Fight back against cuts to the NHS

The number of ambulance stations in the East Midlands is being reduced from 66 to just 13. NHS services are under serious threat from this government. Yet these cuts are not necessary. The money is there in society to pay for decent public services. Instead of cutting our NHS, the government should clamp down on tax avoidance, making the wealthy pay their fair share.

 

In order to defeat these cuts, trade unionists in the health service need to join up with community campaigns to fight NHS cuts and privatisation. The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, which represents civil servants, including tax collectors, estimates that closing tax loopholes and clamping down on tax avoidance would bring an extra £120bn a year in revenue.

Cuts to ambulance services will mean longer waiting times for critically ill patients, and lives will be lost as a result. This is in addition to the threatened closure of the Glenfield Children’s Heart Unit and ECMO machine. The picture in Leicester is just part of a wider attack on the health service. Year on year budgets are being reduced as £20billion of cuts are planned nationally.

 

At a recent NHS confederation conference, hospital managers said that cuts will drastically affect frontline services, and whole hospitals could be under threat of closure. This was confirmed by a survey in which 25% of top NHS managers said that financial pressures on services are “the worst they have ever been” and a further 46% describing the situation as “very serious”.

 

Come to the public meeting and join the fightback.