Keep Our NHS Public is calling on everyone in Liverpool and Merseyside area concerned with the fate of the NHS to lobby the Health & Wellbeing Board on 1 Dec. The leader of the Cheshire & Merseyside Sustainability and Transformation Plan Louise Shepherd is due to address Councillors and health managers, seeking their support for what is in fact a £900m regional cuts and privatisation programme.
Lobby Liverpool Health & Wellbeing Board
1 pm Thurs 1 Dec, Banquet Suite, 6th floor Cunard Bldgs
Neil Smith, GMB North West & Irish Region Political Officer, said :'' Save our NHS is an active campaign for the GMB and something we have been fighting for in this region for some time. Only recently as part of the regions GMB Women's Conference was the privitisation of our NHS and the fight to stop it highlighted by Gill George and Felicity Dowling. I urge members and their families to join us if they can on Thursday, let's Save Our NHS together''.
When the plan was published on 16 Nov., key appendices were kept secret. Contracts are due to be signed by 23 Dec. Cheshire West and Chester Health and Wellbeing Board voted to demand full consultations with the Local Authority, patients and the public before endorsing the process, but Wirral Council leader Phil Davies blocked discussion at the Wirral HWB. Sefton Council then passed (54-4-1) a strong motion deploring the STP.*
“This plan should be halted and contracts should not be signed,” says Liverpool Public Health academic Dr Alex Scott-Samuel, “until we can all see the full details, including financial plans, and there has been a full 3 month consultation. Liverpool Clinical Commissioning Group has offered no evidence that the plans will improve the public's health.”
The plan includes:
* “Business as Usual” efficiencies of £133m / yr in the Wirral & Cheshire, which requires cutting services
* Liverpool Women's Hospital to be merged with the Royal and Aintree, and “reconfigured” near an acute hospital.
* A&E: potential for reduced opening hours at two of Southport, Warrington, and Whiston hospitals; potential Urgent Care Centre to replace A&E in Eastern Cheshire.
* Elective (planned) care to shift from the Countess of Chester to Clatterbridge
* potential privatisation of Pathology and Pharmacy services regionally.
* Setting up Accountable Care Organisations, the preferred model for the US healthcare industry, in North Mersey and the Wirral.
Thurs 1 Dec is a key moment for the NHS in Liverpool and across Cheshire & Merseyside. Be there!
