Speak out for the NHS. The NHS matters in this election and after it.

Don’t leave it to the politicians.

The NHS came from the people and the people must organise to get it back!

Restore and Repair the NHS.

 Cheshire and Merseyside NHS campaigners are taking a campaign van around the area to remind people of the need to Restore and Repair the NHS.Politicians should heed the needs of the people before the needs of the banks

This article gives information gives more information than the leaflet we are giving out

We say to any government, you must repair the damage of the last two decades, and rebuild the service after years of cuts. The capacity of the NHS to provide adequate timely treatment was cut as the population aged. But it made big money for the very rich. We want the NHS back for the people, not for profit.

Join our campaigns until the politicians restore and repair the NHS.

The Royal College of Nurses has declared a national emergency in the NHS.

Doctors are warning of large numbers of avoidable deaths from NHS shortages.

Doctors say the pressure on the NHS is unsustainable.

The NHS is very important in this election and the next government must restore and repair the NHS.

Please join the campaign to Restore the NHS.

Our health, our life span and our very lives depend on the NHS and on public health services

Life expectancy in Cheshire and Merseyside is lower than the national average for men and women. Access to health care is crucial in this. Will you willingly give up years of your life, and the lives of those dear to you, to fund privatisation and poor healthcare?

The NHS is underfunded. Our local Integrated Care Board said in May 2024 that “provider financial plans exceed the level of funding available” Providers are hospitals. The hospitals have huge waiting lists and dreadful A&E waiting times. They need the money. Maternity desperately needs funding.

The damage to the NHS has been deliberate. Privatisation, underfunding, deskilling staff, closure of hospitals and beds, organisational “reforms” using expensive financial consultants, PFI, and poor building maintenance; it all adds up to Government policy and it has been lethal.

 Privatisation involves public money being paid to private companies to provide a service and allows the private company to make a profit and to deny care to some patients. That profit is money that could go to the public service. They are not more competent nor more efficient. £10 million pounds a week goes to private profit according to We Own It. The ICS structure is based around “commissioning services” pushing ever more of the NHS budget into  the private sector.

The NHS is headed by a banker, not a doctor, and a banker with a history. The NHS has been deliberately underfunded.

We say, go back to the full NHS model!

Mend the NHS in its many services –

Maternity

Fund and staff maternity services to equal the best in Europe. We need more midwives. Can we say that again? We need more midwives. Did they hear that? Say it again WE NEED MORE MIDWIVES. There have been so many reports on the state of maternity services, we need action now. Women and their families are angry about what’s happening in maternity.

Children’s Health

The health of our children is worsening. Ensure every child has timely access to full healthcare, at birth, in the community, at the GP surgery, at Accident and Emergency, and in planned care in the hospital. Bring back health visitors.

GPs

The GP service must be restored and be staffed by qualified doctors. The government must allow spending on doctors as well as ancillary services. A good GP puts years on your life. GP services have been cut with overall funding cuts of 20% per patient per year since 2016.

Mental Health Care

Mental health services must be renationalised and brought back into the NHS and staff trained and paid to NHS standards. The damage is disgusting.

Dental Health Services

Everyone has (or did have) teeth. Our dental health services must be made available to everyone. The damage is immense. Change the contracts to ensure this. Bring back NHS dentistry.

Hearing Services

Audiology must be brought back in-house to make sure everyone has access and no one has to pay privatised prices. Hearing aids are free on the NHS if you insist on using the NHS. These hearing aids are just as good as the ones  for which people pay hundreds

 Ophthalmology

Eye health services must be brought back into the NHS to ensure quality of service, and access for all and to prevent unnecessary treatments that make profit. When so much of the service is farmed out to for-profit companies  and the NHS just does the most complex the whole training system fails

A&E

Accident and Emergency Services. Waiting for hours in A&E is an awful experience as is being treated in a corridor. According to new estimates, long waits in A&E departments may have caused around 30,000 ‘excess deaths’ last year. The stress on staff is also unbearable. We say No more winter crisis. Employ the staff, provide the buildings, and open more hospital beds.

Healthcare for all, free at the point of need. End the policy of charging for some services, reduce prescription costs, and stop discrimination against migrants, who pay twice for the NHS and are charged at 150% of costs yet pay all the same taxes as everyone else.

Our data

The NHS as a national service for over 75 years is gold dust as far as big data companies, health insurance companies and the US health corporations are concerned, the information about our health care, our symptoms and treatment must return to being confidential. Palantir has been given a huge sum of money to manage our data. Kick out the big US data firms and the other private firms who are getting rich off of our data.

Staffing

All vacancies in the NHS must be funded and recruitment processes must be positive and wide-reaching, including winning back many nurses and midwives who have left. Say no to two-year trained staff, no to the use of Physician Associates except in situations where they are in real-time supervision. Workforce planning must be based on training and employing more qualified doctors and nurses to meet the needs of the people. Student debt in medical nursing midwifery and allied professions must be abolished, and bursaries re-introduced so ordinary people can afford to train.

Pay the NHS and social care staff well. This will help keep staff and reduce their stress.

 Social care

Social care covers services to the frail elderly and to disabled people people of all ages both at home and in care homes. Councils are starved of funds and stupidly went along with the policy of privatising their own care homes. Now care homes are privately run,  by for-profit companies and do not provide a universal service but a service where and when they can make big profits. Most are privately owned by big companies and hedge funds. This is more public money going to shareholders. Neither are care services free at the point of need but charge large fees to users who do not qualify for NHS funding or Local Authority funding.  Children’s social care is in a shockingly bad state and adult social care needs radical reform. If you are interested in this area see the End Social Care Disgrace campaign

The private sector. This is no solution to the healthcare crisis. They don’t have the full range of treatments or facilities and are dependent on the NHS for backup. Most doctors who work in the private sector also work in the NHS. The NHS has103,277 general and acute beds  while the private sector has about 11000

We all need healthcare. The need for the NHS is crystal clear. All the parties say sweet words about protecting the NHS, but we have to hold them to these promises. (bar one- Reform wants to bring in an Insurance/market-based system)

The NHS is the most cost-effective structure and the most equitable system for healthcare.

Give the NHS an immediate boost to its funding.

Renationalise the NHS. Make it once again a national service. Stop privatisation.

A healthy population is obviously more effective than one with millions of people waiting for treatment. Millions of people denied treatment or kept waiting for years is morally unacceptable and bad economics.

Run the NHS for healthcare, not for profit. Sack the privatisers!

Make our health care a national service again.

Healthcare free at the point of need for every human, as it was in 1947.

While this campaign would be pleased to see the government that has done such lethal damage to our people’s healthcare kicked out on their ear, neither main party has committed in its manifesto enough money to tackle the dreadful state of the NHS.

The incoming government must fund the NHS to prevent the next still worse winter crisis. It must address the issues around maternity, GPs, dentists and NHS pay, or the people will be very angry, just as the current government is blamed. It took many years to win the NHS and might take years to win it back but the campaign will go on if you give it your support

The campaign to restore and repair the NHS must go on !