NHS and health

The government is desperate to end doctors’ strikes for a real pay rise (part of their campaign for “pay restoration”, reversing huge real-terms pay cuts since 2008). It knows that a serious win for the doctors will make renewed strikes in other parts of the public sector next year more likely. So it is resorting to both stick and carrot. The sticks include leaking that it plans to recruit thousands of doctors from India to break the strike. The Daily Mail quotes a “Whitehall source” as citing Ronald Reagan’s smashing of the US air traffic controllers’ union in 1982. This may not be real or...

Internationally the right's culture war is gaining ground, attacking LGBTQ people, in particular the trans community, rallying against immigration, and restricting reproductive freedoms. Working class women are at the sharp end of this assault and at the forefront of fighting back. Join us at for a day of workshops and talks to discuss where we stand and build a movement that can turn the tide. 10am-6pm + after-party until late. Pelican House, 144 Cambridge Heath Road London E1 5QJ Free childcare & London crash space on request SESSIONS (click on links for session details): • Opening Plenary...

£30 billion each year of extra social spending could be covered just by taxing unearned income at the same rates as wages

Two thousand mainly young doctors and other health workers rallied in Manchester on 3 October, during Tory party conference. Striking junior doctors and consultants, members of the British Medical Association (BMA), were joined by members of the Society of Radiographers, also on strike on 3 October. “Full pay restoration” is a much better use of the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” than “Oh Jeremy Corbyn”. It sounds impressive shouted across St Peter’s Square. The BMA is fighting for a clear timetable for restoration of real-terms pay to 2008 levels. Speakers at the protest put emphasis on...

Under the guise of “Living with Covid”, and at a time when a new variant (how consequential, no-one knows) is spreading, NHS England has watered down its already inadequate infection prevention and control (IPC) advice. This puts both NHS workers and patients at unnecessary risk of harm and undermines the public health effort. Far from learning the lessons of the pandemic, NHS managers are reverting to the pre-Covid status quo. For the first few years of the pandemic, NHS England advised that Trusts should ensure that all workers, including bank and subcontracted workers, could isolate on full...

On 20 September, junior doctors and consultants will strike together for the first time in the history of the NHS, in a significant escalation of their pay disputes. NHS consultants strike 19-20 September; junior doctors 20-22 September; and consultants and junior doctors together 2-4 October, plus radiographers on 3 October. (For picket lines, see here ). The British Medical Association has also called a rally in Manchester on 3 October outside Tory party conference. The government continues to say the doctors’ demand for “pay restoration” — an above-inflation pay rise this year, and a...

Thousands of NHS workers across East London struck for pay and safer staffing on 13-14 September. The Barts Unite branch has further dates from 16-21 September, coinciding with national walkouts of junior doctors and consultants. On both 13 and 14 September lively rallies made the explicit links between our industrial demands and the fight to save the NHS. The Unite union has a patchy membership across the NHS. It has patchy areas of density for historic reason, either because of past campaigns or because of the way the Unite union formed through mergers with smaller unions and professional...

Clinical support workers in Unison at Arrowe Park and Clatterbridge hospitals on the Wirral struck for another 72 hours on 11-13 September, with a claim for re-banding back pay. A number of trusts including Manchester University Foundation, Pennine Care and Stockport NHS Foundation, have re-banded their Cases and Health Care Assistants from Band 2 to 3 and paid back pay to 1 April 2018. This dispute is to win the same for workers on the Wirral. Strikes this week have been well supported and the picket line has been lively. More strike days are planned. Organisers are making sure the workers...

The fight by junior doctors for serious moves to restore real-terms wages to their 2008 level is alive and kicking

Unite has announced strikes in four London NHS Trusts over pay and safer staffing