| Ealing Save Our NHS is once again joining in the fun at Hanwell Carnival. This year our focus for the Parade and on our Stall will be bringing back Urology, Maternity and Paediatrics and other lost services to Ealing Hospital – we want a fully functioning District General Hospital! |
| In Elthorne Park we will have ‘Thankyou’ cards for our lovely Ealing Hospital staff, who have soldiered on despite the axe hanging over their heads and also some photo opportunities for carnival goers. |
| Join us on the Carnival Parade: Our legendary bed, made by Arthur, is being upgraded to accommodate two brave children! His popular hats, featured above, are also being revamped with our latest slogans. If you would like to join in please come to Hanwell Community Centre, Westcott Crescent, Hanwell, W7 1PD (off Greenford Avenue) by 10.45am – the parade sets off about 11.00am. Look out for the ESON banner and bed! You can of course also join in on the route. |
| The Stall: Activity in Elthorne Park kicks off at 12 noon and finishes at 6.00pm. We need help on our Stall with leafleting, petitioning and getting people to fill in our ‘Thank You Ealing’ cards and have their pictures taken. Even if you can’t help, please come and say Hello. You can find us very close to the Bandstand. |
| No doubt it will be fun and very rewarding too – hope you can join in. |
| DIARY DATE: MONDAY 8TH JULY – EALING SAVE OUR NHS PUBLIC MEETING: |
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| We have a great line-up of entertaining and well informed speakers who will be talking about the key issues facing our national and local NHS. Up for discussion will be how to best fight to restore our hospital services and hold to account the people who wasted over £200 million on the failed Shaping a Healthier Future cuts plan. You will hear about the crisis facing our GP Service and how (not) the Government plans to address it and lots more. Of course there will be time for questions and ideas too for action. This is definitely one not to miss! |
| ESON CAMPAIGN MEETING – TUESDAY 18TH JUNE: |
| At this month’s Campaign Meeting we are delighted to be joined by Dr Emma Morton, Consultant Psychiatrist who will be our guest speaker. She will be opening a discussion on the crisis in Mental Health and will be happy to answer questions. Also on the Agenda will be our forthcoming Public Meeting, updates on what’s happening to our local NHS, and responding to plans for a single CCG. |
| We really welcome new people, so why not come along to find out more information and how you can help. |
| 7.30pm in Northfields Community Centre (tea & coffee provided) |
| LEAKED PLAN PREDICTS MASSIVE SHORTAGE OF NURSES AND OTHER STAFF: |
| The Government latest plan for the NHS (called the Long Term Plan) depends on having the staff to deliver it, but until recently they had not published any plan for the workforce. In a leak to the Guardian, the Governments workforce plan – called ‘The People Plan’ says, “Our analysis shows a 40,000 (11%) shortfall [in the number of nurses needed in England] in 2018-19 which widens to 68,500 (16%) by 2023-24 without intervention, as demand for nurses grows faster than supply.” This means a shortage of 1 in 6 nurses. |
| The Royal College of Nursing places some of the blame on the ending of Student Nurse Bursaries, which makes it much harder to recruit nurses. As Roy Lilley, ex- NHS Trust Chair and well known NHS Commentator says on his Blog – ‘There is no prospect of delivering the Long Term Plan without the people’ – we campaigners would certainly agree with him. |
| More on this story here – well worth a read. |
| NHS BOSS SAYS NHS MUST ACT TO STOP ‘HOLLOWING OUT’ OF DISTRICT GENERAL HOSPITALS: |
| In a recent lecture to the Royal College of Medicine, NHS England boss Simon Stevens made the following statement – “The NHS must rethink the District General Hospital model to counter the risk of the health service deserting the ‘at-risk’ communities many serve”. Well, clearly closing A&Es and hospital beds and relocating services miles from people homes, as was intended for Ealing Hospital was ‘deserting‘ at-risk communities and is an attack on the most vulnerable people. |
| Stevens goes on to say that in these communities there is a sense that services are at risk of being eroded which “shows up as protests, political activity and a sense of the tide going out from these communities” – absolutely what happened!. |
| These statements are surprising from the man who allowed NHS North West London to hollow out Central Middlesex, Hammersmith and Ealing DGHs. The former two had their A&Es closed down in September 2014, and Ealing Hospital as you know, has been stripped of Maternity, Paediatrics, children’s A&E and most Urology services. If Simon Stevens means what he says then serious then serious money should be put in to restoring services in hospitals like Ealing where the community is certainly very ‘at risk’. |
| PLANS FOR A SINGLE NORTH WEST LONDON CCG COULD UNDERMINE ACCOUNTABILITY: |
| We think it is reasonable that those who take decisions about the health needs of our local community should be accountable and open to public scrutiny here in Ealing. |
| So not surprisingly we are very concerned about plans by NHS North West London to centralise decision making about how NHS money is spent locally and what services are provided. Currently such decisions are made by Borough based Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), in Ealing its Ealing CCG. All this is set to change possibly as early as April next year. |
| The eight Borough based CCGs in North West London are to be replaced with a single North West London CCG whose main role will be to commission health services for all of the 8 London Boroughs. However there are huge variations in health, deprivation and life expectancy. You can hardly compare Kensington & Chelsea with Brent or Ealing, so it is hard to see how centralisation won’t lead to local needs not being addressed and deprived areas losing out. |
| New local structures are to be set up – called local integrated partnerships made up of Hospital Trusts, Community Health providers and Councils who are supposed to feed in to the new North West London CCG along with GPs via their new Primary Care Networks. It seems you can’t have ‘integration’ without setting up even more layers of structures. We are promised more engagement, but the NHS as we know is not very good at this – quite how this will work with real decisions- making no longer at the local level remains to be seen. |
| We have many questions and hope to submit a detailed response to the plans so watch this space….. |
| SIGN THE PETITION TO RESTORE EALING HOSPITAL SERVICES: |
| Our latest Petition calls on health authorities in North West London to ‘Bring back Vital Services to Ealing Hospital’. Ealing has lost services over the last 7 years but thanks to the dedication of many of the staff it has continued to serve us well. Now they need our support to get them restored. |
| You can sign the Petition here –
ACTON STREET STALL – Friday 21st June
If you help for an hour or so at our next Street Stall that would be great.
11.00 -1.00pm in the Marketplace near Morrisons, Acton High Street.
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| ‘HANDS OF OUR NHS’ – DONALD TRUMP! |
| President Trump’s comment that the NHS must be on the table in any trade deals with the US was quickly met with a howl of protest. A ‘Hands off Our NHS’ national petition started by Dr Sonia Adesara on behalf of national campaign ‘Keep Our NHS Public’ has now reached an astounding 331,000. Trump has since publically backtracked but his intentions are still clear if he can get away with it. |
| Please sign the Petition to oppose opening up our NHS to US Corporations here |
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