We cannot work for nothing. Fully fund the NHS!

SOCIALIST PARTY PUBLIC MEETING

TUESDAY 13TH SEPTEMBER, 7:30PM, F BAR, 95 WALNUT ST, LE2 7LA

The Chief Executive of UHL has threatened that staff will not be paid in August and September, if current spending rates continue at Leicester’s hospitals. Already, 200 staff have not been paid for overtime this month. Staff have been asked to take unpaid leave or reduce their hours.

The Socialist Party totally condemns this action and is calling a public meeting to launch a campaign to demand that staff receive their full pay.

Management are saying that not keeping to financial plans would have ‘terminal consequences’ for the hospital’s application to become a Foundation Trust. Instead of putting patient care first they are prioritising finances. It is dangerous to expect ‘efficiency savings’ to make up the shortfall when wards are already chronically under staffed.

Foundation Trusts will force hospitals to compete with each other rather than co-operate to provide the best care. They mean that hospitals could go bankrupt. In Leicester, UHL Trust has to make budget cuts, year on year over the next 5 years amounting to £158m, due to spending cuts from the government.

These cuts could be stopped, if UNISON, the main union in the NHS, had a fighting leadership, combined with industrial action by the other public sector unions. The Socialist Party calls for a 24-hour public sector general strike.

The Tories were lying when they said that they would not cut the NHS. Jobs will have to be slashed as a result. Yet the process of privatisation, encouraging hospitals to become Foundation Trusts began under Labour. All three main parties are in hock to the interests of big business – ordinary people need to build their own party to represent their interests.

The money is there to fully fund our public services. The government bailed out our banks with over £1 trillion. The economic crisis was caused by the rich and big business, not public sector workers. The money exists to pay for jobs, education and healthcare for all but it is the hands of tiny minority.

The Socialist Party is against all cuts in public services. We demand:

• Staff to be guaranteed pay in accordance with their contracts, including overtime and enhancements.
• Services should be properly funded and wards staffed to meet patient need, not financial profit.
• 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 fully publicly-funded, democratically run NHS.

The Socialist Party is part of the Committee for a Workers’ International which operates in 40 countries across the world. We need an international fightback against a rotten capitalist system, which will always seek to erode past gains made by working people, such as the NHS and the welfare state.

Read more about how the NHS could be transformed, with a socialist programme.