Take the fight for the NHS to the communities and workplaces!

The NHS originated from working-class organisations, including unions, and crucially, among working-class communities, especially among working-class women. We have records of this on Merseyside.

Talk about the NHS with friends, family and people at work. Work with other campaigners to get the word out to communities through leaflets, stalls, research, public meetings, pickets, posters, conferences, and demonstrations. The NHS  is ours, a legacy from the generation that defeated fascism and built the welfare state. Stop the daylight robbery of this service by huge corporations.

Help us lobby the ICB (the governing body of the NHS in Cheshire and Merseyside; there are similar organisations across the country). They are based on the US system of Accountable Care Organisations, designed for privatisation and profit-taking, denial of care, extracting charges from patients and downskilling of staff.

We are working on model resolutions to restore, repair, and rebuild the NHS, so you can move them at union branches (for unions that are not currently organising NHS workers). Your suggestions are most welcome.

We are building links with health service workers, but help with this would be most welcome.

We ask that political parties that do support a return to the Bevan model of healthcare ensure their political education and campaigning include the campaign to restore the NHS.

When the Labour Government in 1945 decided to set up the NHS, the core principles were clear.

Healthcare for all, free at the point of need.

A national universal service cooperating across the country.

A service which is funded as a public service and delivered by a publicly owned and controlled service.

A service that is a good employer employing fully qualified staff, which pays good wages and has manageable workloads without driving burnout.

We would add

Remove all privatisation.

Ban donations to politicians from the US health corporations

Our data is private. Kick out Palantir.

The country can and must afford good healthcare.

Our healthcare costs the government much less per person than the appalling US system. It is more cost-efficient than the European compulsory insurance systems. We need more funding, more hospital beds, more staff, and better buildings. Investment in healthcare builds an economy. Even the World Bank reports that investing in health is key to job creation and growth.

Take the fight for the NHS to the union branches. Make the NHS the talk of the workplace. Let’s not be quiet when people suffer without dignity or privacy on trollies in corridors this winter, not be quiet when babies die from inadequate care in the Maternity service.

There will be a severe political risk this winter if families feel helpless about the problems in the NHS. Our frustrations need a political and community response. Together, we might make the government listen, but the fight goes on even if Starmer continues to have cloth ears. We are fighting for the lives and health of our communities.

We are fighting for lives and dignity. Our area has enormous problems with poverty, and our babies are twice as likely to die around birth as babies in richer areas. Black babies have a greater risk in rich or poor areas, yet other countries do not experience the same problems. This is the outcome of Austerity and neoliberal health policies.

Last winter was grim in all our hospitals, and this year, they face the added burden of funding refusals from NHS England. We saw corridor care for days on end in September, let alone February, long waits in A&E, long waits for beds once “admitted”, and too high bed occupancy for infection prevention. Hospitals are expected to reduce staff as patient needs increase.

The NHS is fundamentally damaged by austerity and privatisation. The government has brought back the worst of New Labour’s privatisation, quacks, and advisers. Billions are being directed to private profit rather than treatment.

The Save Liverpool Women’s Hospital Campaign works with many other NHS campaigns, and we urge people to join us or another similar group local to you.

Contact us, and we will put you in touch or help set up a campaign group in your area. Defend our NHS organises in Wirral and Keep our NHS Public has Merseyside and Cheshire Branches. Most Trades Councils in Cheshire and Merseyside and the NHS camapign groups organise together on NHS issues.

For more information, please see this recent post. Join the campaign to restore, repair, and rebuild the NHS.

Save Liverpool Women’s Hospital.

Make the NHS a core campaign in building a new generation of resistance in the UK. If you are already deeply involved in another core campaign, let’s collaborate on building links. Housing and the environment are key to the nation’s health, as is the right to food. Women’s rights, disability rights and anti-racism work are key to reversing poor outcomes in the NHS. These campaigns should build their links.

We won in 1945 for the NHS, and we can win again.