Our Action Plan
We must restore the NHS as a safe, comprehensive, publicly funded, publicly delivered, and publicly accountable integrated healthcare system. We support the NHS Reinstatement Bill, and wish to take the following actions:
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Restore the duty of the Secretary of State for Health to provide universal and comprehensive healthcare in England. Halt privatisation and scrap the costly, bureaucratic market within the NHS. Reinstate the NHS as the national provider of healthcare and remove the requirement to tender out contracts to the private sector.
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Ensure funding, resources and staffing levels are consistent with maintaining patient safety and high quality care and that the value of staff pay is maintained. Publicly fund the NHS spending gap while multi-billion pound savings from policies removing the market kick in.
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Listen to patients and staff to improve the NHS. Establish a Health Ombudsman at the head of local independent health commissioners acting on concerns expressed by patients and staff to speed up complaint resolution, introduce improvements more swiftly and reduce the growing litigation bill.
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End financially driven A&E and hospital closures. Stop the Sustainability & Transformation Partnerships which are re-designing the NHS on a US ‘Medicare’ model. Changes and closures do happen to services over time, but they must be based on clinical evidence, with the support of the local population and the affected professional staff. Accessible replacement services must always be in place before any closures.
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Oppose international free trade agreements which contain deregulatory elements affecting public service, public health and human rights as they threaten not only the NHS but the health and well-being of the public. Trade is a key element of our society but must be balanced by government responsibility for public well-being.
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Stop further Private Finance Initiative (PFI) deals and remove the PFI repayment burden from individual hospital trusts. The Government should renegotiate on the basis of “fair value”. End the fire sale of public assets and restore the property from NHS Property Services Ltd and other government owned private companies to public ownership. End the imposition by government of commercial rents on public services.
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Urgently repair the damage to our mental health services, strengthen maternity services and address the crisis in General Practice.
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Introduce free personal social care for the elderly and disabled, and create co-operative working arrangements for NHS health provision and local authority social care.
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Prioritise and focus on public health and preventative medicine, including measures to reduce alcohol consumption, smoking and obesity.
- Make the social determinants of health an absolute priority in the design and development of all government policies. Health is affected by our income levels and work, our education, our housing, the environment and more and in turn our health affects our ability to engage in and enjoy life. That is why inter-departmental collaboration is essential to provide excellent public services to underpin our civil society and provide the life blood of a healthy economy.