuts consultation drop in sessions in July with Joint Health Scrutiny Committee

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Calderdale and Kirklees Councils’ Joint Health Scrutiny Committee is examining the Clinical Commissioning Groups’ proposals to cut hospital services (including the whole of Huddersfield Royal Infirmary acute and emergency services) and replace them with “Care Closer to Home”.

They want to hear from the public and have arranged two “drop-in” sessions so that people can discuss the proposals and share their views with Councillors, one to one. Continue reading →

15,539 people petition to keep both Huddersfield and Halifax A&Es open

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On Monday 20th June 2016, Calderdale 38 Degrees NHS Campaign Group and Huddersfield Keep Our NHS Public handed in  petitions signed by 15,339 people to Calderdale and Greater Huddersfield Clinical Commissioning Groups, calling on the CCGs to keep both Huddersfield and Halifax A&Es open, 24/7.

Continue reading →

Save our hospitals and stop the cuts – can you deliver survey advice leaflets?

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Calderdale and Kirklees 999 Call for the NHS has advice leaflets about filling in the Have Your Say consultation survey about the future of our NHS in Calderdale and Greater Huddersfield.

Please help deliver advice leaflets on responding to the Have Your Say survey

If you can deliver these to your street, or to any community group/s you are part of, please let us know. Continue reading →

We must stop the government’s willful destruction of our national maternity care

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NHS staff and patients should not stay silent. It is time to demand an end to the willful destruction of our national maternity care before we see further tragedy, writes Jessica Ormerod, former Lay Chair of of Lewisham’s Maternity Services Liaison Committee which represents the interests of Lewisham women and their infants.

A coroner’s finding that baby Kristian Jaworski  died because his mother was denied a caesarean section due to cost is shocking. There can be no recompense for such a tragedy for this family; the least that can be offered them is the certainty that this will never happen again. But the senior coroner Andrew Walker has warned the Department of Health:

“there is a risk that future deaths will occur unless action is taken”.

Continue reading →

The rose-tinted privatisation of maternity services is under way

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This is a question I’ve been meaning to ask the Clinical Commissioning Groups at the hospital cuts consultation drop ins:

  • Where are the community midwives coming from to provide the increased home births proposed in the Right Care Right Time Right Place Have Your Say Consultation Doc (p30)?
  • And are the CCGs relying on the recommendations of the National Maternity Review, that women employ private midwives through the £3k voucher scheme? And what happens to such women if things go wrong in labour and they need specialist obstetric help which will cost far more than £3k?

Continue reading →

Hospital cuts consultation drop in, Hebden Bridge Town Hall, 2-8pm Tuesday 5th April

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There is a hospital cuts consultation drop in at Hebden Bridge Town Hall from 2pm-8pm on Tuesday 5th April.

Save our A&Es campaigners from Calderdale 38 Degrees NHS campaign and Calderdale and Kirklees 999 Call for the NHS are recommending that members of the public wait until the “Have Your Say” hospital cuts Consultation Document is fit for purpose, before responding to hospital cuts consultation survey

They say the Clinical Commissioning Groups behind the proposals need to fix the errors and omissions in their “Have Your Say” Consultation Document. Continue reading →

Calderdale Royal Hospital Services that would be lost to Huddersfield if hospital cuts go ahead

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As well as suffering an overcrowded Emergency Centre ( the replacement A&E) because of the closure of Huddersfield A&E, if the proposed hospital cuts go ahead Calderdale people will have to travel to a new planned care clinic in Huddersfield for many services that we currently have at Calderdale Royal Hospital.

If the proposed hospital cuts go ahead, these Calderdale Royal Hospital services will be moved to the new planned care clinic in Huddersfield:

Continue reading →