Successful Glenfield Campaigners Launch New Group to Fight All NHS Cuts in Leicestershire

Yesterday, the Save Our NHS Leicestershire (SONHSL) campaign launched in a standing-room-only Leicester Secular Hall, with the meeting brimming with energy to fight the Tories’ brutal NHS cuts.

SONHSL will seek to build on the incredible success of the campaign to stop the closure of Glenfield Children’s Heart Unit, which mobilised thousands of people in Leicestershire and beyond, and link up with other health campaigns around the region.

Chaired by Leicester Socialist Party’s Steve Score, who also helped lead the Glenfield campaign, the meeting saw speaker Dr Sally Ruane of the Leicester Campaign Against NHS Privatisation utterly dismantle Jeremy Hunt’s lies about record NHS funding, citing the enormous gulf between funding increases and both inflation and demand.

Royal College of Nursing regional organiser Sarah-Leigh Barnett also spoke, highlighting the pressures both personal and structural on nurses – a point echoed by NHS staff, patients and families who spoke from the floor later in the meeting.

But the sense of solidarity went beyond sympathy – with Glenfield as a shining example, the mood of the meeting was one of hope and ambition. Multiple speakers cited the need for ordinary people to organise and pressure those in power and recalled the Glenfield campaigners’ incredible feat of engaging and empowering thousands of members of the public.

Dr Ruane closed by saying “this is the 6th richest country in the world. We can afford a damn good health service, and we deserve a damn good health service!” The people of Leicestershire are ready to fight for it.