Clause 118

I have circulated an open letter via Twitter seeking support against Clause 118 - the link can be found by clicking here. I hope to get as many names as possible and then seek to get the letter published in the press.

Clause 118 is being rushed through Parliament in an attempt to allow Whitehall bureaucrats to close any hospital they wish in England. This follows on from the coalition's humiliating and very expensive defeat (at the tax payers expense) in the High Court when they tried to close Lewisham Hospital.

Further information on Clause 118 can be found here at the excellent Open Democracy website.

This is another battle for the English NHS. Attacks on the NHS seem to be a daily occurrence now but this latest 'hospital closure clause' means any English hospital could be closed with very little meaningful local consultation.

It is an affront to democracy and I urge you to sign the open letter here.


VERY IMPORTANT - CONTACT YOUR MP

Another action you can take is to send the letter to your MP. This makes a HUGE difference and can have a real impact. The poll tax climb down was thought to have occurred due to the huge number of letters MPs received on the issue. Please copy and paste the letter which I have reproduced below and go to THIS LINK to find out who your MP is and how to send the letter to them.

Thank you very much.

--------------------------

Letter to copy and paste to your MP by using this website to send it to them


The coalition recently lost a battle to close the thriving and solvent Lewisham Hospital when a totally separate adjacent hospital was suffering financial problems due to government cuts and disastrous PFI debts.

The coalition subsequently rushed through an amendment to the Care Bill (Clause 118) which gives sweeping powers allowing Whitehall bureaucrats to close any English hospitals without full and proper local consultation. With this ‘hospital closure clause’ in place no English hospital will be safe from financially driven closures. Local patients, clinicians and commissioners will have little meaningful say in the closure process.

Whatever happened to the mantra used by the coalition to sell the recent NHS reconfiguration to us all - ‘no decision about me without me’.

In effect Clause 118 brings about a fast track hospital closure process. Clause 118 is pernicious and hugely damaging to the future of healthcare in England and I implore you as my MP to withdraw Clause 118 or vote against it as it moves through Parliament.

We do not want this hospital closure clause in our English NHS.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Porsche or a Ventilator?

We've seen the government announce they want to borrow money from City hedge funds to prop up the NHS finances. In effect this means taxpayers will be funding a hedge fund dealers new Porsche rather than buying a neonatal ventilator. Tax payers will be fleeced and huge interest payments on this deal will go to the hedge fund meaning less funds are available to the NHS for direct patient care. I've written an article in the BMJ on this and you can read it here... http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2017/04/13/david-wrigley-financing-the-nhs-through-hedge-funds/ Do leave a message on the BMJ website on how you feel about this.  David 
Read more

The serious implications of the case of Dr Bawa-Garba

A shockwave swept through the medical profession this week. The erasure from the medical register of Dr Bawa-Garba left many doctors thinking 'that could be me.....'. Dr Bawa-Garba was a junior doctor working in a busy paediatric department in Leicester in 2011. She was just back from a years maternity leave and thrown straight back into acute paediatric care with doctors missing on the rota, faulty hospital equipment and far too much work/too many patients to remain a safe doctor. Tragically, on that day a child died due to multiple failures and indeed the hospital itself admitted it had many areas it needed to improve on to prevent such an incident occurring again. Dr Bawa-Garba was subsequently convicted of manslaughter in a court of law and given a 2 year suspended sentence. It is said the court did not take into account the serious pressures Dr Bawa-Garba faced that day. Some time later she subsequently went through a process at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal
Read more

General practice is on a cliff edge - and ACOs could tip it over

The latest acronym to hit the NHS is ACO – Accountable Care Organisations. You would be forgiven for sighing with disbelief at yet another change to the way the NHS operates. It wasn’t enough for the Conservative led coalition to push through the single biggest reorganisation of the NHS with the Health and Social Care Act 2012 – a change so big you could ‘ see it from space’ according to the then NHS chief executive David Nicholson. ACOs are the latest reorganisation by NHS England which Simon Stevens expects to “deliver fast-track improvements, such as fewer emergency hospitalisations and better care in people’s homes”. On the face of it that sounds like a good plan but the potential seismic shift in how the NHS runs under an ACO is frightening. ACOs will seek to bring together all organisations (providers and commissioners) offering health and social care under ‘one roof’ in a geographical area. Social care is now based on means testing so you have to pay if you have some
Read more