NHS DEFENCE CAMPAIGN Step up the Campaign ‘It’s Our NHS’: National Demonstration A coalition called Health Campaigns Together has called a national demonstration in support of our NHS. The demo is on Saturday 4th March, and will assemble at 12 noon in Tavistock Square, central London. You can find further information here: healthcampaignstogether.com
info@shropshiredefendournhs.org
info@shropshiredefendournhs.org 07900 411 769 / 07539 897 093
Can you come? There are coaches being organised by Shropshire Trades Council leaving Shrewsbury Abbey at 7am and Telford bus station at 7.30 am (free but donation requested). Book your seat by contacting sectstuc@hotmail.com
A Crisis in our Local Hospitals In January this year, our two hospitals – the Royal Shrewsbury and Telford’s Princess Royal – declared ‘red alert’ status a shocking eighteen times. This is frightening. This means our local hospitals are not coping with demand. The Chief Executive of the hospital trust explained at a Board meeting exactly what was going on. The A&Es were packed with sick people – not with people who had cut a
finger or sprained an ankle, but with very sick people who needed to be there. Every bed in both hospitals was occupied. Every ward in both hospitals was full. Every free area of space in both hospitals was stuffed full with extra beds. The hospital trust ran out of beds – and had to borrow beds from another organisation. Again, this was about local people being seriously ill and desperately needing hospital care.
We have a population in Shropshire that is much older than the national average. We also have an ageing population. This means that demand on our local NHS and social care services will increase, year on year, for at least the next decade. This is the worst possible time for cuts and closures.
We need both A&Es The Stupidity of Local Proposals We have two A&Es and two acute hospitals at the moment – and they are failing to cope. It is astonishing that health bosses in Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin go on insisting that we have to CLOSE one of our two A&Es, REDUCE the number of hospital beds, and DOWNGRADE one of the two hospitals. Their numbers don’t add up. Our two A&Es treated 108,000 patients last year. The plan for the future is one A&E that will treat fewer than 44,000 patients a year. This isn’t just dangerous. It’s astonishingly stupid. A cuts document called the Sustainability and Transformation Plan will lead to NHS spending cuts in our area of around £150 million every single year. There will be job cuts too – with around 2000 health workers in Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin set to lose their jobs. It would cost around £100 million to get community services in Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin in a state where healthcare can be shifted away from hospitals and into alternative settings. They haven’t got £100 million – so they’re going to spend £6 million instead. This is about the devastation of local healthcare. When health bosses say that this is about making Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin the healthiest half million people on the planet (and yes, this is what they claim), they must know that it’s a straight lie. GPs
are already stretched to the limit. Social care has already .... health bosses say that this is been cut to the about making Shropshire and bone, with more cuts ahead. Telford and Wrekin the healthiest Public health half million people on the planet spending is (and yes, this is what they claim)… being slashed. And now core NHS services are to be dismantled as savage downgrade the Princess Royal spending cuts are driven Hospital; will drive through deep through. We are heading for cuts to staff and services; will catastrophe unless we succeed leave grossly inadequate in stopping these appalling hospital services for all of us in cuts. Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin and Powys… It’s Future Fit by another name. Look Out For This
Joke of the day
One There’s another lie doing the rounds at the moment. The Future Fit cuts and closure plan is completely discredited now, and could easily collapse altogether. Even health bosses are completely divided about how or when it can be taken forward. Hospital chiefs, though, are now trying to replace Future Fit with pretty much identical cuts and closure plans. They’ve come up with the ‘Sustainable Services
Programme’. Just like Future Fit, this will close an A&E (probably in Telford, closing the Women’s and Children’s Centre at the same time); will
The game that they’re now playing is pretending that we will have not one A&E but three! Their internal paperwork says that they’re closing one of the two A&Es. They’ve suddenly decided to tell a straight lie to the public. They’re telling us that Urgent Care Centres – without Consultants and unable to treat anyone who is seriously ill – are really and truly A&Es. We’ll have two Urgent Care Centres for minor illness and minor injury; we’ll have one proper A&E… Hey presto, we’ve
suddenly got three A&Es! It’s a conjuring trick, but not a very good one.
Is Future Fit is Being Quietly Buried? Hospital bosses are planning a ‘dialogue’ with the public on how one A&E can suddenly become three. If you come across this particular bit of dialogue, let them know you’re not taken in by the spin. It’s not that hard. We need BOTH our A&Es and BOTH our hospitals. We also need decent funding for community NHS services and social care. If you have time, send a quick email to haveyoursay@sath.nhs.uk – just to let them know what you think.
Maternity Services The good news is that our maternity services offer an excellent standard of care. Our rural maternity units – Ludlow, Oswestry and Bridgnorth – are right up there as some of the very best in the country. This was clear from a conference on the national maternity review earlier this month. The bad news is that the hospital trust refuses to employ enough midwives, and randomly closes its midwife-led units to support the main Obstetric Unit at Telford. In the last week, there have been closures at Oswestry, Bridgnorth and Ludlow (with Shrewsbury maternity unit also closed for maintenance). A Bridgnorth mother, due to give birth on the day of closures was told only hours in advance. This policy of short-term closures is about cutting costs – and it creates unnecessary risks for mothers and babies. It is
outrageous that this is still happening. We’re about to go into a local maternity review, led by Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group, and set to be conducted on a ‘value for money’ basis. Given the scale of local cuts, there is a real fear that this will recommend reduced choice and a reduced service for women in rural areas. Our gold standard care could be dismantled. The hospital trust needs to make a brave choice here: to stand firm, promote its midwifeled units, and establish itself as a national leader in maternity services for women in rural areas. Campaigns by local women stopped the closure of Ludlow Midwife-Led Unit in October and stopped the downgrading of all three rural midwife-led units in December. If this fight needs to go on – it surely will.
A National and a Local Crisis Nationally and locally, our NHS is tipping into crisis. The NHS nationally is being starved of essential funds, with a shortfall of at least £22 billion by 2020. The UK spends far, far less on healthcare than comparable
European countries. This is why A&Es and hospitals are being thrown into chaos. This is why targets are being missed – for cancer care, for ambulance response times, and for treatment waiting lists. The crisis in the NHS is compounded by a crisis in social care. Year on year cuts in local government budgets have left social care on the brink of collapse. If Germany, France, the Netherlands (and many other countries) can afford health and social care for their people, why can’t the UK? Even within that dreadful national context, our local NHS is hard done by. Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin between them have well above average health needs: an older population in Shropshire, and high levels of social deprivation around Telford. Our levels of health need are well above average – but local NHS funding is at rock bottom levels. Our area currently gets the 6th lowest funding levels in England, a whopping £82 million less than the national average. By 2020, we’ll be the 4th worst funded - £103 million less than the average. And if we got the same as Cornwall, that’d be an additional £181 million this year alone!
‘The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it.’ It’s no wonder that our NHS in Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin is in terrible trouble. Ludlow MP Philip Dunne is now Health Minister with direct responsibility for NHS funding. We urgently need him to get NHS funding sorted out – for us, and for the rest of the country.
Things to do Ludlow: Petitioning for our maternity unit: Friday 3rd March 10.00 am to 2pm, Castle Square. Come when you can! It’s likely that people who can’t make the national demo will also be petitioning on 4th March. Wem: Petitioning for the NHS on Saturdays: 12 noon -1 pm, 18th February, 11th March and 18th outside the Wem Co-op.
Thursday 2nd March at Dawley Social Club, and Wednesday 8th March at the Wightman Theatre, Shrewsbury! 7.30 pm for an 8 pm start. You can bring a team or join a team on the night. More info from www.ticketsource.co.uk/defendournhs
Finally, can you contact your Councillor and your MP? The NHS and social care are starting to fail now, and the biggest single reason is that essential funding is being withheld. We live in one of the richest countries in the world, and there is no good reason for this to be happening. Let’s ask our representatives to add their voices to the call for fair funding for health and social care.
Oswestry: 7.30 pm 7th March Bailey Head Pub, Oswestry (towards the back of the pub).
Did you know they are planning to slash 2000 local health workers? This level of cuts, when actually there needs to be more staff not less, is sign of the level of the crisis facing our NHS. We cannot allow this to continue. Get involved with your local NHS Defence Campaign to keep both A&Es and demand full funding to meet the local needs. Join us on Big Quiz Night
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