The campaigning group 38 Degrees, which successfully campaigned against the sell off of the UK's forests to private ownership, have launched an attack on the tory led coalition government with their new campaign to Save The NHS.

With, at the time of writing, 119,321 signatures, the campaign will be delivery the first batch of petition signatures to key coalition MPs this week.

The campaigning group, 38 Degrees, which has only just launched their campaign against the privatisation of the NHS this week says:

"Right now, the government is rushing through changes to our health service. Experts warn that these changes would break the NHS up, handing power to private health companies, and wasting money at a time when funding is already being squeezed and beds and wards being cut."

38 Degrees launched in May 2009 with a campaign for a Recall Law. Since then they have had some brilliant achievements: their actions have helped save BBC 6 Music and helped stop Trident being renewed for at least 5 more years. They’ve collaborated with great people like the End Child Poverty Coalition, Crisis and Tripping up Trump. There are now over 320,000 38 Degrees members working together for change.

You too can add your name to the Save Our NHS petition here

In the meantime, thousands of jobs within the NHS are already being lost as government policy changes are biting as the NHS prepares for the implementation of the privatisation of the NHS even prior to the Tory bill which is currently before parliament becomes law.

Channel 4 News Factcheck service said in February:

"........ the McKinsey report into the impact of the NHS having to make £20bn savings estimated that 10 per cent or 120,000 jobs could ultimately be lost over a three year period."

It quoted the health service trade union Unison,

"Unison told FactCheck that employers are saying they would need to make staff redundant right across the board – not just back office workers. And in any case, the union warned, NHS employers make no distinction between back office and front line – someone who works in IT is as critical as medical staff to making operations or, indeed, a hospital, run."

The Factcheck verdict on Government claims that more money is being spent on the NHS and more people employed within it was:

"For the Tories to crow about NHS jobs smacks rather of hubris. While it’s commendable that the number of managers has fallen since the election, the time to take stock will be after the health service has had time to implement some of the £20bn efficiency savings demanded by the chancellor. While every effort will naturally be made to protect doctors and nurses, early evidence from the unions and NHS trusts themselves suggest it will be impossible to make those kind of cuts without slicing through tens of thousands of frontline staff."

Read the McKinsey report here

Further information of the scale of the cuts to the NHS is also building up from NHS trusts across the country:

• East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, which expects to shed 1,013 full-time equivalent staff from 2010-15, including almost 50 doctors and dental staff, and 270 nurses, midwives and health visitors.

• Aintree University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust plans to cut the equivalent of 300 full-time staff over the next few years. All staff have been offered voluntary redundancy or flexible working.

• Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, which is cutting 682 full-time equivalent posts between 2010 and 2013. 110 posts have already gone.

• Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, who expect to cut 461 full-time posts by 2015 – a 16 per cent reduction, including a 12 per cent cut in nurses, midwives and health visitors.

• Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has announced that up to 1,400 jobs could go over the next four years in an attempt to make savings of £30m a year.Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has announced that up to 1,400 jobs could go over the next four years in an attempt to make savings of £30m a year.

• Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, which is cutting 1,755 full-time posts in 2010-11 – nearly a nine per cent net reduction in one year, including 120 doctors and dentists, and 620 nurses.

Check out False Economy's website here

Source: Unionsafety / 38 Degrees / Channel 4 Factcheck / False Economy website

 

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