Margaret Greenwood, MP for Wirral West, will try to table the NHS Reinstatement Bill as a cross-party Ten Minute Rule Bill next Wednesday, 13th July 2016, immediately after Prime Minister’s Questions at about 12.30 p.m..
She will have 10 minutes to speak in favour of the Bill, one other MP can speak for 10 minutes against it, and then it can be put to the vote. If the vote is won, it will go forward for a second reading. It will be behind many other Bills and so will not become law in this session of Parliament – but it will help in building support outside Parliament and in keeping the pressure on MPs.
The privatisation of the NHS in England will continue until we have a law to stop it, so please ask your MP to attend the debate and to support the Bill.
NB: If your MP is Craig Whittaker, please tell him it’s no using refusing to support this Bill on his usual grounds that the 2014 Commonwealth Fund found that the NHS was the most effective and efficient health service in the world – that data is almost all from before the stealth-privatising 2012 Health and Social Care Act took effect in 2013.
NHS cuts, privatisation and fragmentation continue. New legislation is needed to stop and reverse the damage
In Calderdale and Greater Huddersfield, the proposed hospital merger and cuts, and transfer of hospital services to a poorly resourced and ill defined Care Closer to Home scheme, are not fit for the health needs of the population – as our response to the public Consultation Survey makes clear.
These cuts and changes are being carried out across England under Simon Stevens’ 5 Year Forward View. Where they are further advanced, they are bringing disaster in their wake.
Centralising A&E services in North West London has led to such overcrowding at Middlesex Hospital that a patient lay dead for up to four-and-a-half hours before being spotted, as staff were unable to do hourly rounds. The Care Quality Commission has rated Emergency services at the Middlesex hospital as “inadequate”. This follows a report from an Independent Commission into the Shaping a Healthier Future scheme – NW London’s version of our Right Care Right Place Right time scheme – that said it was disastrous and should be stopped. The Councils that commissioned the report have ignored this recommendation.
The endemic root causes include under funding, too few staff, services gaps & closures (both health and social care), collapse in workforce morale etc.
As another very big example – the junior doctors’ dispute continues as they have rejected the unsafe contract which Jeremy Hunt now plans to impose.
The NHS in England is being dismantled. Only a change to the law can stop the damage.
Now more than ever.
To reverse the damage, the NHS must be reinstated in a civilised form that restores it to full public ownership, management and funding, with a duty on the Secretary of State to provide a comprehensive, universal health service that is free at the point of need and based on patients’ clinical needs.
The BMA reiterates its overwhelming support for the Bill
On Thursday 23rd June 2016, the British Medical Association voted overwhelmingly to continue supporting the Bill. You can watch the debate at its Annual Representative Meeting here (click on ‘Motions Arising From ARM’ in the right hand box, it will start at at 2 hrs 47 mins)
Therefore we urge you to contact your MP and ask them to attend the House of Commons debate on 13th July and support the Bill so it can go forward to a second reading. Please tell them why this is important to you.
There is more related information from the NHS Reinstatement Bill Campaign Group here; and here the Bill’s main author, Professor Allyson Pollock, analyses the NHS crisis and appropriate responses to it.
NHS MATTERS! 
[…] we seek a change in the law governing the NHS, through passing the NHS Reinstatement Bill that would stop and reverse privatisation, abolish Clinical Commissioning Groups and Trusts and […]
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