Don’t axe our ambulance services!

If you look at one of our local ambulances, you see the words “Arriva, in partnership with the NHS”. You might be mistaken for thinking that, out of a sense of community responsibility, the bus company has lent the NHS some vehicles for use. In fact, Arriva have bought out the East Midlands non-emergency ambulance service, undercutting the”in-house” bid, but only by making the assumption that there will be 35% less ambulance journeys than at present. (The Socialist, 29th August).

What is left of the NHS ambulance service in the East Midlands, serves people across the entire region, including parts of the Peak District in Derbyshire. There are plans to cut back the present 66 NHS ambulance stations to just 13 – closing stations in villages and remote areas. Obviously, this will mean, for anyone not living in a city, much longer journey times to get to a hospital. At the moment, this plan is being “consulted on”, but this is just a tick-box exercise in democracy, with no real option being given to people; NHS bosses know that cutting services is deeply unpopular.

The consultation is on the EMAS website. It includes a set of maps showing the 66 present ambulance stations. Another set of maps show the 13 proposed “hubs” + community ambulance posts + standby points, making a total of 131 dots on the map! However, elsewhere, it mentions that the standby points are already being used, so these should be included on both maps. And the community ambulance posts are to be shared with the NHS, fire service or police service – in other words shared facilities, which presumably are needed by emergency services. If that was not confusing enough, the maps showing the new proposals have dots in adjoining areas, whereas the others do not. How are people supposed to make a genuinely informed decision? The GMB union has described the consultation proposals as “at best misleading”.

We organised a successful public meeting against NHS cuts and held a party stall on the issue in Leicester, selling 30 papers, with people queuing up to register their opposition to the plans. As a starting point, we decided to lobby the consultation meetings. But the health unions should be taking action over this, including looking to ballot for industrial action. This is not an easy option for workers in an emergency service to take, because of their responsibility for patient care, but the alternative is to see ambulance services decimated and sold off.

Health bosses and a local Lib Dem “patient spokesperson” have tried to spin their way out of the situation by saying that they are going to re-invest the money saved in, and that no cuts are planned to staff as a result of the changes. However, UNISON in the ambulance service, got a different response – the cuts are simply about saving money. Our stall simply pointed out “Cuts Cost Lives”, “Defend Jobs and Services” and “Don’t Axe Our Ambulances”.

These cuts lay bare the real priorities of a market-driven, privatised health system, where NHS Trusts are forced to compete with the lowest bidder. Patient care is less of a priority than the bottom line – breaking even in order to attain coveted Foundation Trust status. Foundation Trusts are, like “Partnership”, a code word for privatisation. The Con-Dem’s Health and Social Care Act threatens to finish what New Labour started – the wholesale selling-off of our health service.

We urgently have to build an alternative – TUSC (The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition) is hopefully the beginning of a mass political party which will protect vital public services and take these out of the hands of profiteers like Richard Branson, whose Virgin Healthcare threatens to take over swathes of NHS services. We cannot afford the fiasco of tens of millions of pounds being lost due to the tendering process in the railways being repeated in our health service. We cannot afford people dying because their nearest ambulance is miles away and cannot reach them in time.

There is also an on-line petition to save East Midlands ambulance services – please sign to show your support.