All welcome at 25th July Dewsbury workshop on how to defend the NHS against the privatisers’ plans

Dewsbury Keep Our NHS Public invites everyone to JOIN THEM on Saturday 25th July in sunny Dewsbury, from 11am – 4pm at Dewsbury Women’s Centre, (men are welcome :)), 7 Wellington St. WF13 1LY, where Dr Anna Athow (retired Consultant Surgeon & BMA member) will give a presentation on NHS England’s Five Year Forward Plan – so that we know what we’re dealing with.

There will be lots of opportunities to ask questions and discuss what these proposals mean to the hospitals, community and public health services and GP surgeries in our areas – as well as gaining an understanding of what is happening nationally. Continue reading

Tell Craig Whittaker MP to keep the Human Rights Act

If you’re a Calder Valley citizen and want to keep the Human Rights Act (HRA), please tell our MP Craig Whittaker to join with pro- Human Rights Tory MPs and argue and vote against the government’s attempt to repeal the HRA.

Here is a template for an letter/email to send him – obviously change it as you see fit.

You can copy and paste it into this email form and then send it to our MP. Continue reading

Questions about transfer of £millions to #Calderdale Council from hospitals Trust that faces year-end deficit

These are the questions Plain Speaker is asking Calderdale Adults Health and Social Care Scrutiny Panel at its meeting this evening. The Scrutiny Panel is scrutinising the Calderdale Better Care Fund plan to transfer money from the NHS to a pooled budget run by both Calderdale Council and Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group. Continue reading

Privatisation Prof to chair Calderdale People’s Commission on NHS and social care

Calderdale Council’s Chief Executive, Merran McRae, has selected Professor Andrew Kerslake as the Independent Chair of a Calderdale People’s Commission.

Professor Kerslake is an Associate Director of the Institute of Public Care (IPC) at Oxford Brookes University.

In 2011 Professor Kerslake was in Yorkshire to tell local authorities how to privatise social care services. Professor Kerslake gave formal presentations on facilitating the social care market to two Market Facilitation Seminars, which were attended by both local authorities and social care providers.

Calderdale People’s Commission is a new Council committee set up in partnership with Calderdale Healthwatch and Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group. It has no formal powers, but aims to collect evidence about local health services and then make recommendations to the Council about the future of health and social care in the area. Continue reading

Shocking Ambulance Staff Survey – Microcosm of NHS Attrition

This is re-blogged from the excellent Sqwawkbox blog, with thanks.

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I’ve received a copy of an astonishing, eye-opening survey of ambulance staff in an English NHS Trust.  This survey covered the experience and opinions of paramedics in South East Coast NHS ambulance Trust, but its findings could just as easily have come from almost any part of the NHS under this government.
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Our NHS is being dismantled for transnational corporations – Dr Lucy Reynolds

This article is republished from the Opendemocracy website according to the terms of their Creative Commons licence

LUCY REYNOLDS 3 April 2013

As a key part of the EU-US trade deal currently being fleshed out, the Conservatives are making good on a decades old fantasy of theirs – breaking up the NHS and opening it to global business. This is the reality and it’s happening now.

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Calder High escapes sponsored academy clutches

June Eaton, who organised the anti-sponsored academy petition to Education Secretary Michael Gove MP and a letter to Prime Minister David Cameron,  reports that yesterday (8th March) Calder High School sent parents a letter. The good news being, said June, that

there is no longer a requirement that the school becomes a sponsored academy.

Continue reading