38 Degrees Exeter debate to 'Keep our NHS Public'
Backed up by a strong local petition, 38 Degrees members across the country will be planning on meeting with their Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), including a public meeting at Exeter Central Library on Monday 29th October from 7pm to 8.30pm. They will be asking CCGs to adopt the amendments in their Guide for CCGs. Patients, doctors, nurses, other health workers and all concerned members of the public have been invited to attend the event.
The topic for discussion will cover such issues as children’s health services in Devon, which are to be controversially contracted out to Virgin - which 38 Degrees describes as "One of those ‘brand name’ corporations that is invading so many areas of our lives, from air and rail travel to phones, broadband, TV and banking."
The discussion will also cover the fact that the GP-led CCGs will shortly take over from the Primary Care Trusts. 38 Degrees say "Immediately, their hands will be tied in that they must seek to outsource a whole raft of services - a move which is almost certain to involve significant privatisation and fragmentation of provision."
Other agenda items include that fact that there appears to be little or no place for public or patient involvement in the CCGs and the accusation that, faced with budget cuts, the 20 major health employers in the region have "formed a cartel with the deliberate intention of forcing inferior pay and conditions upon their workforces - the doctors, nurses and others who provide our health services."
38 Degrees argue that "All this is just a taste of what will come in the next few years. Unless health professionals and service users join in fighting the intended changes, our NHS system will be destroyed and unrecognisable in a very short time. The risk is that it will resemble the divisive and unequal system of the USA."The meeting will hear from speakers representing concerned GPs, health sector trade unions, patient groups and friends who have been successful in opposition elsewhere.
This meeting is organised with the assistance of the web-based campaigners 38 Degrees. As of today, 4625 people have signed their online petition to the Devon CCGs.
