More cuts to come in Leicester’s hospitals – a campaign needed to fight back!

Socialist Party public meeting
Tuesday 13th September
7.30pm
F-Bar, 95 WALNUT ST, LE2 7LA

Further cuts to the NHS have been announced in addition to the UHL job losses and hike in car parking charges.

The hospital is saying that this needs to be done because of a £8 million overspend. But where has this money gone? Certainly not to the staff who have been worried that they were not going to be paid or the 200 people who didn’t receive their over time pay.

The UHL NHS Trust is making £16 million worth of cuts. There will be more job losses on top of the 417 already announced , a reduction in agency staff and a slashing in the number of beds. Services are already stretched with 350 operations being cancelled between April and June because of a lack of beds.

The merging of certain services in the Leicestershire Partnership Trust will mean around 140 jobs may go, mainly from mental health services. These services help the most vulnerable people in the city and are already under staffed. The tragic suicide of patient Kirsty Brookes last year after she was able to leave the Bradgate Unit at Glenfield was because of under-staffing, she was not being observed. The response of the trust has been to spend £230,000 on an electronic rostering system to make sure there is enough staff on duty. Why not spend that money on hiring staff instead of cutting jobs?

Instead of focusing on the effects on staff and patients, the hospital bosses are looking to profit-driven private companies to solve their financial problems. They are even looking to pay £8 million for a company to send out patient letters to free up staff time!

The decision on proposed rise in car parking charges has been put off until October due to public and staff outrage. They want to double the cost for patients and increase by 13.5% the cost of the staff parking permits. This will only mean more money going to the private company, Serco, that manage the car parks.

The Socialist Party is holding a public meeting to discuss the issues facing the NHS in Leicester and nationally and how we can stop these attacks. We completely disagree with the dismantling of the NHS being pushed by the government. The introduction of Foundation Trusts, started under the previous Labour government, means nothing more than the privatisation of our services. Profit-driven business should be kicked out of the NHS!

We demand:

• Staff to be guaranteed pay in accordance with their contracts, including overtime and enhancements.
• No to a hike in car-parking charges – staff and patients shouldn’t pay for something they didn’t cause!
• Services should be properly funded and wards staffed to meet patient need, not financial profit.
• Open the books to a trade union led inquiry to see where the ‘overspend’ has gone
• For an all-members meeting of the trade unions to be held urgently to discuss action, including industrial action, to defeat these attacks.
• No cuts to jobs and services.
• No to Foundation Trusts and privatisation. For a socialist NHS to provide for everyone’s health needs – free at the point of use and under democratic control