SUSSEX HEALTH BULLETIN

Whats happening to our NHS? NHS? November 20, 2013 Sussex Defend our

NHS
WORKERS, CAMPAIGNERS, COMMUNITIES TOGETHER

Welcome to this first edition of our newsletter newsletter

Our NHS is being privatised and dismantled week on week and reeling under the impact of the enforced 20 billion of savings to be made by 2015 with many more cuts on the way after that. The Coalition and NHS senior management shroud what is happening to our services in secrecy and their own special language. With the active collusion of the media they are also engaging in an intense propaganda war. When was the last time you heard anything positive about the NHS in the media? Amazing isnt it how all these stories of NHS malfunctioning are coming at once? Surely the government cant be drip-feeding the media and the public?! The Coalition, with their master of propaganda Lynton Crosby (former advisor to the arch Conservative party in Australia, tobacco lobbying firm and Malta-based tax haven owner), are controlling the supply of our news as never before. The NHS is being subjected to the same process of demonization as people on benefits and with disabilities. The Coalition is now taking state repression to the next level and an amendment is going through parliament to introduce a gagging law forcing campaigning organisations off the web and silencing local campaigning groups. We are all aware how grim the situation is. BUT the stunning success of the community campaign to Save Lewisham Hospital (25,000 people on the streets) and their resultant legal victories against the government are testimony to the fact that with sufficient people power we can win. This newsletter is for those of us who are already active in campaigning, who feel passionately about the NHS and want to get more involved, who feel we dont have enough information to commit ourselves (yet). Whether you work in the NHS, or are a concerned resident, this is your newsletter as well. We will produce it monthly and if you have any news about the NHS, or contributions / comments you would like to make please send them to

defendthenhs@gmail.com WHO ARE SUSSEX DEFEND OUR NHS? NHS?

We are one of two main NHS campaigning groups in Brighton and Hove, the other one being Keep our NHS Public. We oppose cuts and privatisation and call for all contracted-out services to be returned to NHS providers. We reject Austerity arguments and support workers trying to defend their jobs and the services they provide. GMB, Unite and Unison health workers are active members of our core group of campaigners and community activists. Together we share and publicise information and have organised successful public meetings, marches, rallies (see below) with national and local speakers. We have nearly 1,500 people on our contact lists and large followings on Facebook and Twitter. We work with Brighton and Hove Peoples Assembly, local trades councils and the Sussex Trade 1

Union Network. We are building links with campaigning groups elsewhere in Sussex and in South London.

GMB/DEFEND GMB/DEFEND OUR NHS ANTIANTI-PRIVATISATION MARCH on November 2nd

The photo says it all. Hundreds of people joined in alongside NHS unions, NHS campaigners and other supporters of the NHS from all over the city, the rest of Sussex and beyond, including a contingent of 40 from the Save Lewisham Hospital campaign. The march was accompanied by Silver Sounds, Maracatu, the Red and Green singers and Baruelho. Speakers at the rally, including Rehana Azam (GMB), Caroline Lucas MP, Louise Irvine (Lewisham campaign), Nancy Platts Labour parliamentary candidate, Mic Foote (GMB), Stephen McLean (Unison), Steve Guy (Unite), drew tremendous support from the crowd as they expressed their determination to stop the break-up and selling off of the NHS and the erosion of jobs and salaries.

PRIVATISATION AND THE ROYAL SUSSEX COUNTY HOSPITAL

The management at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Trust, and in particular its chief executive Matthew Kershaw, tried to discredit the publicity for the Anti-Privatisation march and rally on 2 November. But the big turnout showed what NHS supporters think of his spin. Remember, Kershaw took up his post in April 2013 from Lewisham where, thanks to a huge campaign, his and Jeremy Hunts A&E closure scheme has now been declared illegal. And he announced his arrival in our city with a pledge to make 30 million cuts at the Trust! So, whats really happening? We believe we are seeing are various stages in the breaking up and privatising of all non-ward based services. And it wont stop there. Here is a sample:

Outpatients pharmacy to become a company:

This is part of undermining of NHS pay and conditions. When staff are employed within the new BSUH company, they wont have the hard-won statutory protection (known as the Agenda for Change) enjoyed by staff employed directly by the NHS.

Privatising Security and Reception Services:

80% of contracts awarded since April have gone to non-NHS providers. Kershaw claims that there is no plan to out-source Security services at the Trust. But all Security staff were e-mailed in the summer and told a risk/benefit analysis of options for outsourcing security and reception services was being commissioned. Sounds like a privatisation plan in the making!

Renal services outsourced

A new satellite dialysis unit in Eastbourne is opening, with the full backing (according to Kershaw) of the SE Kidney Patients Assoc. (Nice touch community support ensured ed.) But who is running this service? And aiming to profit by it? Diaverum UK is a multi-national; has just won a lucrative contract in Saudi Arabia; and is bank-rolled by Bridgepoint a big private equity group making profits by buying up healthcare firms with NHS contracts. Does this really sound like a patient-led initiative?

Neurosciences Neurosciences and Trauma

Kershaw claims that the Royal Sussex County Hospital must become the major trauma centre 2

for the region and that resulting reorganisation will not change the ownership and management of the services or the position for staff affected, who will remain within the NHS. But the GMB has told us- The service is being broken up as early as Christmas. It is possible that neurovascular services will be lost. If that happens the nearest services for Brighton & Hove residents would be in Southampton or London.

Sussex Eye Hospital

Redundancies were recently actively considered at the Sussex Eye Hospital. Clerical staff at the hospital are still under threat. Although Kershaw claims there are no plans to cut staff, we wonder if no plans has the same meaning here as in relation to the security department. We will see.

Sodexo
Lest we forget private conglomerate Sodexo took over catering staff, porters, and gardeners from the NHS in November last year. Ninety of the staff were transferred and were issued with redundancy notices within one month of the company taking over (So much for TUPE protection!) Many staff were not paid correctly for weeks. In the face of a GMB, Defend the NHS, community campaign Sodexo were forced to take back many of the redundancy notices and staff were paid what they were owed.

The fate of other hospital departments HIV and Sexual Health Services
Brighton and Hove Council commission the Claude Nicol Centre (sexual health) and Lawson Unit (HIV) and these services are very vulnerable to the practice of cherry-picking by private companies. Kershaw claims he is fully committed to retaining these services within the NHS if any decision to tender them is taken. But the timetable for putting the service out to tender has already been laid out by Brighton & Hove Council. Despite this, to date there has been no consultation with staff, public or service users. Also it is still unclear who will be directly responsible for the tendering process. We are currently trying to find out and will let you know. The fear is that if the whole service does not remain within the NHS the provision of HIV services will not be taken up by a private provider and be considered unviable for support by the Hospitals Trust. Note: It is rumoured (happens a lot in todays brave new NHS world) the Lawson Unit (HIV) was put out to tender last year but a deal with media empire Virgin fell through (the same happened with the unit in Worthing). There was no consultation round that either. A pattern is emerging!!

Audiology
Heres a very clear example of cherry-picking by private companies. Thats when straightforward services are packaged and out-sourced, leaving the remaining NHS department vulnerable because it has to maintain premises and expertise but has lost the most profitable services (i.e in an internal market). Since late 2012 hearing test services in Brighton and Hove have been taken over by four private companies including SpecSavers. This decision was made by the Brighton and Hove CCG (Clinical Commissioning Group) and though a bid for the NHS to retain the service was prepared by NHS staff it was not submitted. Reasons unknown. Result: staff posts in the remaining NHS service, which deals with more complex audiology, have been reduced by a third. We understand a joint Union grievance remains in place against the hospital management on grounds of their failure to consult staff around these processes.

MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES IN BRIGHTON AND HOVE

Our local mental health service, like many round the country, is in crisis. Workloads of staff are reaching unsustainable levels. Sussex Partnership made savings of 14.2 million from April 2011 to April 2012. In April 2011, the Argus reported that 380 jobs were to go within Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust over the next 2 years. This year the Trust is being forced to find 13.5 million of savings from a budget of 245 million. Private firms have been paid nearly million so far this year to take care of patients. The beds in two acute in-patient wards are among the 104 (the fourth highest number in the country) which have been permanently closed, contributing to the current crisis in provision. So far staff have been redeployed to alternative vacant posts and no redundancies have yet resulted. However, vacant posts are not being refilled. All the cuts to services are being made at a time when a third more people are being detained under the Mental Health Act and the number of people committing suicide nationally and locally is rising rapidly. Mental health referrals in Sussex soared by 20% last year alone. Four people per day are detained under the Mental Health Act within the Sussex Partnership catchment area. The CCG (Clinical Commissioning Group) made the decision to withdraw the NHS funding from four recovery houses forcing their transfer to other providers local charities Brighton Housing Trust and Sanctuary Housing. More on mental health services next time.

BRIGHTON and HOVE CLINICAL COMMISSIONING GROUP (CCG)

The Health and Social Care Act came into law in April last year. The provisions of the Act which have been devastating our NHS in England since (it only covers England) included the setting up of consortia of GPs to be known as CCGs in every region. CCGs across England are responsible for the direct commissioning of billions of NHS services. The autonomy of these groups has been limited by central government-imposed regulations governing tendering processes and above all the need to ensure competition. However CCGs vary enormously in how they operate within or around these regulations. The spectrum of compliance with government dictate goes from the CCG in North Cheshire who have made a commitment to prioritise the commissioning of NHS run services to Cambridgeshire and Peterborough CCG who recently announced the outsourcing of 800 million in services in one go. Virgin, Serco and Circle Health are circling.

Local CCG Budget

BnH CCG has a budget of 360 million for 2013-14 for health and social care. 53% of this is being spent on hospital services 12% community 15% prescribing 6% continuing healthcare 12% mental health 2% corporate 4

The target for savings from the CCG budget for 2013-14 has been set at 4%, purposely above the national average of 3% (Annual Operating Plan 2013-14). Seen as a % of the annual budget this represents cuts of 14.4 million. In the first few months of their operation BnH CCG put three NHS hospital services out to tender including Audiology and wheelchair provision. They also put the emergency out of hours service out to tender. South Coast Ambulances working in conjunction with Harmoni (running the callcentre) won the contract to run a 111 service (the cut-price replacement for NHS direct). More about this in the next newsletter. The pace of services being put out to tender is now speeding up, as can be seen from the procurement section of the Brighton and Hove CCG website (http://www.brightonandhoveccg.nhs.uk/corporate/procurement)

Integrated Musculoskeletal (MSK) Service

Tender for Out of Hours Primary Care Services in Sussex and East Surrey CCG. Areas covered: 1 Coastal West Sussex CCG 2 Brighton and Hove CCG 3 Hastings and Rother, Eastbourne, Hailsham and Seaford CCG, High Weald Lewes Havens CCG 4 Crawley CCG, Horsham and mid Sussex CCG, East Surrey CCG

Tender for Endo Bronchial Ultra Sound (EBUS)

If you follow the links from the CCG website for this tender they lead here https://commercialsolutions.bravosolution.co.uk/web/login.shtml Commercial solutions are hosted by Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. We are a member of the NHS Commercial Alliance, a strategic partnership between collaborative procurement organisations that is designed to step up delivery and improve services to customers.

Integrated Integrated Dermatology Service in Brighton & Hove Clinical Commissioning Group
Brighton & Hove CCG commissioners are considering the procurement of an Integrated Dermatology Service. They value the views of potential providers to help shape an innovative specification and help to inform the approach to commissioning the service. See page 6 for details of the CCGs next public consultation meeting to which you can submit questions and attend.

SUMMARY
There is a well-established programme in place of privatisation of many NHS services in our city. Several departments and services have already gone. It is a slow process of attrition (week on week chipping away on lots of different fronts). This makes it harder but not impossible to fight. Staff throughout the hospital and other NHS services are working longer hours with fewer breaks, doing their best to cover posts which have been cut. Beds and not just in mental health services are being closed. A and E is placed under increasing pressure and that is before the winter sets in. Waiting lists in A and E and for operations are ever-lengthening, growing numbers of people subtly and not so subtly encouraged to go private. Non-ward services have already been or are being parcelled out for tendering, with even staff members unaware what is happening until it is too late. Any sense of obligation or even basic decency to consult those who are affected by the changes has disappeared. The management pronouncements of todays NHS represent a world of smoke and mirrors. 5

Reading between the lines of the public statements and reports of major players requires particular skills of deciphering. Just working out who is responsible for the selling off of a given department can be a major challenge. This is all part of a deliberate strategy on the part of the government and their NHS management friends. At the same time as issuing public denials about privatising the NHS, their aim is to ensure that the process of selling off and dismantling is pushed ahead with the minimum of interference from campaigning groups or the rapidly growing numbers of individuals who are outraged by what is happening. The other part of the govt strategy is in full flow the manipulation of the news agenda and the media taken to a whole new level. The government has enlisted most of the media with (shamefully) the BBC in the forefront, to their agenda. They are attempting the seemingly impossible blaming the NHS for failings resulting directly from the governments own destructive policies with the aim of turning the population against the NHS.

We cannot allow them to succeed. REPORT FROM UNITE UNION CONFERENCE OPEN MEETING ON THE NHS and CONFERENCE MOTION
Speakers:
Rob Galloway Local NHS consultant in Accident and Emergency Debbie Wilkinson Unite representative, Yorkshire Ambulance Service Nancy Platts PPC for Brighton Kemptown & Peacehaven Rachael Maskell Unite Head of Health Barrie Brown Unite National Officer Health Frank Wood Unite EC member for Health

Angry delegates and speakers from the floor picked up on the call from the Yorkshire ambulance workers for solidarity. The meeting was reminded that health workers pay agreement has been broken and that the pace of the dismantling of the NHS is phenomenally fast, with 700 million to 1.1 billion in services due to be sold in Cambridgeshire within three months. The meeting was not prepared to put their faith in a change in government being able to rescue the NHS, and the conference followed with a call for a ballot for strike action now. At the conference plenary the following day, a motion was passed calling for industrial action, rather than token protests, to protect pay and to defend national conditions, as well as to organise to protect our NHS.

EASTBOURNE DISTRICT GENERAL HOSPITAL

The maternity ward has been closed despite a strong community campaign to keep it open. A turn-around officer to identify services for cuts and/or privatisation has been appointed on a salary of 270,000 per annum. His plan is to put all soft services out to tender (including catering which is currently in-house) followed by all non-ward-based clinical services (the stage the Royal Sussex County hospital has reached). The Royal Sussex is being held up as model of how privatisation can be achieved!! That hurts.

WEBSITES OF THE MONTH both produced by the NHS Support Federation in Brighton
http://www.nhsforsale.info/ http://www.nhscampaign.org/

FUTURE TOPICS
HEALTH AND WELL-BEING BOARD what are its powers? HEALTHWATCH SUSSEX COMMUNITY NHS TRUST 111 SERVICE NHS CAMPAIGNING UNDERSTAND KERSHAWSPEAK LEWISHAM CAMPAIGN TOPICS SUGGESTED BY YOU

UPCOMING MEETINGS
Tuesday 26th November at 7pm Prince Arthur pub, pub, Dean Street

Defend our NHS

CCG public consultation meeting

Areas of care to be consulted on: Emergency and urgent care Planned care (i.e. hospital care where you have an appointment) Care in GP practices and in the community Mental Health Childrens health services Friday 13th December, 10am 12 midday
Brighthelm Centre. North Road, Brighton

You have to pre-book places for this event. To book and to obtain a copy of the CCGs plans contact Sue Lloyd: Susan.lloyd6@nhs.net 01273 574690 To put a question to the CCG Board to be considered at the meeting contact emma.snowdon@nhs.net

Lewisham Hospital campaign learning from the victories victories

First in a series of themed monthly NHS public discussions organised by Sussex Defend our NHS with speakers from the campaign Thursday December 12 at 7pm GMB offices, 49 Church Road, Hove Defend our NHS contact email - defendthenhs@gmail.com