A Fresh Look at Our Drug Laws Is the First Step Towards a Sane, Evidence-Based Policy

One of the most talented actors of his generation found dead in his bathroom. Over a hundred young people needing treatment after a gig in Belfast where drugs were found. Teenagers dying after a taking Ecstasy on a night out. Every day the media present us with examples of the miserable failure of the "war on drugs". Yet the government presses on with the prohibition approach, refusing to acknowledge the obvious reality that it's not working.

When I was elected MP for Brighton Pavilion, the city had the highest mortality rate from drugs in the country. I wanted to find out whether doing things differently would help save lives, and was part of efforts to form a local commission to take a fresh look at the city's strategy to reduce drug-related harm. Thanks to innovative new approaches - increased training in the administration of naloxone which can prevent overdose, better data collection on drug use trends and improving services for people with a dual diagnosis - some great progress has been made. In the last few years we've seen a higher than average increase in numbers of people leaving treatment successfully.

Yet national policies, part of the broader international 'war on drugs', are the main barrier to further progress. The UK still approaches drug addiction as a criminal issue first and a health issue second. As the former Chief Superintendent of Brighton and Hove Police has said: "The use of drugs is not well addressed through punitive measures. Providing people with treatment not only resolves their addiction - thereby minimising risk of overdose, drug related health issues, anti-social behaviour and dependence on the state, for example - but cuts the cost to the community by reduced offending".

Those costs are enormous. In England and Wales alone, an estimated £3billion a year is spent fighting the war on drugs, to little effect. Over half of the 85,000 people in prison are thought to have serious drug problems. Rates of cannabis use by young people in Britain are amongst the highest in Europe.

At the heart of the problem is the fact that our approach is being dictated by a law that's over 40 years old and is not fit for purpose. There has never been an impact assessment of the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act; nor has there been a cost benefit assessment, or any attempt to compare its effectiveness in reducing the social, economic or health costs of drug misuse with alternatives. Successive governments have seemed singularly uninterested in whether whether our current prohibtion-based approach is an effective use of public money.

Where alternative approaches have been adopted, the results have generally been positive. In 2001, Portugal adopted a new policy whereby drug possession was changed from a criminal offence to an administrative offence, following which there was a reduction in new HIV diagnoses and in drug-related deaths. In Switzerland, a series of new policies focusing attention on drug use from a public health perspective, led to a decline in crime rates. An investigation by Release looked at 21 jurisdictions that had adopted some form of decriminalisation of drug possession. Overwhelmingly, it found that such an approach does not lead to an increase in drug use but does improve outcomes for users - in terms of employment, relationships and likelihood of staying out of prison.

As Russell Brand has argued, if "we are aware that our drug laws aren't working and that alternatives are yielding positive results, why are we not acting?" Over the past year, I've been calling on the government to carry out an independent and authoritative review of the Misuse of Drugs Act. My epetition has received over 50,000 signatures, and the figure is rising rapidly. If 100,000 people have signed by the end of this week, the issue will have to be debated and voted on by MPs.

Slowly, it's starting to feel like this isn't such a hopeless cause. Even in the US, where Nixon first used the term "War on Drugs", the wind is changing - the Republican governor of Texas has stated his intention "to implement policies that start us toward a decriminalisation and keep people from going to prison and destroying their lives."

And now the deputy prime minister, back from a trip to Columbia, is arguing for "a proper debate about the need for a different strategy." It's not often that I agree with Nick, but on this occasion, he's dead right. Prohibition is costing lives, as well as billions of taxpayers' money - a fresh look at our drug laws is the first step towards a sane, evidence-based policy.

You can sign the epetition here and join our Thunderclap here

Written by Caroline Lucas MP, Green Party

Follow Caroline Lucas on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CarolineLucas      

Haringey Needs St Ann's Hospital!

Haringey’s last hospital is under threat. Plans to redevelop the St Ann’s Hospital site have been rumbling on since 2006. Now, as the managers of the site, Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust (BEHMHT) are preparing their application to get Foundation Trust Status in 2014 the redevelopment plans have been developing rapidly. To get Foundation Trust status – which is another step towards the marketisation and privatisation of the NHS – BEHMHT needs to ‘balance its books’. They claim the site is underutilised, has poor facilities and is costing them £7.5m a year to maintain. They say the only way they can afford to provide the healthcare facilities we need is to sell off two thirds of the site to property developers. We say we already pay for universal healthcare out of our taxes, we demand healthcare facilities that meet the needs of local people now and for the foreseeable future. We don’t see the site as a liability – it is an asset that needs protecting.

From an early stage it was evident that BEHMHT’s finances were driving the agenda, not the needs of local people. They proposed moving the mental health inpatient wards from St Ann’s to Chase Farm Hospital in Enfield. Mental Health Campaigners pointed out that this would lead to the isolation of people with mental health problems as friends and carers would have to travel miles to visit their loved ones. The plans were challenged in two internal NHS reviews. Both concluded that the campaigners were right and BEHMHT were wrong. They had to change their plans and include new wards in the redevelopment plans. If BEHMHT got this wrong how can we trust the rest of their plans?

In 2011 BEHMHT set up a Community Reference Group (CRG) to ‘involve’ local people and patients in the redevelopment plans. We were encouraged to do some ‘blue sky thinking’. We said we wanted a fully functioning District General Hospital with an A&E department. They said this was unaffordable but never produced any evidence to justify the claim. The group has been meeting for nearly two years now and we have never been allowed to discuss health care needs. We’re beginning to think that the group is just a convenient way for BEHMHT to tick their ‘community involvement’ box while they continue with their plans to sell off the site and leave us with inadequate facilities. We demand an independent healthcare needs assessment. We want to know what the community needs now and in the future, we can talk about how its going to paid for later. We don’t agree that the site is a liability, we think it’s a community asset that needs to be protected. How can BEHMHT claim that the site is ‘surplus to requirements’ without the evidence of a healthcare needs assessment and a thorough exploration of alternative options that could improve the health of local people?

The local community are already articulating their needs. Mental Heath Campaigners have argued that the current facilities are stigmatising and inadequate. In addition to the inpatient wards we need comprehensive primary care, outpatient facilities and ‘recovery houses’ on site – places where the focus is on the prevention of acute episodes and the transition between services is a smooth one, not the traumatic experience it can be now. The government has said that mental health should have the same priority as physical health, we demand that this pledge is put into action on the St Ann’s site.

If BEHMHT and the new GP commissioners of NHS services, Haringey Clinical Commissioning Group (HCCG) really cared about our health in the future they would pay more attention to the welfare of our children. Haringey has one of the worst records for child development by the age of 5 in the country. This is unacceptable. We must ensure that everything possible is done to avoid tragedies like Victoria Climbie and Baby P ever happening again. Child Development Services on the St Ann’s site are currently provided by Whittington Health. They propose a new Child Development Centre on the site, one that brings together Health, Local Authority and Mental Health services, integrated to focus on the needs of the child irrespective of organisational boundaries. Local Councillors have expressed support for integrated services, but what has happened? Nothing! We demand the best possible children’s services, nothing less is acceptable.

Hospitals can be significant drivers in local regeneration. In addition to the health services they can be a place that provides jobs and training for local people and attract other services and community facilities. We want a hospital that is the pride of our community, not just a collection of disparate services shoved into the corner of the site so that BEHMHT can offload its ‘liability’.

These are just some of the proposals that we know of. What do you need? What do you think should be provided on the site? What can improve the health of local people and reduce health inequalities in the borough?

Public Meeting

Thursday 22nd August, 7pm @ Chestnut Community Centre, 280 St Ann's Road, N15

All welcome - please come and help campaign for local health services we deserve and need!
https://www.facebook.com/HaringeyNeedsStAnnsHospital?ref=stream

St Ann's Hospital is our local health service provider. We should be developing and improving it for all local people. Despite repeated calls for the health services on the site to be based on an assessment of local health needs we are hearing proposals that the same services could operate on a much smaller site with private companies taking over other areas for their own needs and profits. This is unacceptable! We demand health services that will improve our health now and for our children's future needs.

Please come to the meeting and help campaign for the excellent health services we deserve and need in Haringey!

2012: How the NHS Became Privatised

2012 will go down as a cataclysmic date in the history of the English health service. It was the year when the virus of privatisation finally gained control of the cell nucleus of the NHS and began its destruction in earnest.

If you listen to the politicians you wouldn’t know it. According to David Cameron, “we will not be selling off the NHS.” If you believe Nick Clegg, “there will be no privatisation.” They have been able to get away with this deception because the transformation they unleashed is messy. It is happening everywhere, but not uniformly. It is hidden by its very scale and spread.

But take a step back and the patterns are unmistakable. The controversial Health and Social Care Act passed in March 2012 ended the English National Health Service in all but name by abolishing the 60-year duty on the government to provide comprehensive healthcare for all. In its place is not so much a new structure as a process with its own dynamic-that of a snowball tumbling down a hillside.

All across the country treatments that patients used to receive are no longer available to them. Hip and knee replacements, tonsillectomies and cataract operations are among the procedures being restricted, forcing patients to wait longer, suffer in pain, or go private. Surgeries, wards, units and community services have been closed and clinical staff shed as the NHS desperately seeks to make “savings” of £20 billion.

Private GP surgeries near you

With perfect symmetry, the private sector expects to win £20 billion of business from the NHS, according to the corporate finance adviser Catalyst. Huge slices of the health service are being awarded to the highest bidder. With remarkable speed a few gluttonous companies: Virgin Care, Serco, Care UK – have secured dominant positions in the market, gobbling up services from Cornwall to Cumbria. The defenders of the reforms talk about competition driving improvements, but already it is consolidation, not competition, that we are seeing.

There may be a GP surgery near you that is now run by Virgin. Until March 2012 Virgin Care did not exist, although it had been operating under another name since 2010. It now runs at least 358 GP practices. Behind the friendly PR façade of the bearded entrepreneur, patients see a different face, cold and sinister. Take the Kings Heath Practice in Northampton. Since Virgin took it over from the NHS, patients have had to wait up to three weeks for an appointment instead of three days, three GPs have been reduced to one, and three nurses cut to one part-time nurse. And while the company boasts about the surgery’s opening hours, often there are no clinicians present, just an open empty building. Locals complain that Virgin has “brought Third World medical standards to Kings Heath.”

Consolidation is also happening in out-of-hours GP cover. In November Care UK took over out-of-hours services for up to fifteen million people across England by simply buying Harmoni, a company that started as a GP co-operative. The only competition patients see is between their health needs and the profit margin. People in Cornwall know which wins out: an official report in July found the Serco-run out-of-hours service in the county was under-staffed and falsified data to meet targets.

The biggest privatisations are taking place in community health services. The government’s “any qualified provider” policy means whole services must be subject to competition, leading to the demise of NHS-run options. Local NHS bodies have already been instructed to outsource 39 types of service. Dubbed the “39 steps to privatisation,” this covers everything from autism care to wheelchair provision. Even publicly provided vasectomies are for the chop.

The ‘logic’ of privatisation

The logic of privatisation favours a few big winners over the co-ops, charities and social enterprises that act as window dressing for the policy. A prime example came on April Fools’ Day, 2012, when Virgin Care took over a £500 million contract to deliver community services in parts of Surrey. The joke was on Central Surrey Health, a “social enterprise” formed by former NHS staff that was praised by David Cameron and hailed as a model for the Big Society. Central Surrey Health scored the most points in the bidding process, but the contract was given to Virgin because of its financial backing.

Not even hospitals offer shelter from the destructive gale blowing through the NHS. Many Hospital Trusts are being pushed to the financial brink by the disastrous legacy of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), under which new hospital building was financed by a deal that is akin to paying by credit card, leaving Trusts with crippling debts to the banks.

This has led to some Trusts literally going bankrupt, such as the South London Healthcare Trust which serves over a million people in three hospitals. Its PFI debts, like a black hole, have sucked in surrounding hospitals and units, like Lewisham’s A&E department which is now facing closure. Patients are left high and dry. As for the Trust, it is to be carved up and offered piece by piece for privatisation, with the familiar vultures-Virgin, Serco, Care UK and Circle-picking at the remains.

In a first for the private sector, in February 2012 Circle took over an entire general hospital at Hinchingbrooke in Cambridgeshire. The hospital has since fallen 19 places in the patient satisfaction rankings and its finances have worsened, forcing Circle to ask for a bailout after just six months.

Private income at NHS Hospitals

Combine this with another controversial aspect of the Health and Social Care Act-the ability for NHS hospitals to earn half their income from private patients-and the implications are scary. A chilling investigation by ITV’s Exposure program secretly filmed doctors assuring a private patient that her money would buy priority over NHS patients within the same hospital. It revealed a tragic case where a consultant left half way through a dangerous birth to carry out a private caesarean section. The baby later died. A two-tier health system is not on the way; it is already here.

The drive for profit is insatiable, not least because many of the dominant players in the new market are owned by ruthless private equity firms. Similar funding models to that which led to the collapse of the Southern Cross care-home company are now in the NHS. For example, Hospital Corporation of America, which is entering into joint ventures with NHS hospitals, is majority owned by three private equity firms including Mitt Romney’s notorious Bain Capital.

All of this comes before the most high-profile part of the Health and Social Care Act has even been fully implemented-the replacement of PCTs with Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs). Sold to the public as “giving power to GPs,” this transfers responsibility for spending £60 billion of public money to largely unaccountable new groups, who will in turn outsource the work to privatised “commissioning support units”-allowing the private sector to decide how taxpayers’ money is spent. If that sounds complicated, it is. David Nicholson, the head of the health service, fears it could end in “misery and failure.”

The Labour party, after its record in government of opening the way for privatisation, has changed tack in opposition, repeatedly pledging to repeal the Act and scrap the market if elected. These are important commitments that it must be held to.

But the quantity of contracts currently being signed may take the NHS over a tipping point, where the “facts on the ground” cannot be reversed. That is why it is crucial to monitor, expose, slow and disrupt the destruction of the NHS now, while there may still be time to save it.
—
Alex Nunns is an NHS campaigner, writer and editor whose blog about a job offer from Care UK went viral in July 2011. This article was sponsored by the NHS Support Federation

This post was first published at Liberal Conspiracy

Healthwatch Haringey - Have Your Say

On http://www.haringey.gov.uk/www.haringey.gov.uk/healthwatch-haringey you will find a publicity brochure about a new organisation, Healthwatch Haringey, which is supposed to be 'your local health and social care watchdog'. On behalf of the Defend Haringey Health Services Coalition, I am writing to organisations who may be concerned about the following facts:-

1) Haringey Healthwatch will apparently replace 'Link', which has recently been the patients' representation body. It's being set up at a time when new laws and structures are changing the health service drastically. In particular, the new Commissioning Boards (to 'buy' hospital, etc  services on behalf of local doctors) and orders from central government to put many parts of the NHS out to tender to 'any willing provider'

2) The brochure contains a 'have your say' questionnaire and an invitation to any reader to 'get involved' presumably so that the Council and the NHS can choose who will be members of the new body and continue to represent patients. No elections, just volunteers - and they choose who to have.

3) This is apparently being distributed through Morrison’s supermarket (and some libraries); it has just been noticed in the last few days and we don't know where else it can be obtained except the website given above.

4) The brochure says 'our consultation so far has been with the following voluntary and community sector groups', then mentions a list of 22 local organisations. There are some MAJOR omissions in this list:-

NO consultation with residents' association or their Haringey Federation

NO consultation with trade unions

Two Christian groups mentioned, but no other faith groups

NO reference to Age UK or the Haringey Older People's Forum

Patchy and limited coverage of ethnic minority groups - have a look at the list

5) 'Decisions about what Healthwatch Haringey will look like will be made in consultation with local people, stakeholders and Haringey residents'. One might ask, how ?  and which residents ?

Please circulate this message and encourage the un-consulted people and organisations to come forward!

You may also wish to write to any of the Councillors who are cabinet members for relevant policy areas, to ask them how Healthwatch members are going to be chosen and how the population are supposed to find out they can put themselves forward:- 

Cabinet Member for Health and Adult Services – Cllr Dilek Dogus

Cabinet Member for Social Inclusion (and Economic Development, but it's inclusion that's relevant here) – Cllr Alan Strickland

Cabinet Member for Communities – Cllr Bernice Vanier

HEALTH OVERVIEW AND  SCRUTINY COMMITTEE:

Councillor Reg Rice(Chair) , 225 High Road, Wood Green, London, , N22 8HQ, , reg.rice@haringey.gov.uk

Councillor David Winskill,(Vice Chair) River Park House, 225 High Road, Wood Green, London, N22 8HQ, 020 8374 5650, david.winskill@haringey.gov.uk.

Written by Anne Gray, Haringey Green Party

Rapper's for the NHS

Topical rap by NxtGen about the perilous future of the NHS under the ConDem government.

Good that the younger generation appreciates the threat to and values the NHS, which was founded over sixty years ago. I was reminded when speaking to an older person recently of the situation before the NHS was formed, when if you had to go to a doctor, you needed to have the money to pay for it.

A situation quite unthinkable nowadays, or is it?

NxtGen's facebook page is here.

Local Campaigners Slam Government Threats to Dismantle the NHS

Open Letter to Secretary of State for Health about the NHS White Paper

Andrew Lansley MP
Secretary of State for Health
Department of Health

1st October 2010

OBJECTIONS TO THE WHITE PAPER

Dear Mr Lansley

We are writing in response to your public consultation exercise, which ends 5th October 2010, to express our alarm and deep opposition to the health reforms proposed by the White Paper.

The NHS is society’s most universally valued public service, and there is overwhelming support for the principle that it is publicly owned and provided, fully tax funded and available to all.

The profound organisational changes proposed by the White Paper represent the most serious threat ever to the existence of the NHS.

Despite the rhetoric of fairness, equality and mutuality, these proposals advocate a widespread privatisation of the health service, introducing a world where hospitals become businesses and where private companies compete in a potentially irreversible NHS market, effectively destroying the 1946 NHS Act.

From a patient’s perspective these proposals are truly frightening, resulting in extreme disruption, fragmentation, increasing health inequalities and extortionate administration costs, in place of patient care. It is clear that the public do not want consumer variety or a postcode lottery; just a seamless service across all regions.

From a GP’s perspective, we find it ominous. These proposals, which would force GPs to form consortia to commission local services and allow unlimited provision of private medicine, do not fit neatly into a GP’s mainstream workload. The majority of GPs are neither in favour of private sector involvement, nor do they possess the necessary skills for commissioning. It is likely that the chosen GPs will become token clinicians within a corporate monstrosity and that “unelected bureaucrats” will eventually be replaced by unelected global bullies.

From a health worker’s perspective the loss of tens of thousands of jobs is inevitable, massively increasing the workload of remaining staff, whilst employment rights across the NHS would be completely eroded, ending national pay agreements including sick pay and pension entitlements, and changing standards and terms of employment beyond recognition. Restrictions on GP commissioning budgets also present a serious risk of bed and ward closures, and of hospitals going bankrupt.

From the general public’s perspective we find the lack of consultation abhorrent, and the discarding of our national treasures in this way completely unacceptable.

With no evidence that the proposals would produce financial savings, public money for health would end up in the pockets of shareholders rather than being spent on patient care, whilst billions of pounds of tax payers’ money would be transferred to private companies, including huge multinational health corporations, many from the United States, with no public accountability.

It is clear to us that the changes you advocate in the White Paper are so profound that they represent nothing less than the dismantling of the NHS as we know it, developing a U.S.-style market-based health system and leaving an NHS only in name.

Yours sincerely,

Signatories

Shirley Franklin (Chair, Defend Whittington Hospital Coalition)
Andy Bain (TSSA President)
Ivy and Alan Beard (Save Chase Farm)
Sarah Boden
Emma Dixon (Islington Green Party)
Mick Gilgunn (Secretary, Islington Trades Union Council)
Katy Gold (Treasurer, Defend Whittington Hospital Coalition)
Sarah Cope (Haringey Green Party)
Gary Heather (Joint Chair, Islington Hands off Our Public Services)
Kathryn Dean (Haringey Green Party)
Jem Lindon
Dr Robert MacGibbon FRCGP
Kieran McGregor (Save Chase Farm)
Rich Moth (Deputy Convenor, Social Work Action Network)
Mike Shaughnessy (Haringey Green Party)
Steve Parry
Ian Shacklock
Angela Sinclair-Loutit (Islington Pensioners Forum)
Alasdair Smith (President, Islington National Union of Teachers)
Sean Wallis (Branch Secretary, University College London, Universities and Colleges
Union)
Kate Wilkinson (Save Chase Farm)
David Wilson

Coalition NHS Privatisation Explained

Inefficiency and Health Service Reform

I have never been especially opposed to reform of the health service. I can see that if you are going to provide better services with less money, things have to change. When it turned out my local GP, the Laurels PMS practice, was offering unprecedented access by opening on Saturdays and Sundays, I felt vindicated.

Then one day I phoned up for an appointment as usual. Because it was not an emergency (my little son had itchy skin), I was told in rather dismissive tones by the receptionist that I couldn’t have a slot - I would have to wait for a doctor to call me back.

Isn’t that what GPs are there for - non-emergencies? I said as much to the receptionist.

“Tell me about it,” she replied, letting out a long sigh. “I don’t know why we can’t go back to the old system. Patients are getting really annoyed.”

But things got worse. I received a letter asking me to make an appointment for a routine screening. So I called as requested. Three hours later, I was still dialling - the line was perpetually engaged. At the end of the day, I was still dialling. Three days later, I was still dialling.

It is easy to get angry with public services, and a lot of the time it is just projection. But not being able to get through to the appointments line for 48 hours? Definitely they're bad.

In the end, I had to go in person. I live close by - but if the Laurels had already been a polyclinic, serving people who live really far away? What would those people do? What if I was calling about something more serious than routine screening?

I spoke to another receptionist who is often behind the desk, a wonderfully helpful woman. Today, she seemed a little harassed.

“Everything is changing,” she said, “we’ve been taken over by a private company.’

She was apologetic about the engaged appointment line, and said the phone had been on divert by mistake, but was now fixed. Yet the next time I needed to make an appointment, I still couldn’t get through on the phone and had to go in once more, as did my partner a few days later.

The receptionist was wrong about something else. A company has taken over The Laurels, but it’s a consortium of doctors, not the private sector. It’s worrying that they can’t even answer the phone. Perhaps I am, after all, one of those people who believes our public services need protecting against so-called reform.

Varya Shaw
Green Party Candidate
West Green Ward

Healthy Haringey?

Having travelled past the variously-named Hornsey Poly-Clinic/Hornsey Central Hospital/Hornsey Neighbourhood Health Centre on the bus umpteen times, it was good today to final get the chance to visit.

It was the AGM of NHS Haringey (formerly Haringey PCT – do keep up!),and I attended with my ‘Defend Haringey Health Services’ hat on.

The building is an odd combination of steel and glass with the war memorial (which was on the site already) tacked on the front, at an angle. Patients whose doctors have moved into the building have complained that they cannot hear their name being called because of the acoustics.

There’s a café downstairs run by Muswell Hill’s ‘Feast’ – good to see a local business getting the franchise, I thought, though a quick glance showed that their environmental credentials needed improving. Bottled water – so 5 years ago! If the land at the back of the building is turned into a community garden, a plan which is on the table, perhaps fruit and veg could be grown there and used in the café?

Richard Sumray, chair of NHS Haringey, kicked off the AGM by saying that resources are getting tighter – a point underlined by Harry Turner, Corporate Director of Finance. Who said there had already been a small cut in spending on primary care services.

They hadn’t scheduled questions, but we activists didn’t let that stop us. I asked where the cuts in primary care services had been, and on top of that, whether the Executives planned to take a pay cut? After all, Tracey Baldwin, Chief Executive of NHS Haringey, reportedly earned £190,000 last year.

Ms. Baldwin laughed at my suggestion and patiently explained that their wages are determined by the Government’s pay scales and there isn’t anything they can do about it. (I’ll let you insert your own comment here!)

We also asked what the plans were for the building – much of it is empty still. We were told that they don’t really know what’s going into it (the Millennium Dome situation springs to mind!) but it’ll be what we the patients want.

So here’s my wish-list: I’d like a good, sympathetic Dr I see often and can build up a relationship with, thus getting continuity of care.I’d like a baby clinic, more podiatrists and mental health provision. I’d like to see a user board that properly represents the community and has a real say about how things are run.

But here’s the big ask: I’d like to then pick this up and put it in a small practice, within walking distance, so people don’t have to get two buses to get there, especially when they’re feeling unwell.


When I brought up some of these points I was told that people don’t mind travelling on two buses if they are going to a nice building. I was told that mothers want to go to the polyclinic (again, because it’s a sexy building – supposedly). My reply: I’m a mother. I don’t. I want to go to the one around the corner (which was closed down with one week’s notice). I was also told that people don’t care about seeing the same GP and that is why they often go to A&E.


I love the NHS, and to see it taken apart before my eyes was thoroughly depressing. Let’s defend our local doctor’s surgeries whilst we still have them!

Healthy Debate

Last night I attended a meeting of the Stop Haringey Health Cuts Coalition. The purpose of the meeting was to plan the key issues to focus upon and the ways in which the group is going to campaign.

The coalition has had some notable successes over the years. Less doctors surgeries are going to move into the Hornsey Polyclinic than was at first suggested, meaning that less people in the area will lose their local surgeries – hopefully. This makes sense not just from a practical point of view – who feels like travelling when they are ill? – but also from an environmental perspective.

The group also have done much to encourage the PCT to carry out consultations, though this still doesn’t always happen. Last year the Highgate baby clinic closed with one week’s notice, and with no consultation at all. Also, consultations can often be a paper exercise, with decisions made before the public have their say.

Stop Haringey Health Cuts Coalition have been tireless in attending the council’s overview and scrutiny committee and demanding that councillors act in the best interest of the health of residents. The group feel, though, that they usually do not get listened to – and they were famously chucked out of a meeting, of course!

It was agreed to make the broad issues for the campaign to be fighting cuts and opposing creeping/galloping privatisation. I stressed that we need to make sure that the campaign has a local focus: people generally won’t get interested unless they know how the cuts/privatisation will affect them and their families. Local GPs closing down will impact on people’s lives very quickly, and very negatively.

But the issue isn’t simple. A Unison representative at the meeting said that in the East of the borough, there are lots of ‘crap doctors’, and that fighting to keep them working would be pointless.

Another interesting piece of information that the Unison rep imparted was that yesterday some of the mental health patients from St. Ann’s Hospital had been moved to Edgware. The reason for this is that some of the wards at St Ann’s have been declared unfit for human habitation. Anyone who saw the recent photos of some of the rooms inside the hospital would certainly agree.

A productive meeting, then, with many new people attending, myself included. I suggested that we carry out our own consultation with residents, so that we can prove that we have the weight of public support behind us: it is easy to assume we know how other people feel, but as the issue of the ‘crap doctors’ illustrates, things are rarely black and white. We need to engage with the complex issues and problems within the NHS and offer tangible solutions, whether at a local or national level.

50 Patients Occupy PCT Board Meeting

PCT Chair abandons Boardroom, reconvenes meeting elsewhere, then tries but fails to suppress the patients' presentation. Patients condemn 'unwanted, unacceptable and unlawful' privatisation of the GP surgery at The Laurels Healthy Living Centre.

Haringey PCT Board ignore the presentation and instead push ahead with their controversial and damaging mass privatisation strategy threatening any new or changing health services and facilities.

On Wednesday 26th November at 3pm 50 patients, mainly from the South Tottenham area and mainly users of The Laurels Healthy Living Centre, lobbied the Haringey Primary Care Trust Board meeting at St Ann's Hospital, South Tottenham. The lobby was called by the Laurels Action Group, a new group launched at the beginning of the month. As well as patients present there were members of local residents associations, older people's organisations and health campaign groups. The lobby was about the growing controversy over the threat of privatisation of The Laurels 'PMS' GP practice. The practice is based in the Laurels Healthy Living Centre, South Tottenham, which is also earmarked by Haringey's health managers for one of their proposed Polyclinics, which could then also face privatisation.

The patients were shocked when the PCT Chair, Richard Sumray refused the customary presentation opportunity to address the Board, saying that the meeting's Agenda was 'too long'. Those present therefore had to occupy the Boardroom in order to make their voices heard. Dave Morris, a patient at the practice under threat, distributed written copies of the presentation to all Board members and proceeded to go through the points. He was repeatedly told by the Chair to 'shut up' but stated that he had an obligation to inform the Board of the serious concerns about the tendering process, the lack of consultation with Laurels users, and the 'improper and unlawful' plan to develop a Polyclinic in a public building built in 2003 with strict legal restrictions on its usage.

A similar presentation had been successfully made by the LAG to the Council's Overview & Scrutiny Cttee on 13th November and as a result the PCT had been forced to admit to Councillors on the Committee that the consultation 'had been botched'. The PCT had reluctantly conceded it must re-run the consultation, and letters were sent out to patients this week for some meetings in December. However, as Mr Morris demonstrated to the Board, the letters were 'worse than useless' as they failed to even mention let alone consult over the key issue of the sale of the 'PMS' GP practice there! The Council's Overview & Scrutiny watchdog committee will reconvene next month on December 11th to 'review the situation'.

Kathryn Dean, a member of Haringey Green Party (in the picture above, first from the left) said after the meeting, “The PCT are trying to railroad through this proposal so that they can begin the process of privatising huge swathes of our local health services. More evidence of the failure of marketisation in all its forms hits our TV screens daily, so vital public services like health must not be left to market forces”.

Photo and bulk of the story courtesy of The Laurels Action Group
Contact - Simon Hester (patient) simon@cnra.org.uk. Dave Morris (patient) dmorris@onetel.com.

Action group to fight GP privatisation

Fears a private company could run a Haringey health centre are gathering pace among its patients. Last month Haringey Primary Care Trust announced its intentions to put one of the GP surgeries at the Laurels Health Centre in Tottenham out to bidders.
Under EU law this service has to be tendered on the open market and private companies as well as local GPs can apply to run the service.

The Laurels, in St Ann’s Road, opened in 2004 and is billed as the borough’s first polyclinic, or neighbourhood health centre.

But users of the centre met this week to start up an action group protesting at plans.
Patient at the Laurels, Simon Hester, said: "We know what privatisation means - to put profit first. The point of this meeting is to see if we can stop it."
Dave Morris, from the Stop Haringey Health Cuts Coalition, spoke at the meeting. He said: "The chickens have come home to roost at our very own health centre which is threatened with privatisation.

"The Laurels was set up for the people of Tottenham from public funds for public people and not to be a cash cow for private companies. We feel we should be driving what's happening there. "It is very important we speak out as patients, as health workers and as GPs."

Candy Udwin, who has campaigned against similar privatisation plans in Camden, said: "If they can nationalise banks what are they doing privatising our health service? It makes no sense whatsoever.

“If you don’t stop it now it’s going to spread through Haringey. We have to say we are not going to have our NHS destroyed by a market system which is showing us everyday it does not work.”

Pete McAskie (who you can just make out holding the banner to the right in the above photo), Green Party candidate for Hornsey and Wood Green, said, “The Green Party is the only mainstream party to oppose privatisation of our public services. This is only the thin edge of the wedge, and we can expect more of our health services to contracted out to the privateers, we need to put a stop to this now. I fully support this campaign.”

Haringey PCT director of primary care and performance, James Slater, said: “The PCT is seeking a primary care provider to manage one of the two practices based within the Laurels Healthy Living Centre.

“We have advertised openly and received a number of applications from a range of providers including several local GPs.

"We held meetings as an informal, friendly opportunity to discuss the ongoing plans for Haringey and specifically the neighbourhood.”

Photo and bulk of this story courtesy of The Haringey Independent http://www.haringeyindependent.co.uk/news/

Haringey Greens fight to save local GP surgeries

Haringey Greens turned out in force at a meeting organised by the Better Local Healthcare campaign on Monday 22nd September. The meeting was called following a decision by Haringey Teaching Primary Care Trust to relocate local GPs to polyclinics. Such a measure could result in the closure of several of the borough’s GP surgeries.

The meeting was addressed by a panel of experts which included the academic Colin Leys, local GP Dr Helen Pelendrides and healthcare campaigner Kate Wilkinson. A number of local Green Party members, involved in the campaign, also contributed.

Pete McAskie, Parliamentary Spokesperson for Hornsey and Wood Green, emphasised that the Greens are the only mainstream political party committed to defending the NHS from privatisation and fragmentation.

A key theme that emerged during the meeting was the rather disingenuous way in which unpopular reforms are imposed on local communities. Therefore, James Patterson, the Green Candidate for the Alexandra Ward by-election, raised questions about the effectiveness of existing scrutiny mechanisms.

Anne Gray, Parliamentary Spokesperson for Tottenham (pictured above), suggested that action should be taken when doubts about the probity of private companies involved in healthcare services come to the fore.

Many attending the meeting expressed their frustration with the way in which the main political parties have managed healthcare issues locally and nationally. However, the meeting allowed Haringey Greens an opportunity to demonstrate their political ability and commitment to defending local healthcare services.