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Petition Tag - privatisation
1. Keep Gloucestershire's NHS Public 
Gloucestershire's community health services - nine community hospitals, nine health clinics, and other county-wide services (see list below) - have been scheduled for transfer out of the NHS by the Board of NHS Gloucestershire.
But Social Enterprise Trust or Community Interest Companies like Gloucestershire Care Services CIC, which has been proposed to take over the services, are not an alternative to the break up and privatisation of the NHS - they are part of that process. If the transfer goes ahead, services will be judged not on the basis of need and quality but whether they will be successful in the competitive market, staff terms and conditions will be attacked, patient care will suffer, and accountability to the public will be lost.
A legal case in Gloucestershire, supported by local anti-cuts groups, challenges the claim of management that there was no alternative to social enterprise. It puts the option of keeping staff and services in the NHS back on the table, if management want to consider it. Elsewhere campaigns have successfully defended NHS services.
The legal case can buy us time to campaign together against social enterprise, but we must put pressure on the Board of NHS Gloucestershire to make the right decision. They can legally keep the serives in the NHS and do not have to open services up to private sector competition. Integration with an NHS trust locally or nationally is one route, and as has happened elsewhere, it could be possible to set up a new NHS trust - there is no legal barrier to this (but it would be a matter of Department of Health approval).
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The services affected include District Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy, Specialist Nursing, and Out of hours medical and nursing services. Pharmacy, Sexual Health and Chlamydia screening, Podiatry, Dental services, Wheelchair services, Musculo-skeletal services, Telehealth and Specialist Domiciliary care are also to be transferred to Gloucestershire Care Services Community Interest Company.
Nine community hospitals (Stroud, Cirencester, Dilke, Fairford, Lydney, Bourton (Moore Cottage), Moreton, Tewkesbury, and the new Vale Hospital in Dursley) and nine health clinics (Beeches Green Stroud, Stonehouse Health Clinic, Cinderford Health Centre, Coleford Health Centre, Lydney Health Centre, Hesters Way Healthy Living Centre, Holts Health Centre Newent, Lydbrook Health Centre, Symn Lane Clinic (Wotton-under-Edge)) are also part of the plans.
The management of Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Huntingdon is threatened with privatisation. Three companies are in the running to take over the hospital from May 2011 - Serco, Ramsay Health and Circle Health. None of them have experience of running a hospital on the scale of Hinchingbrooke.
The move sets a dangerous precedent for the future of the NHS with the possibility of many more hospitals in similar financial situation moving in the same direction. This would see a fundamental change in how NHS hospitals are run and could well be a precursor for the break up of the NHS as we know it.
Privatisation means putting profit before people and has no place in the NHS. As services such as A&E and Maternity fail to offer a profit, then we fear that these services could be under threat.
3. Defend Council Housing in Bolton Say No to the Stock Transfer
Bolton Defend Council Housing
Say No to Stock Transfer
Council housing is worth defending against privatisation. There is concern that tenants are not being given full information on the case against transfer. The alternative of direct investment should be given and the risks of privatisation highlighted.
These risks include loss of secure tenancies, higher rents and charges, loss of accountability, and problems of debt and borrowing. These risks also include financial crises, job losses, pay cuts, mergers and takeovers.
The Tory Council wants to privatise our leisure centres, Labour are campaigning to stop them and need your help...
PUBLIC - Built and refurbished with public money, our leisure centres belong to Southampton's people.
AWARD WINNING - The Tories want to privatise the centres despite the fact they're award winning!
PRIVATISATION - The leisure centres being privatised will mean prices will go up, standards will drop and staff's jobs will come under threat.
PURE IDEOLOGY - Conservative council leader Alec Samuels has made it clear that he wants to privatise facilities as a matter of priciple.
(Southampton Labour Party, John Denham MP or Alan Whitehead MP may contact you with the information you provide.)
In June 2008, Kier Street Services took over LB Waltham Forest's street cleaning, sacking all the agency staff (half the workforce). There were often complaints about the previous privatised service, but complaints have doubled since Kier took over.
Kier's performance and its behaviour towards its staff have become a major issue in the borough, chronicled weekly in the local paper - the Waltham Forest Guardian.
6. Stop the Sell-Off of Lubetkin's Finsbury Health Centre
Islington PCT is proposing to sell the Finsbury Health Centre (FHC) designed by Berthold Lubetkin to private developers. Next door, they want to build a GP surgery with no specialist services despite current government policy encouraging multi-service clinics.
The specialist services currently at FHC are used by people from a wide area. They are also extremely important for local residents as Clerkenwell and South Islington have a high population of both elderly people and young families who especially need locally accessible services. In addition, moving the services out of the area and building another GP surgery will be costly, but the PCT has yet to prove that the profits from selling the FHC will counter-balance those costs.
From before the inception of the NHS, the Finsbury Health Centre (FHC) has been not only an architectural icon but a standard-bearer for the delivery of public health care. Because its once forward-looking facilities are now out of date, the FHC deserves a refurbishment to bring it in line with modern standards. After an exhaustive report into the decision to close Finsbury Health Centre, Islington Council found that it would be far more cost-effective to keep it open and recommended that it be refurbished and retained to provide NHS community services.
The PCT is disregarding both its own expensive consultations over the past six years and the health of our community by proposing this sale. It should be stopped.
