Use your clout and save our A&Es, campaigners tell Calderdale Scrutiny Panel

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Calderdale Trades Council, Calderdale 38 Degrees NHS Campaign Group and members of the public are calling on Calderdale Council’s Adult Health and Scrutiny Panel to hold a formal inquiry into the hospital trust’s Strategic Outline Case proposals for shaking up NHS and social care.

They will be lobbying the Scrutiny Panel members at 5.30pm, before their 6.00pm meeting at Halifax Town Hall on Tuesday 1st July. Everyone is welcome to take part. Expect/bring ukeleles!

Please consider signing this petition to Scrutiny Panel members, which will be presented to the Scrutiny Panel on 1st July. Continue reading →

Calderdale People’s Assembly members march against austerity

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Deirdre O’Neill (Calderdale People’s Assembly) and Charlie Gates (Calderdale Green Party) report on the People’s Assembly march against austerity in London last Saturday

Members of Calderdale People’s Assembly were among the fifty thousand people who marched in London last weekend against the swingeing cuts imposed on the most vulnerable people in society by the coalition government, in a demonstration organised by the People’s Assembly Against Austerity.

Calderdale People’s Assembly are clear about the impact the ‘austerity’ agenda is having in our area, including the government’s Bedroom Tax, benefit cuts, reductions in standards of living, increase in food banks, no pay rises for workers, and a serious threat to the Halifax A&E. Continue reading →

Celebrate the NHS 66th Birthday at Mytholmroyd Gala on 5th July!

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Everyone is welcome to the NHS 66th birthday party at Mytholmroyd Gala on 5th July. The fun starts on the Burnley Road playing field at 1pm with the opening ceremony and speeches and crowing the new Gala Queen!

Jane Rendle, a Mytholmroyd resident and member of Calderdale 38 Degrees NHS campaign group, said,

“Since the NHS started 66 years ago, on 5th July 1948, it has been our best loved national institution, a part of who we are as a nation. We trust nurses, doctors and other health staff like no others. By celebrating this birthday Calderdale 38 Degrees NHS want to show how much we value the NHS as a public service and say a big thank you to the staff. At this time when there’s a danger of stealthy privatisation we need to stand together to defend our NHS. Please join us in our celebrations.”

Continue reading →

No opportunity to speak truth to power at NHS England’s Citizen Participation event, say Calderdale 38 Degrees supporters

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Calderdale 38 Degrees supporters who attended NHS England’s “Citizen Participation” meeting  in York on Tuesday 17th June found the event full of contradictions.

Roger O’Doherty and Morrilly Gudenuff (not the delegate’s real name!) were among 38 Degrees supporters calling on NHS England to come clean about undisclosed meetings with private health care lobbyists and the role of Big Pharma in drafting its plans.

They handed NHS England a petition, signed by over 140,000 people, demanding that NHS England declares all its meetings with lobbyists, as well as any conflicts of interest. Continue reading →

A cast iron case – Hebden Bridge’s barge ponies bench and how it got there

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One winter day, I was intrigued to see two cheeky brown pony head sculptures sniffing the air above the wall at the end of the road to Riverside School and the Post Office.

On the tow path the other side of the wall, the two ponies greeted me – bearing the weight of a wooden bench between them. They are enchantingly sturdy, elegant and cheerful. On their flanks, they are branded with the name of the artist – Lucy Casson – and Hargreaves Foundry in Halifax that cast the sculptures.

Nearly 20 years ago, I’d videotaped Lucy Casson making junk automata out of old Castrol oil cans scavenged from a dump, for an exhibition at the Wolf in the Door Gallery in Penzance. It had been fascinating to watch the process. Continue reading →

Calderdale Council’s “People’s Commission” into future of health and social care lacks formal powers

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Members of the public who attended recent “Right Care” drop in sessions reported that Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) supports Calderdale Council’s proposed “People’s Commission” into the future of health and social care in Calderdale.

Now Calderdale Council has followed up with a press release announcing the “People’s Commission” launch.

The Council’s “People’s Commission” seems to add another layer to local NHS organisations’ public “engagement’ and consultation about their ‘Right Care” proposals. These proposals aim to reduce costly acute and emergency hospital admissions and replace these hospital services with cheaper care health and social care in the community for patients with long term illnesses. Continue reading →

Fun Halifax Gala float makes a serious point- Save our A&Es

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Thanks to a Save our A&Es float – carrying bandaged, bruised and bloodied youngsters with their parents dressed as nurses and doctors – and a Calderdale 38 Degrees NHS campaign stall at Halifax Gala today, thousands of people in Halifax have found out more about proposals for the NHS and social care shake up in Calderdale and Huddersfield. These could see one or both A&E departments in Halifax and Huddersfield downgraded to Minor Injuries Units. Continue reading →

Closing our A&E is pie in the sky, say Halifax Gala ‘nurses’, ‘doctors’ and ‘patients’

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The “Save our A&Es” Float for Halifax Gala tomorrow (14th June) is all sorted. Beds, blood, bandages, kids, doctors, nurses are all ready and raring to go.

But there’s still time to let organiser Gary Scott know if you’d like to come and help out (you don’t need to be on the float), and/or if your kids would like to join the others on the float. Continue reading →