Protest against the transfer of Stroud Hospital and other Gloucestershire Hospitals and NHS services out of the NHS and into a Social Enterprise Company. Called by Stroud Against the Cuts.
Meet 10.30 for 11.00am, Saturday 24th September
Park Road (below the Maternity Hospital)
March to the Sub Rooms for a Rally at 12noon
Please help us to publicise this event by spreading the information above and by printing and distributing poster and flyers, click the links that follow for the poster and flyer files:
www.stroudagainstcuts.co.uk/files/SATC NHS Protest illustrated flyer.pdf
www.stroudagainstcuts.co.uk/files/SATC poster_2_A4.pdf
80% of the public say that they don’t want any more ‘competition’ in the NHS. The experts
agree competition in healthcare is unfair and inefficient. Everywhere that has balloted on
such changes has resulted in rejection by 90% of staff, but there’s been no ballot here. NHS
management is racing ahead, refusing to consult or even inform either public or staff before
forcing these untested plans through (whilst claiming the point of the SET is to be ‘inclusive’).
The County Council has helped keep these plans secret, rather than scrutinising them.
A social enterprise in the Forest of Dean quickly went bust losing £200,000. We demand that
the process is STOPPED (as it has been elsewhere). Local communities along with health
workers trade unions need to build a major offensive to demand a publicly owned NHS.
The ‘Social Enterprise Trust’ – What does it mean?
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least £3MILLION A YEAR in unnecessary VAT, and massive administration costs to replace
the back office services it currently gets free from the central NHS. This money will have to
come from patient care.
- It is a FIGLEAF FOR PRIVATISATION of our health service. The contract will run for a
maximum of 3 years (or much less, if commissioners judge it to be ‘failing’) and then all
services will be opened to any private company that wants to run them for profit. In Hull,
where the first transfer of NHS services to a ‘social enterprise’ took place, several awardwinning
clinics were fully privatised within months, resulting in shortages of staff and even
bandages (whilst administration costs ballooned).
- It will mean POORER CARE, FEWER SKILLED STAFF, and LONGER WAITING LISTS, as
corners are cut to turn a surplus and to pay for admin. £20 billion of cuts to NHS jobs and
services have already started, and this isolated ‘social enterprise’ will be poorly placed to
resist them. Instead, the cap on NHS hospitals & clinics earning income from private patients
will be lifted, meaning that those who can afford to pay will be able to jump the queue far
more easily, at the expense of the rest of us.
- All decisions about care, contracts etc. could be made BEHIND LOCKED DOORS with no
accountability to the public. They are already using the excuse of ‘commercial confidentiality’
to hide their plans from the public.
These changes are unnecessary, expensive, and dangerous. No-one locally has been asked
if they want them. The local community and health trade unions together, can stop them.
As a private company, it will be run as a business; it will have HIGHER COSTS including atThe Health and Social Care Bill – How does it fit in?
government is trying to force its Health and Social Care Bill through parliament. Aside from
forcing unwilling GP’s to become accountants, this bill also removes all barriers to privatisation
by opening up the NHS to EU competition rules and by removing the government’s
responsibility to provide a comprehensive free health care system. Trusts which have left the
NHS to become a social enterprise will be the most vulnerable to takeover by healthcare
multinationals.
Currently the
- Stop the Process: Social Enterprise No Way, We Demand Our Say
- Oppose the Health & Social Care Bill: say NO to a US-style market based health system