NHS Future Panel - A Total Stitch Up - OFFICIAL

Roy Lilley

My local hospital is Frimley Park, FT in Surrey. For around thirty years it has been run by the same excellent chief executive who has remained above the imbroglio of politics and distant from controversy. For some unfathomable reason, yesterday, he opened his doors to the political circus called the NHS Future Forum and condemned the hospital to be remembered, forever, as a crime scene. The felony was to kidnap a word from the English language, cut off its face and finger tips, and render it unrecognisable. A sequel, surely, to Martin Cruz Smith's thriller, Gorky Park. Whatever happened at Frimley Park was not 'listening'. The word is defaced and rendered unidentifiable. The leader of this Gilbert & Sullivan gang of felons, is none other than our old friend, failed CMO candidate and former RCGP leader 'gis-us-a-job' Steve Field. I'm told he commands little support in the professions, has made disparaging remarks about his successor (surely not) and, whilst in office, I thought gave the impression that RCGP docs were behind the reforms when a subsequent survey made it obvious they were not. Strange? His accomplices are: Dr David Kerr, parked after the Tories announced his appointment as an advisor, now to do work in the community; Steve Bubb boss of the ACEVO (or should that be ASBO?); Geoff Alltimes CE of London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (Conservative control); Dr Kathy Mclean (a former GP turned manager); and Julie Moore, graduate nurse, MA and anti-cuts boss of University Hosp Brum, presumably on probation?

There are four areas that are going to listened to:

· The role of choice and competition for improving quality;

· How to ensure public accountability and patient involvement in the new system;

· How new arrangements for education and training can support the modernisation process;

· How advice from across a range of healthcare professions can improve patient care.

6,000 responses in the proper consultation period, 700-odd amendments to the bill (pretty well all sidelined), an excoriating Select Committee Report mean nothing. We will now add; two months worth of public money for a fruitless exercise with a 'C' list of public sector celebrities and the reputation of a once impartial FT down the tubes. A million staff, all the Royal Colleges and the think tanks have said; it ain't gonna work - is anyone listening?

How can we be sure group are to be invovled in murder?

The forensic evidence is in the guts of a leaked memo sent, yesterday, from the Big Beast to senior NHS managers that highlights the 'no listening' areas:

"Today the Coalition Government will publish a document entitled 'Working Together for a Stronger NHS'. We will circulate a copy of this document as soon as it becomes available. (Don't bother we already have a copy and here it is).

It will make clear that during the listening exercise, the commitment to reform on the following remains firm and will go ahead:

· Commissioning to be led by GP consortia

· All Trusts to be Foundation Trusts

· Independent Commissioning Board to be established

· Health Watch to be established

· Increased role for Local Government in Health

· Abolishion of PCTs and SHAs

They are keen not to lose momentum, but there is recognition that during this listening phase a number of planned events cannot go ahead to the agreed timetable. Key things to be aware of include:

· PCTs still to be abolished April 2013

· SHAs still to be abolished but not until July 2012

· National Commissioning Board and new Monitor still to be established but now not until July 2012

The responses to key consultation documents such as Education and Training, Any Willing Provider which were due will not go ahead in this listening period.

National senior appointments such as the Chair of the National Commissioning Board and CE of NTDA will now not go ahead until after this period."

That's what you call listening!

The principle character, Renko, in Gorky Park was thought to suffer from a fictional illness called Pathoheterodoxy Syndrome, a misguided sense of arrogance.

It was said of Renko; "You have unreal expectations, and overestimate your personal powers, You feel isolated from society and mistrust the people who most want to help you. You think you are the exception of every rule. You underestimate collective intelligence - what it is right is wrong and what is wrong right".

'Nuff said? Are you listening?

Roy Lilley

UNISON Nurses meet Labour Health spokesman after Government "pause".

UNISON Nurses meet Labour Health spokesman after Government "pause".

"UNISON nurses and midwives meet with Labour Health spokesman John Healey and local Tooting MP Sadiq Khan at the House of Commons (4th April 2011) to discuss the on going campaign against the Coalition's NHS & Social Care Bill, after Conservative Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley was forced to invoke a two month pause in the passage of the Bill because of growing opposition from NHS professionals and the public.

Maureen Brown UNISON Nursing Convenor stated "The growing campaign against the NHS Bill, had forced the Government to pause, now we need to move forward with the public to ram home the overwhelming opposition to the NHS Bill and NHS privatisation".

John Healey stated the Government NHS proposals were now weighed down in "confusion, chaos and incompetence" he also referred to Andrews Lansley's ability to unite in opposition to his NHS Reforms former right wing Thatcherite Minister Norman Tebbit and rap star NxtGen, the later responsible for viral video hit Andrew Lansley NHS Rap.

Sadiq Khan MP stated "He would work tirelessly with UNISON, NHS staff and patients to defend the NHS from this vicious attack".

Kingston Midwives - Push for More Midwives

UNISON midwives and nurses at Kingston Hospital, Surrey held a candlelight vigil tonight (30th March 2011) to protest at the shortage of midwives at the hospital and to oppose the loss of 500 nursing and medical posts at the hospital.

Nora Pearce UNISON Midwifery Convenor stated

" UNISON is campaigning against the national shortage of midwives. We will be campaigning with local mothers to ensure Kingston hospital gets the resources it needs to continue a high quality service to mothers"

Michael Walker UNISON London Nursing Officer states

"The national shortage of Nurses and Midwives is being exacerbated by increased attendance at A&E and higher birth rates than projected, The Government needs to act urgently to avoid a crisis"

Nurses hold candlelight vigil against Kingston Hospital cuts

By David Lindsell Surrey Comet»

Nurses and midwives took to the streets outside Kingston Hospital in a candlelight vigil against cuts.

Nurses hold candlelight vigil against hospital cuts

The hospital has announced money-saving plans to remove 486 posts over the next five years, including 214 nurses and midwives.

Helen Martin, a nurse at the hospital for more than 20 years and wife of Health Emergency campaigner Geoff Martin, said: "The fight for frontline, life-or-death services is well and truly on and we have no intention of letting the opportunistic politicians, who used our hospital for their own purposes, off the hook now our jobs are on the line."

After the vigil, on Wednesday night, public service union Unison has issued its own response to Kingston Hospital's draft business plan arguing that the approach to the cuts is flawed.

Unison midwife Nora Pearce, Julie Reay former Kingston and Richmond Health Authority chairman, and Unison representative Michael Walker were also at the vigil.

Nurses hold candlelight vigil against hospital cuts

Staff at Kingston Hospital were joined by singer Billy Bragg when they joined last Saturday’s march through London against coalition cuts.

Andrew Lansley NHS Rap - 200k Hits - Now Nurses Anthem

Today's Observer has a story about the much loved anthem of NHS nurses, medics and staff, who are sick of the ill conceived NHS privatisation agenda of the Tory led Coalition.

The campaign against the dismantling of the NHS has got Tories and LibDems running scared and so they should. Focus groups used by the Governmnet show overwhelming opposition to the plans and NHS privatisation is now becoming a major issue in the run up to the May 5th local elections.

UNISON members will be proud to see NxtGen was helped by UNISON to get his much loved NHS rap out.

Nora Pearce UNISON Nursing convenor at Kingston hospital stated "The popularity of the song amongst NHS staff was a credit to NxtGen and UNISON alike - Its just what we needed"

The Andrew Lansley rap has been viewed by over 200,000 people on You Tube, while a copy by medical out side the Department of Health during the 26th March demonstration has another 4,000

Andrew Lansley NHS rap becomes a viral hit

Recording of YouTube sensation by singing binman and doctors' cult hero MC NxtGen was funded by Unison

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Sean Donnelly has now been asked to rap about the royal wedding. Photograph: Fabio De Paola

His musical attack on Andrew Lansley's plans for the NHS has become a viral sensation on the web. But the story behind the rise of Sean Donnelly, aka MC NxtGen, to the status of cult hero among the nation's surgeons, doctors and nurses has remained something of a mystery.

Now the Observer can reveal that the 22-year-old singer was given his helping hand by the health workers' union, Unison. Donnelly and his girlfriend, an occupational therapist and member of the union, contacted officials with the idea three weeks ago.

The union insists that the words to the track are those of Donnelly, who is a binman by day, but admit that they were so impressed by his lyrics that they funded the recording and a film clip.

The result has capitalised on strong opposition to the government's proposed reforms, with David Cameron expected to announce a delay this week in the publication of the health and social care bill until after local elections on 5 May. The prime minister is said to be increasingly worried about public opinion against change, demonstrated by the popularity of Donnelly's rap.

By yesterday, a week since his clip was posted on YouTube, it had received 200,000 hits. Donnelly, from Loughborough, has now been contacted by BBC3 to feature on a forthcoming programme, and Channel 4 has asked him to write a rap on the subject of the royal wedding. "It has been a hectic week," said Donnelly. "I have got a few TV meetings lined up for next week – it's good, really good. I did the rap first and then thought Unison might be able to back me up so I got my girlfriend to put it through to them and they really liked it and got me the place to film it. It took about a day and a half. I don't think it cost much because Tom the video guy doesn't charge much.

"I did the lyrics myself, went on the internet, did some research and put it together like a jigsaw and made it funny. And it has just spread."

Filmed in Ash Field school, a special school for the physically disabled in Leicester, and eschewing the traditional hiphop themes of bling, booty and babes, Donnelly's three-minute rap about the Department of Health's white paper, Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS, is personally dedicated to the secretary of state for health.

"Andrew Lansley, greedy, Andrew Lansley, tosser," runs the rap, over a sample taken from the Animals' House of the Rising Sun. "The NHS is not for sale, you grey-haired manky codger!"

But if Donnelly is far from polite, he has certainly done his research. "So the budget of the PCTs, he wants to hand to the GPs/ Oh please. Dumb geeks are gonna buy from any willing provider,/ Get care from private companies."

Later, he adds: "We'll become more like the US/ and care will be farmed out to private companies,/ who will sell their service to the NHS via the GPs/ who will have more to do with service purchase arrangements than anything to do with seeing their patients." He is now trying to release the track on iTunes.

Lansley was moved to comment. "We will never privatise the National Health Service," he said. "But I'm impressed that he's managed to get lyrics about GP commissioning into a rap ."

Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, said: "We want to use every means to let people know about the damage it will cause to the NHS.

UNISON - OUR NHS IS NOT FOR SALE

Estate Agents Cameron, Clegg & Lansley, held a viewing of prime residential property - St Thomas’ Hospital in London today (1 April 2011). UNISON, the UK’s largest union, organised the spoof sell off to expose the huge dangers lurking in the Tory’s Health and Social Care Bill.

The union is warning that Lansley’s vanity project poses a health risk to patients, to the NHS and to the nurses, midwives, hospital porters and medical secretaries who keep our health service running.

Paste in front of the first paragraph:

Dave Prentis, UNISON General Secretary, said:

“Selling off the NHS is no joke – but that’s exactly what’s the Health and Social Care Bill paves the way for. Even the Tories are waking up to the toxic prescription that the Health and Social Care Bill really is for our NHS.

“Handing over £80 billion to GPs is a reckless gamble. Doctors don’t want it, and it will poison the relationship between patients and their GP. Who wants to be sitting across from their doctor wondering if the treatment they are prescribed is what they need, or what the GP can afford to pay for?

“And taking the private income cap off hospitals when they are being hit with cuts is a recipe for disaster. Patients who can pay will be the top priority. NHS patients will be pushed to the back of the queue – eroding the core principles our NHS was founded on.

“It’s time to take the Health and Social Care Bill to the mortuary - where it belongs.”

The hospital sell off stunt is part of a nationwide day of action against the Health Bill, and ahead of the union’s annual health conference. Taking part in Liverpool, the health conference brings together 1200 delegates, representing UNISON’s 460,000 health workers.

UNISON’s big opposition to the titanic Health and Social Care Bill

* Big cuts in health spending. These are being taken from patient care and leading to job losses – including clinical staff – across the NHS.

* Opening up the NHS to private profit. Taxpayers’ money destined for NHS patients will be diverted into shareholder profits.

* NHS patients will be pushed to the back of the queue because the proposed Bill will take the cap off the amount hospitals can earn from private patients.

* It means competition, not co-operation. The government wants to run the NHS through competition between different health providers and market forces.

* It will create a huge postcode lottery. The care patients can expect will vary from place to place, increasing costs and health inequalities and hurting vulnerable people the most. No-one voted for this.

* The NHS is working and public satisfaction with the NHS is at an all time high. If it ain’t broke, why fix it?