NHS and health

Lifeworks occupation continues

The campaign to reopen the Cambridgeshire Complex Cases service, 'Lifeworks', which was shut down on the basis of funding cuts without any due process, continues. The importance of the service to the community, supporting some of the most vulnerable people in the Cambridgeshire area cannot be overstated. For people with conditions such a Borderline Personality Disorder it can mean the difference between life or death. Representatives of a 'working party' set up to address the consultation, or rather lack of it, on the future of Lifeworks received representatives of the occupied Lifeworks...

"No" to Agenda for Change (2004)

The Health Service Group Executive of the public-service workers' union Unison voted on 8 September to recommend "Yes" to Agenda for Change. The recommendation goes to a special conference of the health sector of Unison in London on 7 October. Agenda for Change is the government's proposal to restructure health-service pay. It would cut pay rates for a sizeable proportion of posts, and bring in longer working hours for a number of health service workers. Rank and file activists in the Unison health sector have issued a "vote no" leaflet under the banner of the paper Healthworker.

Vote for a union that fights back

Supporters of Solidarity in the health service group of UNISON have produced this leaflet to promote four candidates in the current (2007) round of elections to the National Executive Committee: Kate Ahrens, Alison Brown, Paul Harper and Len Hockey are standing for the four health seats on the NEC. Please download and distribute this leaflet.

Labour: rebuild the NHS!

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence watchdog has warned that NHS under-staffing is a threat to patients’ safety, and is calling for a 1:8 ratio of nurses to patients. According to Nice’s “report found understaffing at Stafford hospital, caused by cost-cutting by the trust, had contributed directly to what a previous official inquiry called ‘ appalling care’ which led to patients dying and suffering serious harm.” The recommendation will increase pressure on hospitals to hire more nurses to tackle shortages, and cuts against the government’s reluctance to introduce mandatory...

Occupied to save the NHS!

The Lifeworks centre, an open clinic service in Cambridge for people who suffer with personality disorders, is being threatened with closure. Patients have been occupying the centre for eight weeks to stop it from closing. Lifeworks is part of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Foundation Trust’s (CPFT) Complex Case Service. It is a community service which people can use as and when they need to. Lifeworks focuses on improving social functioning and getting people reintegrated into society. Around 30 people are dependant on Lifeworks, which covers the entirety of Cambridgeshire. With cuts of £6...

The new privatisation

Social Finance and Social Impact Bonds are becoming a popular idea for public sector funding. Social Impact Bonds (SIBs sometimes called Payments for Success Bonds) began under the Labour government in 2010. Private investors lend the public sector money to meet certain social “benefits” or targets. Investing in social projects for profit is led in the UK by Social Finance UK. (Its sister organisation in the US is Social Finance US). One of its key projects is Social Impact Bonds, often using payment by results. With SIBs, Social Finance identifies an area where they believe they can help...

Behind the Blairite “business agenda”

Alan Milburn was once a Trotskyist who co-ran a small left-wing bookshop in Newcastle, Days of Hope (aka Haze of Dope). Now he is better known as the New Labour politician and former Secretary of State for Health whom David Cameron appointed as his “social mobility Tsar”. He is also one of those Blairite heavyweights who are occasionally wheeled out to deliver the line that those Blairites left within the shadow cabinet feel unable to deliver. [On 13 April] in the Financial Times, he called on Labour “to embrace an avowedly pro-business agenda and match it with a more overtly pro-business tone...

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.