Campaigners lobby to defend NHS from privatisation

Campaigners from Sheffield Save Our NHS and action group 38 Degrees joined forces yesterday to convince city health chiefs to protect the NHS from privatisation.

40 activists arrived at NHS offices in Darnall to hand over a petition and sit in on a public board meeting of the Sheffield Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). The recently formed group, which consists primarily of doctors, is taking on responsibility from the Sheffield Primary Care Trust for community health services in the city.

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 intends to allow services to be provided by "any qualified provider" and opens up competition for providing health services to organisations from the private sector.

The number of campaigners overwhelmed NHS staff and they were unable to provide a meeting room large enough to accommodate them.

Ian Atkinson, Chief Officer of the Sheffield CCG, addressed campaigners in the lobby of the building: "Our meeting today is a meeting of our board in public. It's not meant to be a big public meeting. This meeting that we are having today is purely our board meeting. We are not having a conversation about privatisation.

"There is a space on the agenda for members of the public to ask questions of the governing body questions at the end."

It was eventually agreed that five campaigners would sit in on the public board meeting.

3000 Signatures

The petition, which was signed by 3000 people, calls on the CCG to protect the NHS from privatisation and amend their constitution to reflect this. It was presented to Atkinson and Chair of the CCG, Dr Tim Moorhead, by 38 Degrees and Sheffield Save Our NHS member Julie Crookes in the lobby of the offices on Prince of Wales Road, Darnall.

Crookes, a part-time teacher at Bents Green School, said: "I think everyone is genuinely worried about what is happening to the NHS or what could happen to the NHS if we don't keep an eye on these commissioning bodies.

"Vulnerable people, people with disabilities or chronic health conditions do cost the NHS a lot of money and you can't run a service like the NHS based on profit. You are not going to meet people's needs if profit is the motivation.

"We have made it clear to them that they can write extra things into the draft constitution that they have been given. We want a constitution in place that makes it as impossible as possible for them to privatise and fragment the NHS."

Signatures for the petition were collected on the streets of Sheffield by members of Sheffield Save Our NHS and online through the 38 Degrees website.

Making a Point 

Jon Ashe, a retired civil servant and one of the organisers behind the petition, said: "The important thing is not that there were 40 people there today, although that was good, but the fact that 3000 people signed the petition.

"We made our point. What I hope we will see over the next few weeks is the CCG responding to us, saying as we have asked, both in our petition and in the questions in the meeting, that they will try to make sure that in their constitution and in their service plan that they will at least use NHS providers where they regard them as being sufficiently good quality."

by Alistair McCloskey