There is still tremendous ongoing support for our NHS and its staff, as was demonstrated by all those who came to our NHS 75th Celebration & Protest on Saturday 1st July, with passing cars and vans continuously beeping in support!
A big thanks to all our speakers including Dr Sonia Adesara from Keep Our NHS Public, Virendra Sharma MP, Dr Onkar Sahota, Dr Kate Crossland (Green Party), Councillors Aysha Raza and Ben Wesson, Ealing Reclaim Social Care Action Group and Southall Community Alliance.
They all spoke with passion and anger about the serious understaffing and under-resourcing of the Service and were unanimous in their scepticism about the Government’s so called ‘Workforce Plan’ to address the serious staffing crisis. There was lots of support for staff who in desperation are taking strike action. And of course we had plenty of chanting, cake and some enjoyable singing of our NHS anthems.
There was a great turnout from all our lovely campaigners and supporters as usual, local politicians and community groups.
Thanks to all those who came and to Ealing Trades Union Council for all their help and continued support.
We certainly did show that we are here to fight for our NHS and support NHS workers all the way!
You can also read the article on Ealing News here.
Our precious National Health Service is going to be 75years old on July 5. We know it’s literally a lifeline for all, largely thanks to its 1.26 million overworked and underpaid staff, who are defying the odds to keep services going in the face of cuts and privatisation.
With just a couple of weeks to go to the anniversary, it’s been revealed that a record 7.42 million people are now on the waiting list for treatment! It’s a stark reminder of how much the NHS is suffering from underfunding.
It’s no wonder that NHS Staff have finally taken to the picket lines to express their anger and to shine a light on the state of the NHS.
Please join with Ealing Save Our NHS to SHOW OUR SUPPORT FOR OUR NHS on Saturday 1st July outside Ealing Hospital.
On 1st July we will be celebrating 75 years of a free, publicly owned and publicly run NHS (well almost) and our amazing NHS Staff, whilst also calling for proper resources, fair pay and an end to privatisation.
There will be speakers and singing, plenty of placards and of course cake!
Our speakers include; Dr Sonia Adesara, NHS doctor and well-known activist from ‘Keep Our NHS Public’, local MP Virendra Sharma, Dr Onkar Sahota (GP and GLA member Ealing & Hillingdon), Dr Kate Crossland (NHS doctor and Green Party), plus other health workers and campaigners.
The event is also supported by Ealing Trades Council.
PLEASE COME AND JOIN US AND BRING FRIENDS & FAMILY
LOTS OF SUPPORT FOR OUR NHS AT HANWELL CARNIVAL:
As always our lovely supporters rallied round to staff our Stall from 12.00 – 6.00pm, despite the heat – what stars!
This year it looked particularly good with our face-in-the-hole ‘Skeletons’ and our mammoth Birthday card.
It’s always a great opportunity to talk to big numbers of local people about the NHS crisis and to promote our campaigns and our 75TH Birthday event.
It was really heartening to hear all the support for our NHS despite all the problems and to read the cracking messages left on our birthday card in support of NHS Staff
EALING HOSPITAL – IN BRIEF
We met recently with London North West Trust CEO, Pippa Nightingale and Mark Titcomb (Managing Director of Ealing & Central Middx)
The Trust has drawn up a 5 year Strategy and we were keen to hear how similar plans for Ealing Hospital were progressing. Currently they have consultants drawing up a range of options and fully intend to involve staff and engage with the public. In the meantime work will be carried out to improve the A&E.
Work is now underway on the new North West London Community Diagnostic Centre, with Imaging (X Rays etc.) due to open in December. This will be in addition to the services currently operating at the Hospital, so it’s good news for local residents. As to be expected a huge priority for the Trust is to get the Waiting Lists down but thankfully, unlike some other Trusts, they will not need to use private hospitals, which are more expensive and overall counterproductive.
STILL NO JUSTICE FOR JUNIOR DOCTORS
Last week, with heavy hearts, Junior Doctors took strike action for the third time, unable to see any alternative, with a Government unwilling to even discuss their justifiable claim. Some of their colleagues have completely lost hope of any justice and left the NHS to go to Australia or New Zealand where they can expect more pay for less hours.
This is of course not just a strike about pay but a product of an NHS in crisis, suffering from lack of staff, resources and beds due to underinvestment or investment in the wrong hands – i.e. the private sector.
The money is there if you have the political will, as we saw during Covid with vast sums being found very quickly for PPE, Track & Trace and even now to pay for overpriced private hospitals.
When you look at the pay graph below it’s not surprising that morale is so low among junior doctors and consultants, who are also being balloted on industrial action.
COVID INQUIRY – THE VOICES OF THE BEREAVED FAMILIES MUST BE HEARD!
Around 100 bereaved families travelled to London on the first day of the Covid 19 Inquiry to make their presence felt. The Covid 19 Bereaved Families for Justice, who have campaigned tirelessly for an Inquiry, are very concerned that the families are being side-lined, with none of them even being called as witnesses in the first stage.
Determined to have their voices heard they stood outside the Inquiry dressed in red with photos of their loved ones whilst a mobile billboard played their stories.
“Today we made clear that there will be no silencing of the bereaved when it comes to this Inquiry and we will do whatever it takes to make sure the voices of our loved ones are at the heart of this process. If the Inquiry won’t call our members as witnesses to share their testimony in the courtroom, we’ll be there standing outside with a megaphone”.
The truth about how the Government failed their loved ones must be very hard to hear, but at least it may now be out in the open.
They are asking for donations, no matter how small to ensure that bereaved families are able to bring their voices to every stage of the inquiry. Link is here.
Tony O Sullivan, Co – Chair of Keep Our NHS Public, which had its own ‘Peoples Covid Inquiry’ was also present and has written an interesting assessment.
‘PALANTIR’ – GRAVE CONCERNS ABOUT THE SAFETY OF OUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
It has just been revealed that US based multinational Company ‘Palantir’ has been awarded a £25 million contract to work on a massive NHS data project – called the ‘Federated Data Platform’ (FDP). The FDP will be the largest single point of access to NHS patient data this country has ever seen.The final contract is worth a whopping £480 million and gives the company a huge advantage against any rival.
According to Research from YouGov, nearly half of English adults who haven’t yet opted out of NHS data-sharing said they would be likely to do so if the FDP was introduced and run by a private company. This would mean an additional 20 million patients removing consent.
Palantir’s secretive nature and close links with the CIA make it clearly unsuitable to have access to our confidential data. Furthermore until 2019, when they were given NHS contracts by the Government, they had no involvement in health care.
Dr David Wrigley, digital lead of BMA’s GP committee, said:
‘The crux of the doctor-patient relationship is trust, and while GPs are supportive of safe and consensual uses of patient data – such as for direct care and legitimate research purposes – we want to see it done in a way that won’t damage the confidence that patients have in the profession, and the care they receive.’
Data Campaigners Foxglove and Doctors Association UK have recently sent a report to every MP outlining the risks of Palantir being involved in any way in this massive data platform. You can read more about this and their concerns here.
NHS 75TH RALLY – WE NEED A FULLY PUBLIC NHS
KEEP OUR NHS PUBLIC will mark the NHS 75th Anniversary with a call to return to it’s founding principles of a fully funded publicly provided NHS, free for all.
The Online Rally is on Weds 5th July from 6.30 -8.00pm and has some really good speakers
HEALTH CAMPAIGNS TOGETHER – SPECIAL NHS 75 – WELL WORTH A READ
This special issue is packed full of great stories, useful statistics and analysis. Some of the stories well worth a read are; the binning of the ‘40 new hospitals’ pledge; Mental Health – still the Poor Relation; Migrant Workers, a key to NHS Survival and the Vision for the NHS.
This year the NHS celebrates its 75th Birthday and is desperately in need of some TLC. Instead of much needed investment and staffing, the Government’s latest ‘saving’ targets will place even more demands on our beleagured staff, many of whom are at breaking point.
NHS bosses have been ordered to find a massive £12 billion in ‘efficency savings’, while at the same time reducing waiting times and cutting waiting lists! Calls for greater use of private hospitals and more productivity from already exhausted staff simply won’t work.
And it means that NHS bosses in North West London and elsewhere have to come up with unrealistic plans to satisfy their bosses in NHS England and the Government and meet these financial targets.
This is not the way to run an NHS and meet the urgent needs of patients and our communities.
That’s why we have to keep on fighting and stand up with our NHS staff.
You can read more on how ‘its going to get tougher’here
SO CAN THE PRIVATE SECTOR BRING DOWN WAITING LISTS?
New laws are being considered by Rishi Sunak to compel NHS bosses to send even more patients for private treatment supposedly to help address the huge waiting list, but also we are told in the name of so called ‘patient choice’.
Their private sector friends have been successfully lobbying hard for more patients to fill their empty beds – and for the NHS to be paid them a much higher rate. Sadly, even the Labour Party supports giving them more NHS patients.
Perhaps they should try listening to the professionals actually engaged in delivering NHS services who do not share the Government’s enthusiasm for more use of the private sector.
The ‘NHS Confederation’ which represents providers and commissioners of services say: “Whilst this is welcome as it can alleviate the pressure on the NHS, the independent sector will not have the capabilities, workforce or capital to take on the cases which are more complex in nature and acuity”.
Of course the private sector only want to cherry pick all the easy stuff – much more profitable!
And, since both the NHS and private sector “are recruiting from the same pool” of qualified staff, paid for by or taxes, the growth of the private sector actually undermines the NHS.
Hopefully the Labour Party will listen and reconsider its new support of using the private sector to bring down waiting lists and instead focus on building more capacity in the NHS.
A more detailed analysis can be read here in ‘the Lowdown’
EALING MENTAL HEALTH BED CUTS – UPDATE
As many of you will be aware, ESON has been campaigning to restore the 31 adult mental health beds closed by West London Trust during the pandemic, which left Ealing with NO ACUTE ADULT BEDS for residents aged under 65 – something the Trust seems keen not to admit! Ealing patients and their carers now have to travel to Lakeside in Hounslow or Charing Cross in Hammersmith.
The Trust carried out an ‘Engagement’ exercise on the bed cuts, which finished in February. ESON submitted detailed comments and presented a thousand strong hand signed petition (photo above). Many of the people who signed our petition had direct experience of using mental health services and strongly supported reinstating beds for both adults, children and young people.
West London Trust has published the results of it’s ‘Engagement’ exercise which shows broad agreement with ESON across all the groups who responded, including service users, carers and staff, who want to keep beds in Ealing and oppose the overall loss of beds. There are also shared concerns over increased travel times and the negative effect of being further away from family, friends and support networks. Carers in particular noted they would be less able to visit regularly.
SO WHERE NEXT?
ESON and our sister campaign Hammersmith & Fulham Save Our NHS have taken the fight to save our beds up with the North West London NHS bosses who control the purse strings. We have argued that no decisions should be made to cut any beds in North West London without a clear mental health strategy in place, which ‘appears ‘to have been accepted by the NWL NHS bosses. As a result the ‘final decision’ on Ealing bed closures has been put back to September. Lets hope that means a reprieve for Ealing residents.
THE FIGHT FOR FAIR PAY – STILL A WAY TO GO:
Last month ESON joined thousands of striking Junior Doctors at their London demonstration. We were left in no doubt about their determination to keep on fighting for pay restoration.
NHS workers have faced much greater declines in real terms pay compared to other workers – they certainly deserve some pay justice, if we are not to keep losing them.
Talks are now taking place between the BMA and Government Health Secretary Steve Barclay to resolve the junior doctors’ dispute, but they are still very far apart.
Meanwhile Consultants are now being balloted on industrial action having also seen their pay drop by 35% in the last 10 years.
Nice story in Ealing News with a quote from us here
A QUARTER OF MILLION CHILDREN ARE DENIED MENTAL HEALTH CARE:
Children’s mental health services reached a new low last month according to research by ‘The House Publication’. A quarter of a million children in the UK with mental health problems have been denied help by the NHS as it struggles to manage surging caseloads against a backdrop of a crisis in child mental health. Some NHS Trusts are failing to offer treatment to 60% of those referred by GPs, the research, based on Freedom of Information Requests, responses has found. A postcode lottery has been revealed, with spending per child four times lower in some parts of the country than others, while average waits for a first appointment vary from 10 days to three years. We don’t have figures on West London Trust, but at a recent NHS residents meeting a member of the public said she had been waiting 8 months for help and was told by the Trust this was not unusual! More on this story here
KEEP OUR NHS PUBLIC SURVEY SHOWS PUBLIC THINK THE NHS IS UNDERFUNDED:
A poll commissioned by Keep Our NHS Public (and conducted by Opinium) last month has found that more than two thirds (67%) of the public believe that the NHS is underfunded. Interestingly, even 58% of Conservative voters agreed that the NHS does not receive enough funds so despite the Government’s spin even its own supporters don’t believe them about NHS funding anymore. Politicians should take note of the public perception of privatisation, with 40% saying there should be no private sector involvement in the NHS and 32% saying it should only provide some services.
Given that none of the political parties stands up against privatisation outright, so that the counter arguments are generally not in the mainstream media, it is not a bad result at all. Certainly campaigners have played a big part in public perceptions.
CAREER DEAD END: THE ASTONISHING STORY OF TRAINEE ANAESTHETISTS
Despite significant staff shortages across the NHS, the Government’s much promised Workforce Plan has still failed to materialise. As a consequence of not having a proper plan, doctors can get stranded in career limbo.
One very recent example is anaesthetists. NHS England has just told 350 doctors training in anaesthesia that it has no jobs for them after three years of training, leaving many having to either change career or go abroad to finish their training!
And yet there is a shortage of 1400 consultant and specialty grade anaesthetists. Dealing with this shortage is absolutely essential to reducing the ever growing waiting lists, but not without a proper costed workforce plan. In the meantime the Government continues to promote ever greater use of the private sector.
COMING UP:
HANWELL CARNIVAL –SATURDAY 17TH JUNE
Once again Ealing Save Our NHS is joining in the festivities in Elthorne Park with our colourful Stall and some fun for the kids with our ‘Skeletons cut –out’. As it’s the NHS 75th Birthday we will be asking people to leave personal messages for our NHS Staff in their fight for pay justice, as well as getting out the message on the urgent need for proper funding and an end to privatisation.
Ealing Save Our NHS will be joining other campaigners across the country in a day of protest and support for our NHS staff, with speakers, placards and chanting. As it’s a celebration we will also have some music, singing and of course cake. More details nearer the time. Please make a note in your diaries.
While the 2023 Spring Budget was good news for wealthy people adding to hefty pension pots, informed observers appear unanimous in warning that Jeremy Hunt’s failure to increase revenue or capital allocations to the NHS will have serious consequences.
Leading NHS bodies have warned the Government that any pay awards above 3.5% cannot be funded from existing budgets ‘without consequences’- the unions claim to have got a commitment that their recent pay deal would be funded, but this is a Government whose promises are rarely kept!
Next week Junior Doctors across the country in every hospital will be taking a further four days of strike action starting on Tuesday 11th April. The Government could have prevented these strikes, but refuses to even discuss this year’s pay award, offering only a one-off bonus and insisting that the union must agree in advance of any talks that any offer must be recommended by the BMA to their members!
SUPPORT THE JUNIOR DOCTORS STRIKE:
A group of us from ESON joined Junior Doctors from Ealing Hospital and West London Trust during their last strike in March. Many were angry that, despite their massive efforts during the pandemic, they have been forced to strike as they see no choice with such an intransigent Government.
One of the junior doctors told us “We are out here on the picket line not just to ensure the value of doctors isn’t forgotten, but also to ensure we provide the best care for our patients and deliver a safe NHS for them and us.”
While workload and waiting lists are at record highs, junior doctors’ pay has been cut by more than a quarter since 2008. A crippling cost-of-living crisis, burnout and well below inflation pay rises, risk driving hard working doctors out of their profession at a time when we need them more than ever.
Junior doctor Dr Aislinn Macklinn-Doherty who qualified in 2008, sums up brilliantly what this dispute is all about in her excellent article here:
“Every single one of us has dedicated our lives to caring for patients. We wake up in the night thinking about our patients. We leave our families, travel across the country, take countless exams, read papers into the night, volunteer for extra hours, work thousands and thousands of unpaid hours across our careers, all in the interests of caring for patients. But enough is enough”
They absolutely deserve our full support!
JOIN THE DEMONSTRATION IN SUPPORT OF JUNIOR DOCTORS:
ESON and other NHS campaigners will be joining the demonstration next Tuesday to show our support for the junior doctors – It would be lovely if some of you could join us – look out for our colourful banner in Trafalgar Square.
OUR PERSONAL DATA IS UNDER THREAT:
Rather than investing in our health service in order to bring down waiting times and improve patient care, the government is instead planning to spend nearly half a billion pounds on a health database they are calling the ‘Federated Data Platform’ (FDP)
If it goes ahead as envisaged, the FDP will be the largest single point of access to NHS patient data this country has ever seen. Yet the government has so far told us almost nothing about it.
The proposed system is vast. The aim is for it to sweep in hospital, GP, even social care records – and make all this patient data available to government planners and others.
Perhaps most worryingly, US spy tech company Palantir is the frontrunner for this £480m contract – a completely inappropriate choice for our NHS!
Campaign groups ‘Just Treatment’ and ‘Foxglove’ along with others are demanding answers to concerns about the safety of our data and will be sharing information and how to campaign to protect our data at their online meeting on 20TH April.
Also definitely worth reading this article by Cori Cryder of ‘Open Democracy’, who together with ‘Foxglove’ have been leading the campaign against Palantir having control of our data.
NHS SURVEY SHOW PUBLIC SATISFACTION AT ALL TIME LOW!
There has been an annual public satisfaction with the NHS survey for 40 years. Not surprisingly the high point was in 2010 after 10 years of catch-up funding and improved services. This allowed the NHS to thrive and be at that time the best in the world.
Public satisfaction now reflects the serious NHS crisis, with only 34% considering the NHS nationally to be providing a good service, plummeting from 43% a year ago and 64% in 2010.
The main reasons people gave for being dissatisfied with the NHS were waiting times for hospital
and GP appointments (69%), staff shortages (55%) and a view that the government does not spend enough money on the NHS (50%).
Satisfaction with GPs, Dentists and A&E waits also reached an all time low – not very surprising.
But the public are clear on the important issues: only 8% agree with government policies on the NHS. The government has failed the NHS, it is not the NHS model failing the public.
The vast majority believe in the NHS founding principles: that the NHS should remain free at the point of delivery (90%), should provide a comprehensive service available to everyone (80%), should be funded primarily through taxation (84%), and needed more funding to succeed (82%) and this includes 63% of Tory voters.
Only 15% want a private service. This means the work of Keep Our NHS Public and it’s local groups such as ESON remains vital.
ESON supporters attended the ‘SOS NHS’ demonstration on Saturday 11 March, which saw thousands of people march through London demanding that the Government act now to end the extreme crisis in the NHS, a crisis which is causing hundreds of unnecessary and preventable deaths every week.
The demo was also an important expression of our support for all striking NHS workers – and it included large contingents of angry nurses, midwives and junior doctors and received lots of fantastic press coverage, including in the Mirror and Evening Standard.
CHILDREN MUST WAIT FOR A CRISIS BEFORE GETTING AN AUTISM DIAGNOSIS:
The Health Service Journal has recently revealed that new restrictions are being introduced for autism assessments, with some areas only accepting referrals for patients in crisis.
According to the latest NHS data, 140,000 people were waiting for an autism assessment in England in December 2022. This is a 40% increase in the number of people waiting in just one year.
An autism diagnosis is vital to getting the right help and support. Without a diagnosis many struggle at school, work or home, develop mental health problems like anxiety or depression – and in some cases end up in crisis or even in hospital.
The National Autism Society says “The Government committed to making demonstrable progress on reducing diagnosis waiting times in its National Autism Strategy for England. These commitments however, only account for the first year of the strategy. The NAS is calling on the Government to provide immediate funding for diagnosis. Without this the number of people waiting for an autism assessment will continue to increase and more people will be pushed to crisis point”
ESON will certainly be asking if restricted access to autism assessments is also being introduced in our area.
JOIN OUR ONLINE DISCUSSION FORUMS:
Ealing Save Our NHS now has online bi-monthly discussion forums, which means we can have more time for questions and discussions. Our next forum on Tuesday 25th April at 7.30pm will be on the ‘Crisis in Dentistry’. Public satisfaction is at all time low for dentistry, not surprising when only 1 in 10 dentists are now taking on NHS patients and children are filling up our A&Es in pain!
On 1st April our local NHS took over the contracts for dental services, so it’s very timely to have this discussion.
More details to follow on our Facebook page or, if you would like to be kept informed of our Forums please contact us to be added to the list.
Saturday 11th March – 12.00 – Central London, NW1 3AA
I am sure none of you need reminding about the unprecedented crisis in the NHS. Patients are being harmed as a direct consequence of underfunding and government policies as staff struggle to deliver the quality of care they strive for every day.
NHS staff forced to take strike action are a beacon of light shining a spotlight for everyone to see on the true state of our NHS and they rightly deserve our absolute support.
We need to make our voices heard and to expose the political choices this Government is making to underfund and privatise the NHS – that is why we need to protest loudly.
This is also a moment ahead of the Spring Budget to bring people together around an issue that unites us all.
WE DEMAND:
Emergency funding now
Invest in a fully publicly owned NHS & guarantee free healthcare for future generations
Pay staff properly: without fair pay, staffing shortages will cost lives
WHERE AND WHEN:
The demonstration will assemble at 12pm midday on Saturday 11 March at the north-most end of Tottenham Court Road (Euston end) opposite Warren Street Underground Station NW1 3AA then march to Whitehall where there will be a closing rally opposite Downing Street.
It has been called by the ‘SOS NHS’, a coalition of 50 groups including health campaigns and unions so it should be big!
Ealing Save Our NHS will be meeting at Ealing Broadway Station at 11.30am. ALL WELCOME to join us there – or look out for our colourful banner at the start.
There are some good articles from a striking nurse and a midwife on why they are joining the March on 11th March on the KONP website – well worth a read.
DAY OF ACTION IN EALING SHOWS BIG SUPPORT FOR NHS STRIKING WORKERS:
We had a really successful and enjoyable street stall in Ealing last month as part of the National Day of Action called by ‘Keep Our NHS Public’ in support of NHS workers.
Lots of people came to help, including ‘Heartlink’ (Ealing Hospital) volunteers and, of course, our stalwart supporters!
Nearly 1000 leaflets were given out, and our message boards (above) proved very popular, with some lovely messages being left. We also had some very generous donations towards our campaigning.
ESON STALL AT EALING BROADWAY THIS SATURDAY – 4TH MARCH – 11.30 -1.00pm
This Saturday, we will be leafleting again in Ealing Broadway to build the demonstration on March 11 and asking local people to show their support for NHS workers on our message boards.
If you would like to help and/or leave a message, which we will share with NHS staff, you will find us outside Marks & Spencer.
NOW IT IS TIME TO SUPPORT OUR JUNIOR DOCTORS:
The BMA says the failure of the Health Secretary to come to the table and negotiate a reversal of pay cuts of more than 26%, has left junior doctors in England with no option but to take strike action.
“The fact that so many junior doctors in England have voted yes for strike action should leave Ministers in absolutely no doubt what we have known for a long time and have been trying to tell them, we are demoralised, angry and no longer willing to work for wages that have seen a real terms decline of over 26% in the past 15 years. This, together with the stress and exhaustion of working in an NHS in crisis, has brought us to this moment, brought us to a 72-hour walk out”.
NB: The term ‘junior doctor’ is very misleading. Put simply it is any doctor who hasn’t reached the top rung of the medical training ladder. Someone can be called a junior doctor after 8 years of practicing in the NHS!
Unless the strike is paused for negotiations, we will be supporting our junior doctors at Ealing Hospital. The strike is due to take place for 3 days from Monday 13th March to Wednesday 15th March inclusive.
URGENT TREATMENT CENTRE AT EALING HOSPITAL NO LONGER RUN BY A PRIVATE COMPANY!
Not many people who have visited the Urgent Treatment Centre at Ealing Hospital would have realised that it was not run by the NHS, but like many UTCs around the country, it was run by a private company. In this case it was ‘Greenbrook’ who are part of the Totally PLC group and no doubt enjoying a nice profit.
Earlier this month we heard from the Health Service Journal that Ealing’s Urgent Treatment Centre has now been taken in-house and is being run by the London North West NHS Trust alongside the A&E.
The Urgent Treatment Centre is vital to the functioning of Ealing Hospital and has to work in tandem with the adjacent A & E so having it run by a different organisation means that work is often unnecessarily duplicated and tests repeated. So it’s good news for Ealing residents, and for patients at Central Middlesex, Northwick Park and Hillingdon Hospitals UTC, which were also run by Greenbrook.
With pressure to tender service by the Government, there is no guarantee this permanent but we certainly hope so!
In ‘The Lowdown‘ – ‘Emergency Care Plan raise more questions‘ – Rishi Sunak’s pledges of 800 more ambulances, 5000 more hospital beds and boosting community care don’t quite stack up as usual and neither does the £1 billion Support Fund – which is just old money recycled. Link here Remember the 40 new hospitals that were promised? Well no surprise to read, courtesy of John Lister in the Lowdown that the new hospitals programme is in trouble with at least half of the Trusts in the programme not confident they have sufficient funds to deliver their project! Link here
JOIN OUR ONLINE DISCUSSION FORUMS
Ealing Save Our NHS now has online bi-monthly discussion forums, which means we can have more time for questions and discussions. Our first one this month, had the always excellent, Dr John Puntis, retired pediatrician and Co- chair of Keep Our NHS Public to talk on the theme – Can NHS Strikes Save The NHS?
Ealing Save Our NHS is proud to have started our campaigning year by joining with striking nurses earlier last week. Along with ambulances workers they are absolutely determined to continue to fight for pay justice, but also to defend our broken NHS.
Patients are being harmed as a direct consequence of underfunding and government policies as staff struggle to deliver the quality of care they strive for every day. Horror stories abound of ambulances queuing hours to drop off patients preventing them from getting to emergencies on time, and 1000’s of people waiting 12 hours or more on trolleys in overcrowded A&Es – all due to lack of beds, social care and staff shortages.
According to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, failures in emergency care are causing up to 500 excess deaths a week. How awful it must be for those working on the emergency front line.
The Tories have certainly done their best to avoid any responsibility for the crisis. It’s all down to Covid, bad management of funding, flu- anything but them. Even their own supporters don’t believe them as polls show 73% of Conservative voters think they are responsible!
NHS staff taking strike action are our beacon of light shining a spotlight for everyone to see on the true state of our NHS and rightly deserve our absolute support.
PLEASE JOIN US ON 28TH JANUARY
28TH JANUARY – DAY OF ACTION IN SUPPORT OF NHS WORKERS – JOIN US IN EALING
SOS NHS and Keep Our NHS Public have called a National Day of Action in support of NHS staff and demanding that the Government take emergency action to save lives now!
Ealing Save Our NHS will be supporting the action with a Street Stall outside Marks & Spencers in Ealing Broadway from 11.30 – 1.00pm.
We have leaflets, ‘I Stand with NHS Staff’ window posters and badges and will be encouraging people to write a short message of support on post it notes, which we will share on social media and with NHS Staff on picket lines – Should be fun!
If you can join us we will be very pleased to see you.
1000 LOCAL PEOPLE OPPOSE CLOSURE OF EALINGS MENTAL HEALTH BEDS!
Ealing Save Our NHS has shone a spotlight on West London NHS Trust plans to permanently close the Hope and Horizon Wards at St Bernard’s Hospital cutting 31 much needed mental health beds and leaving Ealing with NO BEDS for seriously mentally ill residents of working age.
Ealing residents are the main user of beds in all three Boroughs covered by the Trust ( Ealing, Hounslow & Hammersmith) and despite some replacement of beds in Hounslow there is an overall loss of 14 beds despite a growing Mental Health crisis!
We recently presented our 1000 strong Petition ( picture above), which calls for these vital beds and those for children and young people to be re-opened, to both West London Trust, who are responsible for mental health services and Ealing Council, who are responsible for scrutinising theses services.
As part of the current ‘engagement process’ being carried out by the Trust we also submitted a detailed critique of the plan, which has been widely read and is available on our website.
Ealing Council has responded, by saying they are also concerned at the loss of acute mental health facilities. We know from talking to people on the streets how much local feeling there is about this issue. In a letter to ESON, Council Leader Peter Mason and Health Lead Joshua Blacker wrote:
“It is vitally important that Ealing is adequately served with the acute mental health services our residents require. We have been clear with the Trust that we would not want to see any loss of resources for Ealing residents, and expect the return of acute mental health facilities back into the Borough.”
Our campaign has certainly made an impact, contributing to the Trust extending it’s ‘public engagement’ and has got some very favourable coverage in the local media.
Ealing Save Our NHS joined other local NHS campaigns last week to show our solidarity with striking nursing staff at University College Hospital. They are mainly young, angry and absolutely determined to fight on until they win but not just for themselves but for the NHS they support every working day.
At 3.00pm we all set off to march to Downing Street in a demonstration organised by Keep Our NHS Public, NHS Workers Say No and NHS Staff Voices. All along the streets, buses and cars hooted their support and many people waved and cheered. Support is as strong as ever despite the best efforts of the media and Government to misrepresent them!
SUPPORTING OUR LOCAL AMBULANCE WORKERS:
Ambulance workers up and down the country have taken the unprecedented step of taking strike action and are being blamed by Tory Ministers for putting peoples lives at risk.
“People’s lives are already being put at risk every day because we don’t have the resources or staff.”
( Antonia Goswell Unison Rep and paramedic)
The statistics speak for themselves with average waits now up to an average of 10 Minutes for life threatening calls – instead of the 7 minute Target and average waits of over an hour for suspected strokes and heart attacks- nothing to do with strikers at all.
On Monday (23rd January) Unison ambulance workers across London took strike action and ESON supporters joined them at Hanwell Ambulance Station
FAT CAT PRIVATE HEALTH BOSSES SET TO MAKE MORE £ OUT OF NHS CRISIS!
In December the Government announced the creation of an an ‘Elective Recovery Taskforce’ to provide advice on how to “ turbocharge NHS recovery from the pandemic, reduce waiting times for patients and eliminate waits for routine care over a year by 2025 “ Not much of a turbo charge really!
The membership of this Taskforce has been kept secret but thanks to ‘Open Democracy’ we now know the launch event was attended by seven CEOs of private health care firms (including the Chief Executives of the UKs two largest private hospital providers, Circle Health Group and Spire Healthcare) some of whom are listed as members of the new Taskforce.
It is rather disappointing that Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting sees the private sector as part of the solution to the NHS crisis and is calling for more use of private hospitals – despite the evidence that billions have been wasted on such schemes, especially during and since the pandemic.
“The private sector was bailed out during Covid, has a lucrative four-year £10bn deal ongoing and is also in a position to earn massive profits from patients forced to go privately to avoid NHS queues of 7.2 million.”
PRIVATISATION – 557 DEATHS TOO MANY – JOIN THE ACTION
Anti privatisation campaign ‘We Own It’ are planning their biggest action ever against NHS privatisation on Saturday 25 February (from 2-4pm at Parliament Square)
The goal is to bring together 557 people at Parliament Square, the number of people whose deaths have been linked to privatisation, according to a recent Oxford University study. And really highlight what privatisation of the NHS really means.
Each person will represent one of the people whose deaths were linked to privatisation.
Each person will deliver a personal message to the Secretary of State for Health, Steve Barclay on a card at the end of a short solemn march;
And each person will be holding a white rose to signify the human cost of NHS privatisation and send a strong message.
If you would like to join in the action please click here
Local Health campaigners presented a petition calling on Ealing’s NHS bosses to re-instate beds for adults and children who find themselves in mental health crisis. A report from the campaign group Ealing Save Our NHS has highlighted concerns over plans to permanently close Hope and Horizon wards on the St Bernards Hospital site.
Eve Turner, Secretary of Ealing Save Our NHS said: “Hope and Horizon wards are the last two acute mental health wards in Ealing which can take for adults under 65. Closing them would be a loss of vital beds that the area can ill afford and it means adults in crisis being sent out of the borough away from their support networks. Children in severe crisis are already sent out of Ealing.” She added “Ealing Save Our NHS regularly holds campaign stalls around the Borough and we have found huge concern over the shortage of mental health services. A thousand people have physically signed this petition, which we hope will focus the minds of the authorities. Suitable beds need to be re-opened urgently.” The petition was presented to the West London NHS Trust, which is responsible for local Mental Health Services and a copy to Ealing Council, which is responsible for scrutinising the services.
More information: Oliver New 07931 198501 Ealing Save Our NHS report on the cuts proposals here:
“We think about 10 million people will need additional mental health support as a result of the pandemic” – Andy Bell, Deputy Chief Executive of the Centre for Mental Health speaking to the Health Service Journal.
The crisis in Mental Health treatment doesn’t get anything like the same coverage from the UK media as many other NHS services. In many ways, it has long been a Cinderella – more so with the years of government underfunding of public services. Queues for treatment have grown and huge numbers of people have been forced into private profit-making services – unaffordable to many of us.
It’s of course well known that those suffering most from discrimination and austerity also suffer the most from mental ill health. Rates are higher for women than men and higher inpoorer neighbourhoods. Cuts and bed closures are the last thing we need – but that’s just what’s happening in Ealing.
Ealing Save Our NHS has produced a document outlining its opposition to the proposedpermanent closure of Hope and Horizon Wards on the St Bernard’s Site next to EalingHospital. You can find the document here.
As the document explains: “This proposed cut would leave the whole Borough with NO acute adult mental health beds for anyone under 65 and leave many Ealing patients in a worse position than comparable Boroughs.”These plans would mean an overall reduction of 14 beds. Meanwhile no less than 61 beds elsewhere in North West London also face the axe.
We certainly hope that elected councillors and MPs in Ealing and surrounding areas will be opposing these closure plans as there is a huge and growing demand in Ealing for these beds.
NHS workers hoping for a well-deserved decent pay rise and that the Government would face up to the desperate situation in the NHS will have been disappointed by the Budget last week. Clearly the crisis in the NHS and the threat of industrial action meant the Chancellor was forced to announce a measly increase of 2% increase for the next two years – butwithout any funding for pay increases!
Whilst the figure of £3.3 billion looks good in the headlines, it is less than half the £7 billion that NHS leaders say is desperately needed for 2023 to fill the hole in the Budget. In other words, it is a CUT. Not only is it less money then needed, the Government expects the NHS to find even more so-called ‘efficiency savings’. And inevitably the squeeze on other public services, rises in energy prices and growing inflation will further impact on NHS budgets!
It now seems highly likely that the Royal College of Nurses (RCN) will go ahead with their first ever strike, while the nurses, ambulance workers and other workers in Unite, Unison, GMB and the Royal College of Midwives, who are currently balloting may well be fired up enough to join them!
WE TOTALLY SUPPORT THE NURSES AND OTHER NHS WORKERS IN THEIR FIGHT FOR DECENT PAY
For over a decade NHS workers have put up with real-term pay cuts, with some workers up to 29% worse off in real terms. It’s no wonder that many have chosen to walk away and those that remain are struggling to pay the bills and even feed themselves and their families. What a disgrace!
It has got so bad that Hospitals across the country have set up food banks for staff and have begun offering emergency loans to help staff who are under financial pressure, including at Ealing, Northwick Park and Central Middlesex Hospitals. Working agency shifts to meet the shortfall in NHS pay has become the norm, leading to even quicker burnout amongst staff who are already overworked.
This quote from Nurse activist Holly Turner really sums up why nurses are striking –
“What staff are witnessing first hand is a catastrophic breakdown of services that has left us with vacancies hitting 135,000and patients in danger. We desperately need to focus on retention of staff. Without addressing that, we have no chance of tackling the backlog of seven million patients”
No doubt when the strikes do take place there will be a backlash from the Government and their media friends, accusing the workers of threatening peoples lives etc. It is certainly not the workers’ fault that thousands of people are leaving or that the huge hole in NHS budgets means millions are sitting on waiting lists!
The RCN and other health unions have pledged to ensure that emergency care is not affected and will be exempting staff from strike action to ensure this.
ESON will be supporting our NHS workers at our next Stall in Ealing Broadway on Saturday 3rd December.
NO MORE ACUTE MENTAL HEALTH BEDS IN EALING!!
All of Ealing’s 31 inpatient beds for adults (under 65) which were ‘temporarily’ closed during the Covid pandemic are facing permanent closure by West London NHS Trust, which is responsible for mental health services in Ealing, Hammersmith and Hounslow. This would leave Ealing with ZERO acute beds for adults.
We know from campaigning with our Petition on the streets that local people are very much opposed to the loss of beds and want both child and adult acute beds re-opened.
Last year, according to our Freedom of information request, 352 seriously ill patients from Ealing (roughly 30 a month) were admitted to either Charing Cross (140) or Lakeside in Hounslow (212) cutting them off from their local community, friends , family and places of worship and causing hours of extra time in travelling and cost for their carers and family. Around 52% of the people affected, are also from the BAME community – so much for addressing inequalities!
The Trust is currently carrying out a ‘conversation’ or ‘engagement’, supposedly to seek the public’s view but it is skewered to support the case for permanently closing the beds by focusing on how bad the current building is for patients (which is true) while failing to make clear the loss of all adult acute beds in Ealing and the impact that would have on local people. They also talk of using the money saved in Ealing for better community services, but they are no substitute for a bed when you are seriously unwell – ‘Shaping a Healthier Future’ comes to mind!
Although an extra 17 acute beds have been created at Lakeside in Hounslow using the money saved from closing the 31 beds in Ealing, that’s still a serious loss of 14 much-needed beds for the 3 Boroughs. According to the BMA and Royal College of Psychiatrists we need more acute beds not less!
The Trust needs to know there is widespread opposition to their plans, so to begin with we are participating in their ‘conversation’, even though its deeply flawed. We are urging people to fill in the survey and have your say.
We will be handing in our Petition against bed closures to the West London NHS Trust, Ealing Council and other NHS bodies, as well as lobbying our Councillors and local MPs to stand up for the people of Ealing as they did when Ealing Hospital was under threat.
PLEASE WRITE TO YOUR COUNCILLOR AND/OR MPasking them to oppose the bed cuts, especially if you or your family could be affected.
OUR PATIENT DATA IS UNDER THREAT AGAIN – Please write to your MP
The Observer newspaper recently reported that NHS England has instructed its digital wing, NHS Digital to use US spytech company Palantir’s operating platform, which is called ‘Foundry’, to collect patient data. This will include your NHS number, date of birth, postcode, admissions and inpatient activity. NHS England describe this as a “pilot”, supposedly to help bring down waiting lists.
We understand that Palantir are not fit in any way to have access to our data with their track record of working with US military operations, mass surveillance and predictive policing, not to mention Donald Trump.
AND most important we as patients haven’t been asked for our consent.
Campaigners against the sharing of our data with private companies are asking us to write to our MPs– it will only take a few minutes so please help.
END SOCIAL CARE DISGRACE PUBLIC MEETING
The End Social Care Disgrace Campaign, which is fighting for a National Care Support and Independent Living Service, is having an online Public Meeting on Monday 5th December from 6.00 -7.30pm.
There is no doubt that we need a really big national campaign to radically transform Social Care in to a free, publically provided service with decent pay, conditions and training that respects the role of care staff.
There is a great line up of speakers including MPs, service users, workers and carers.
We will be outside Marks & Spencers in Ealing Broadway from 11.30 -1.00pm on Saturday the 3rd. It’s our last push on our Mental Health beds Petition before we hand it in and we will certainly be highlighting why the public should be right behind Nurses and other NHS staff taking strike action too – Please come and join us.
If you would like to get more involved in our Campaign and come to our meetings, please drop us an email.
Here we go again! The latest prime minister has appointed yet another Health and Social Care Secretary, who yet again claims to be going to deal with the NHS crisis without putting in the vitally needed resources. We expect more empty announcements and sound bites like her A,B,C,D (ambulances, backlog care, doctors and dentists).
Clearly the situation in the NHS is pretty grim. In August around 28 000 people waited more than 12 hours on trolleys in emergency departments for a hospital bed. 6 .7 million people are now on waiting lists and NHS staff vacancies have increased to 132,000, with 40,000 experienced nurses leaving in a year – wiping out most new starters!
No wonder NHS unions are balloting members on industrial action, including for the first time ever the RCN (Royal College of Nursing) – they certainly have our support.
WILL THERESE COFFEY’S “PLAN FOR PATIENTS” STOP THE ROT – WE DON’T THINK SO
If you want to address the crisis in the NHS, a good place to start for a new Health Secretary would be to talk to GPs and the wider NHS, but NO – the “plan” was drawn up in a few days without any consultation. Sadly, this is nothing new for Government Ministers.
The ‘expectation’ that patients will get an appointment within two weeks with their GP and on the same day if its urgent, has had the most media coverage. Most patients (85% in July 2022) already get an appointment within two weeks of booking—almost half (44%) on the same day. Since you can’t compel GPs to cap waiting times at 2 weeks without renegotiating their contracts, Coffey is proposing that around 3 million patients should be offered appointments with physiotherapists, pharmacies and other health care professionals instead of doctors!
Once again we have the tired old nonsense of redirecting people away from A&E, which doesn’t work for seriously ill patients who need ambulances and hospital beds (we heard it often when they tried to close Ealing’s A&E). So we have more helplines, more ambulance call handlers, more monitoring of people at home, virtual beds and so on but no real extra staff or any more actual beds.
Without any extra money, soaring inflation and energy costs and a staffing crisis, it’s no surprise that they are looking to volunteers and retired clinicians to save the day!
John Lister from ‘the Lowdown’ has written an excellent analysis of the plan – very readable and not too long – a highly recommended read.
It was good to be back on the streets again last week talking to local people about what’s happening to our NHS. We were not surprised to hear stories of long waits for mental health support; long waits for surgery and long waits in A&E. When people eventually get some help they are happy with the care they get and sympathise with overworked staff doing their best.
Our latest leaflet spells out very clearly the extent of the NHS crisis and who is to blame – certainly not the staff, but all the Government underfunding and drive towards privatisation!
GOOD NEWS – EALING HOSPITAL GETS MORE FUNDING:
ESON is now having regular meetings with new London North West Trust Chief Executive, Pippa Nightingale, and Managing Director Mark Titcomb. It has certainly been a refreshing change to be able to hear about improvements made at Ealing Hospital and plans for even more new services, and to feel our voice and that of local people will be listened to.
A new Endoscopy Suite recently opened and there is much excitement about the major upgrade of the ‘Cath Lab’. The latter is not a Lab at all but a theatre run by specialists which carries out tests and heart procedures like stents and clearing arteries – a big plus for heart care and wellbeing for our local communities. Ward refurbishments are also underway, most recently ‘9 North’, and planned for the hard working Emergency Department. Paediatrics had an upgrade some months ago and there are now day beds staffed by a Consultant, though sadly still not a Paediatrics A&E, but you can still take your kids to Urgent Care.
Although not strictly a ‘local service’, plans for a NW London Community Diagnostic Hub based at Ealing Hospital are underway greatly expanding the range of diagnostic tests for our communities.
After years of neglect and losing services its great to be able to share some good news!
Last year a coalition including Keep Our NHS Public, Health Campaigns Together, NHS Workers Say No, We Own It, and several trade unions came together to campaign to end the crisis in the NHS.
The NHS is failing, not because of inherent flaws, but because the Government wants it to fail – to save money and bring in more private companies. We demand a health and care service fit for all.
SOS NHS demands are: –
Emergency funding to save a struggling NHS;
Guarantee free healthcare for future generations;
Pay staff properly: without fair pay, staffing shortages will cost lives
The SOS NHS Conference 2022 will be a vital opportunity to bring together all NHS supporters to create an actionable vision to save our NHS. We certainly need one as clearly the Government have no idea!
There is an excellent range of speakers and plenty of opportunity to ask questions and contribute.
The Conference will be a blended event so people can also join online as well as attend in person.
Our care system is failing many people who need care and support, putting them at risk, its also failing those who work in the care sector. Many people who need care can’t afford the charges to get the care they need and have to rely on family and friends to provide unpaid care – it’s a disgrace!
Keep Our NHS Public has launched a new Petition to raise awareness and demand that the Prime Minister ends the social care disgrace. Among their seven key demands is that Social Care should be provided free at the point of use and to ensure there is a properly trained workforce who get a living wage and decent working conditions.
The Data Protection and Digital Information currently going through Parliament is a major concern for health campaigners. If un-amended it would increase the extent to which citizens data can be shared with the State, law enforcement agencies and other bodies such as the commercial sector. Due to the appointment of Liz Truss the Bill has been delayed and may change, but its still worth reading this article on the KONP website.
JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN MEETING WITH DR LOUISE IRVINE
We are delighted that Dr Louise Irvine, GP and campaigner is joining us at our next meeting on Tuesday 18th October. Louise will be talking about the latest so- called ‘plan for patients’ and why many GPs are opposed to it. The meeting is online at 7.30pm. Please contact us for the link.
New laws are being considered by Rishi Sunak to compel NHS bosses to send even more patients for private treatment supposedly to help address the huge waiting list, but also we are told in the name of so called ‘patient choice’. 
Children’s mental health services reached a new low last month according to research by 
Despite significant staff shortages across the NHS, the Government’s much promised Workforce Plan has still failed to materialise. As a consequence of not having a proper plan, doctors can get stranded in career limbo. 
Perhaps most worryingly, US spy tech company Palantir is the frontrunner for this £480m contract – a completely inappropriate choice for our NHS!
