Blog

The Royal College of Nursing is currently balloting for strike action, putting patient safety at the heart of the campaign. Unless we address workforce shortages and staff pay and conditions things will not improve.

Angela, North East resident, KONPNE supporter and Nurse (retired) speaks from experience

We at Keep Our NHS Public care passionately about the NHS and the people who work in it. We are demanding a pay increase for all NHS staff and an end to NHS privatisation.

I recently retired as a registered nurse. I have worked at home and abroad in hospital and community settings. The emphasis on patient care rather than profit differentiates the NHS from anywhere else I have worked. The Tories were against the NHS when it was formed in 1948 and they want to see it privatised now.

Recently, the Health And Care Act was carefully rushed through Parliament, avoiding media coverage. There is no longer a NATIONAL Health Service – it has been split into 42 parts, called Integrated Care Systems. We believe that this Act drives the NHS further down the road of privatisation. Integrated Care Boards can now decide which services will be provided and who provides them. The NHS will no longer be the default provider. The NHS is in crisis – the Government would have you believe this is due to the pandemic when, in fact, there have been years of underfunding and outsourcing of services.

Let’s not forget the suffering of essential workers during Covid. Healthcare workers were caring for patients with no or inadequate PPE, and many healthcare workers died . The government awarded contracts for PPE to totally unsuitable providers, without any scrutiny – such was their concern for workers. There was a Fastlane for Tory friends and donors. Millions of pounds were wasted on PPE which was not fit for purpose. When it came to testing for Covid, they could have used proven local Public Health services , but instead they paid Serco and Sitel £37 Billion for a Test and Trace service which has been shown to have had no effect on the course of the pandemic. Who says there is no magic money tree?

Morale in the NHS is extremely low. NHS staff want to give you good care. A recent survey of tens of thousands of nurses showed that, on their last shift, a huge majority said there was not enough staff or time to give the care they wanted to. We want minimum staffing levels enshrined in law, as they are in Wales and Scotland. The government are refusing to do this.

The Health And Social Care Committee say there is a shortage of 50,000 nurses – we know that in the last year 40,000 nurses have left the NHS, with workplace stress and lack of work-life balance being some of the reasons cited for leaving. Whilst the committee made it clear that it is unacceptable that some nurses are struggling to feed their families, pay rent and travel to work, the Government ignored their calls for a meaningful pay rise. Last week’s budget will see the poorest in our society suffer even more. There is already talk of benefit cuts and cuts to public services.

The Royal College of Nursing is currently balloting for strike action. We are putting patient safety at the heart of our campaign. Unless we address workforce shortages and staff pay and conditions things will not improve. We are demanding a pay award of 5% above inflation. We are saying ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. We demand fair pay and working conditions so we can give you the care you deserve.

We are asking you to please support us. Thank you.

INFO: Click here for the Enough is Enough website

===================

We need emergency investment now to rebuild a publicly provided NHS, deliver pay justice for health and care workers, and end private interests in the NHS. 

The speakers at the February 2022 “SOS NHS” events in the North East tell it as it is at Newcastle Grey’s Monument, Tynemouth Longsands and Sunderland Seaburn Beach. One day = three rallies.

---

Julia Charlton, Senior Lecturer in Nursing (retired):

“Beyond this Spring, we will need legislation and change at the top to re-establish a fully publicly funded and provided national health service, protected from private companies who put profit before patients. We need a national care service, and we need to make the NHS the default provider for health service provision. 

The NHS was once the best health care service in the world. It can be again. This Government has shown it won’t change course without pressure from below: but U-turns have occurred. It’s up to us to pile on that pressure”.

Click here for the full speech, Tynemouth, 26.2.22

Julia Charlton at Tynemouth Longsands, 26th February 2022

===================

---

Gail Ward, Organiser for “Disabled People Against Cuts” and “Protect Tynedale NHS”:

“We all need a healthcare system to be provided free at point of use, not the two tier systems that operate in USA and other countries. Integrated Care is not the answer to social care that many need and it’s not only the elderly, it is disabled people too. Many disabled people will be denied insurance on basis of  pre-existing conditions. Are you really going to allow that to happen? All our lives are precious. 

If we don’t stand up for the NHS now, then we will lose it”.

Click here for the full speech, Newcastle and Tynemouth, 26.2.22

Gail Ward, pictured at a previous rally

===================

---

Laura Murrell, Keep Our NHS Public Sunderland and District:

“If money can be raised to be wasted or to support a struggling private sector why can’t it be raised to invest in the NHS and build a stronger better public sector. But no – instead Rishi Sunak’s spending review locks in underspending on the NHS until 2025. It’s not good enough. Our NHS deserves better. Let’s actually do something to make the call for building back better mean something. 

We must reverse the 6 million plus waiting lists, stop patients dying in the back of ambulances outside hospitals because there are no beds, or forcing people to wait all night for an emergency ambulance for a suspected stroke only to be told in the morning that they have to drive 34-mile, a one hour journey, to that county’s only Accident and Emergency Department.

The NHS was once the best health care service in the world. It can be again.”

Click here for the full speech, Seaburn, 26.2.22

Laura Murrell at Seaburn, 26th February 2022

===================

---

Roger Nettleship, Chair of “Save South Tyneside Hospital Campaign”:

“The necessity is for a public healthcare system that is human centred. A human centred system is where health staff and the communities engage to provide health and social care that is accessible to all day and night. For a modern borough like South Tyneside with a growing population 160,000 plus it is not acceptable that our hospitals do not provide full maternity services, a consultant led Children’s led A&E and and A&E with all the acute services necessary.

It is the people who should decide. They are our hospitals, they are our workplaces and it is our NHS. Health care is a right!”

Click here for the full speech, Newcastle and Seaburn, 26.2.22

Roger Nettleship at Grey’s Monument, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 26th February 2022

===================

---

Dr Pam Wortley, retired GP and member of the “Socialist Health Association”:

“The Health and Social Care Bill is the greatest threat to socialised healthcare. The NHS will be broken up into 42 regional bodies, where even emergency care is no longer guaranteed. The private sector can sit on NHS Boards, with powers to decide what care to provide, based on finances, not clinical need. Deregulation of professional staff, and national pay, terms, and conditions, and pensions will be threatened through local pay deals to cut costs. Hospitals will no longer need to do social care checks before sending patients home. It will allow contracts for private profit, fragment the NHS, and make it harder for patients to obtain the care they need.

We will not allow our service to be privatised and sold off to American companies; America, where millions of people, unable to pay get no care or are forced into bankruptcy.

This must be stopped”.

Click here for the full speech, Newcastle and Seaburn, 26.2.22

Dr Pam Wortley at Seaburn, 26th February 2022

===================

---

Dr Helen Groom, retired GP, NHS campaigner and member of the “No to Hassockfield Campaign”:

“What horrifies me is that over the last few years, as a country, we seem to believe that there’s nothing we can do to stop the increased privatisation of the NHS. We can. We need to start giving our politician’s very clear and unambiguous messages…. So where are we now. We have a demoralised NHS workforce who understand that their employers, the government, are more interested in lining their own and their mate’s pockets than in supporting them to provide the best services. We have hospitals and ambulance services who have been stretched to their limits. Staff are exhausted and demoralised. Many are leaving in droves

WE NEED TO FIGHT THE CHARGING OF MIGRANTS AND THOSE SEEKING SANCTUARY. WE NEED TO FIGHT THE OPENING OF A PRISON FOR VULNERABLE WOMEN WHO HAVE SOUGHT SANCTUARY IN THE UK, ONLY TO BE IMPRISONED IN A CENTRE WHERE SHAREHOLDERS ARE MAKING PROFIT FROM THEIR MISERY. AS A RESULT OF THE ‘HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT’ WE ARE THE ONLY COUNTRY IN EUROPE THAT HAD INDEFINATE DETENTION”.

Click here for the full speech, Newcastle and Tynemouth, 26.2.22

Dr Helen Groom at Tynemouth Longsands, 26th February 2022

===================

---

Tony Dowling, Chair, North East Peoples Assembly:

“I get very annoyed these days when it seems that the person popping up everywhere to supposedly defend the NHS from this Tory government’s attacks is none other than former Tory Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt!! So I just want to remind people a little about Hunt.

Jeremy Hunt took over responsibility for the NHS in 2012 and was the longest-serving Health Secretary in history. By the time he left the post 6 years later, patient experience and staff morale had both taken a dramatic turn for the worse across many key indicators. The British Medical Association reported that by 2018 “the winter crisis” has truly been replaced by a year-round crisis. There were three times more patients waiting over four hours to be seen in A&E when Hunt left office than when he took over. Hunt oversaw years of historically low funding increases – around 1%, compared to an average of 6% in the years between 1997 and 2010, and compared to the 4.3% recommended by the Office of Budget Responsibility.

But perhaps most damagingly, he oversaw a significant cut to the amount that hospitals were paid per procedure. Meanwhile, it’s been quids in for the private companies routinely used to provide beds to make up the shortfall – Virgin Care, for instance, won almost £2 billion of contracts during Hunt’s tenure! Hunt’s legacy was: missed targets, lengthening waits, crumbling hospitals, missed opportunities, false solutions, funding boosts that vanished under scrutiny, and blaming everyone but himself. 

That is the real story of Jeremy Hunt. So please remember that next time you hear him waxing lyrical and being given a free-pass all over our uncritical media! And we really should not be surprised. Because back in 2005, Hunt co-authored a book called ‘Direct Democracy’ which stated that: “Our ambition should be to break down the barriers between private and public provision” and that the NHS was “no longer relevant in the Twenty-first Century.” In effect, calling for the denationalising of our NHS!

Jeremy Hunt is no defender of the NHS. Like all Tories he tells ‘Tory lies’, so any defending of the NHS and fighting for the NHS is down to us”.

Click here for the full speech, Newcastle and Tynemouth, 26.2.22

Tony Dowling at Tynemouth Longsands, 26th February 2022

===================

---

Sean Fahey, Regional Secretary, North East Pensioners Association:

Re: Health and Care Bill / ICSs “There however seemed to be no comprehensive workforce strategy, no forecasting of supply and demand and no independent scrutiny/provision of this to allow for the needs to be fully funded and met. This is supposed to be about devolution and reduction of bureaucracy from the centre but the Secretary of State has introduced amendments which allow for direct intervention. 

Re: Alternative Health Systems as in the USA “These are failed schemes. They cost double our, main source of household bankruptcy and the 3rd source of death in the system is medical error”.

Our Best System The NHS. Publicly funded by tax, publicly run and open to all at the point of need

Click here for the full speech, Newcastle and Tynemouth, 26.2.22

Sean Fahey at Grey’s Monument, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 26th February 2022

===================

---

Message of support from Kate Osborne MP (Jarrow):

The fact is however that the NHS is in crisis and under severe pressure. Staff are working long hours, exhausted by the last few years and many not receiving fair pay. The NHS is not being funded properly, services are being privatised and there is a huge backlog of patients. Locally, we have seen a dissemination of NHS services being cut or moved out of South Tyneside Hospital. That is why we must now all come together, and support SOS-NHS’ demands.

We need emergency funding of £20billion to save lives this winter. We need investment in a fully publicly owned NHS with a guarantee of free healthcare for future generations. And we need fair pay for NHS workers. Thank you all for coming along today and for all you do in keeping pressure on the Government surrounding these demands. 

Click here for the message in full. to KONP Sunderland and District 26.2.22

Kate Osborne MP (Jarrow)

===================

---

We are grateful to our other speakers – Joe Kirwin (Councillor and chair of North Tyneside health scrutiny committee), William Jarrett (Unite, Newcastle Hospitals Branch), Jude Letham (Keep Our NHS Public North East), Grace Dowswell (Psychologists for Social Change), Stacey Richardson (NHS Staff Voices, North East Peoples Assembly), and others. Thank you.

---

For a report on all of the NE “SOS NHS” events, please click our News page here and scroll down to 26th February 2022.

For guest blogs from North East poet Joan Hewitt about the Longsands event, click here (for poetry at Longsands) and here (for reflections)

….and click here for more info about the “SOS NHS” national coalition of health campaigns

===================

WE DEMAND:

(1) Approve emergency funding of £20 billion to save lives this winter

(2) Invest in a fully publicly owned NHS & guarantee free healthcare for future generations

(3) Pay staff properly: without fair pay, staffing shortages will cost lives 

---

Who’s NHS??

OUR NHS

With from Newcastle, Tynemouth and Seaburn

===================

KONPNE meets monthly via Zoom: Join in with the Campaign, ALL are welcome – click here for details

===================

Boris Just Lies

---

Pigs live in sties,

Yorkshire puds rise,

wet paint dries,

James Bond spies,

Boris just lies.

---

Coconuts sit on shies,

rain falls from the skies,

a jobseeker applies,

advisers advise,

Boris just lies.

---

A town crier cries,

a happy shopper buys,

a beach bum fries,

leaky ships capsize,

Boris just lies.

---

Fat lads love pies,

an aeroplane flies,

wasps terrorise,

rugby players score tries,

Boris just lies.

---

I only believe

what I see with my eyes.

His lips are moving?

No surprise – 

because Boris just lies.

---

---

Harry Gallagher at Longsands, 26th February 2022

==================

---

Why?

Because I was on almost last, just before the musician James Ince who had waited 1.5 hours for his set; because the wind was biting sharply and the faithful crowd were visibly nithered. Because you can’t praise NHS staff for caring if you as an event organiser don’t take care of your audience.

==================

KONPNE: for a report and photos of this event, part of the national SOS NHS Day of Action, please click here and scroll to 26th February 2022

==================

To #OURNHS with  from Tynemouth

Joan Hewitt, award-winning Tynemouth Poet and NHS Campaigner, spends a bracing February Saturday afternoon on Longsands

In the end, the heart for the NHS on Longsands had 102 people. Here it is still forming, squishily. 

Thanks to two briliant musicians Pete A Shaw and James Ince, we drew and held a crowd, despite a rising cold wind. Jimmy was on at the end but retained most of the nithered crowd- dancing and singing, yes! 

Every fifth person walking on the beach seemed to be working for the NHS, or had a family member who did! Only one refused a leaflet – he preferred private medicine, he said…

Passionate pro-NHS speeches from the hardworking KONPNE;  from Julia Charlton on the crisis in nursing and where our NI contributions end up; from Joe Kirwin as Chair of the Health Scrutiny Committee; from the People’s Assembly;  and many more. 

Humour and sadness from Cullercoats poet-of-the-North Harry Gallagher, with audience participation – we all happily/ angrily shouted LIAR at the end of every verse of his Johnson poem!

Seeing the crowd shivering near the end, I cut my set in half, leaving out Martin Figura’s poems from his lovely book My Name Is Mercy, which evolved from conversations with and observations of stressed staff in Salisbury Hospital. 

I read a poem  from Michael Rosen‘s book Many Different Kinds Of Love. He was in a Covid coma for months and is still in the hell of Long Covid. Then a short extract from the Patient Diary kept for him by nurses and helpers.  

In the Diary, Beth wrote:  You have done really well overnight. You are starting to move little bits which is excellent. Hope you continue this great progress. You’ve got this!! Looking forward to meeting you when you wake up, you wrote my favourite book…’We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’.

and Michael Rosen wrote: “The NHS is at the very heart of who we are and what we are here for. It is a reminder that we are nothing if we do not care for  each other, regardless of how much money we might have, or because of where we are from.” 

================

Todays “SOS NHS” Event report and photos from Tynemouth, Newcastle and Sunderland are at: https://konpnortheast.com/news/  (scroll to 26th February 2022)

Photos by Mark Husmann  

Useful, if scary. information and what you can do: on https://konpnortheast.com/   and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NHSPublicNorthEast and twitter: https://twitter.com/KONPNorthEast

Sign up for the monthly KONPNE newsletter at https://konpnortheast.com/stay-up-to-date/

 

On chilling out at The Helix, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

John Whalley, KONPNE Steering Group member / retired nurse 

26th Feb 2022 8.30am kicked off bright n chilly with an early-morning leafletting session outside the Labour Party Conference, Newcastle. This took place at the Helix Centre; the futuristic, blue, angular high rise campus opposite St.James Park seems a very impressive environment and is part of Newcastle University but at the end of the day is only bricks and mortar – importantly, its crucial for us to keep the UCU pensions and deteriorating pay and working conditions in sight.  

Great to speak with Labour Party members in the queue – many expressed their solidarity – but it would have been even better inside!! KONPNE had asked Labour North for a table inside the venue (to provide information, display posters and chat with delegates regarding health campaigning in the north, the privatisation of services in the region, the Health and Care Bill etc etc) and were quoted £250 !!!…. reduced to £200 on our appeal !!!…. but all totally out of reach for a Campaign group. We made the decision to stand outside for free, have thawed out now, but appeal once again: we are all in this together, we need to join forces and work collaboratively in fighting for #OURNHS and PLEASE, next year, lets share ideas around a table and a coffee?

NEW YEARS EVE: Behind the NHS tinsel and glitter is the reality of life and death – 24/7 operating, assessing, measuring, scanning, recording, medicating, exercising, washing, cleaning, feeding, transporting – and we give our heartfelt thanks to all NHS workers for caring for us in many varied ways over the festive period and throughout the year….

Some say that the NHS is a system or organisation – but we know that it is our friends, relatives, the guy next door, the woman in the cafe and that person up the street who want to do their very best – not “angels” or “heroes”, but people with families and homes who have their own share of happiness and joy and stress and sadness and who, at work, are caring and hardworking professionals who want to make a difference.

Throughout 2022, the Government now need to match this by providing a good working environment – and not running down our services; by ensuring adequate staffing – and not diminishing our workforce; and by paying a fair wage – and not a low wage.

Behind the tinsel and glitter, that is the reality. 2021 has been a long and difficult year, and we give our sincere thanks to all NHS staff. We also thank all KONPNE supporters for their persistence in fighting for a publicly funded, publicly provided and publicly accountable NHS, which is available to all. Thankyou for being part of the team in 2021 – and we’ll be back in the New Year to join forces and to continue the fight. See you then – and wishing all a very happy and healthy New Year

xx Keep our NHS Public North East

https://konpnortheast.com/

Many thanks to a member of KONPNE for this overview on developments regarding Testing Labs – crystal clear that every aspect of the Governments response to Covid-19 is typified by privatisation.

In recent weeks the media has been consumed with talk about testing and there has been much discussion concerning the privatisation of goods and services relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. This article discusses the first of these.

Since the start of the pandemic, it has been acknowledged by many public health experts that an efficient test, track and trace system was vital for the UK to reduce the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The government strategy of a centralised system has come under a great deal of scrutiny and criticism. In September, Maggie Rae (President of the Faculty of Public Health) stated in the BMJ (21/09/20) that localised systems of contact tracing, with a more agile and intelligent testing strategy such as is seen in Germany, could work to better effect, with potentially less testing.

At the start of the pandemic, in response to the need for extra testing capacity, the government chose to set up the centralised system of Lighthouse laboratories in collaboration with private companies and universities, and not with pre-existing NHS laboratories. This did not meet with universal approval; many public health experts called on the government to utilise and develop the local laboratory infrastructure.

Testing was designated into four groups known as ‘Pillars’, two of which are relevant to this discussion. Testing carried out in healthcare settings for NHS workers and patients going into hospital is referred to as Pillar One. These tests have been caried out in NHS and Public Health England (PHE) laboratories.

For the general public, with suspected community acquired infection, testing is designated Pillar 2. These tests are performed in the country-wide Lighthouse laboratories that receive swabs from the commercial drive-in/walk-in test sites set up by Deloitte; the £12 billion Test and Trace contract. The availability of Pillar 2 testing has been an issue and in September the Sunday Times (13/09/20) reported that swabs were being sent to Italy and Germany for analysis.

The President of the Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Allan Wilson, stated “The Lighthouse lab model isn’t sustainable in the long term, and we need an exit strategy,” (BMJ 21/09/20).

Clinical virologists writing in the BMJ 15/10/20 stated

“The opportunity to bring together UK laboratory expertise…was lost as a result of a spurious assumption of lack of capacity, leading to the outsourcing of pillar 2 testing to Lighthouse laboratories. This approach, divorced from the NHS and Public Health England diagnostic expertise, has [had problems] accessing testing, sample receipt and processing, test quality, and data linkage to public health and other NHS structures. All of these would have been minimised if the testing programme had been developed and expanded…[using]…existing NHS centres of expertise…”

https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/10/15/clinical-virologists-have-been-sidelined-in-uk-covid-19-pandemic-response/

Development and expansion of pre-existing facilities was required because successive governments had presided over a series of changes and cuts to the UK Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS) which had worked alongside the NHS hospital laboratories.

The PHLS had been set up in 1946 with the passing of the National Health Service Act that year. It became a nationally organised network of laboratories which were able to exchange information about new scientific and epidemiological methods. The laboratories could collaborate and support one another when outbreaks of infection occurred and facilitate a response to national challenges. In 1994 the PHLS comprised approximately 50 laboratories, organised into nine groups across England and Wales. In addition, there were two national centres: the Central Public Health laboratory and the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre. Thus, the PHLS was able to deliver an integrated microbiology and epidemiology service to the population of England and Wales.

In 2003 the PHLS merged with additional facilities to form the Health Protection Agency which protected the population from infectious diseases and environmental hazards.  As stated on GOV.UK:

“The Health Protection Agency’s role was to provide an integrated approach to protecting UK public health through the provision of support and advice to the NHS, local authorities, emergency services, other Arms Length Bodies, the Department of Health and the others. The HPA became part of Public Health England in 2013”.

Writing in the Guardian, 01/04/20, Professor Paul Hunter (Professor of Medicine at the University of East Anglia) stated:

“Many of the laboratories in the old network were shut down, taken over by local hospitals or merged into a smaller number of regional laboratories”.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/01/why-uk-coronavirus-testing-work-catchup

Following another reorganisation, Public Health England became the body whose remit included to protect the population from infection.  But now, following further cuts, there are just four ‘public health’ laboratories and yet more reorganisation has been announced as stated on GOV.UK:

“Public Health England has a superb professional and scientific base, on combating infectious disease, other health hazards and other risks to health….But [it] has not had the at-scale response capacity we have needed to handle a full-blown pandemic…”

…so government cuts have come home to roost, but there is a new plan…

“To give the UK the best chance of beating COVID-19, and continue to monitor, identify and be ready to respond to other health threats, now and in the future, we are creating a brand-new organisation to rigorously extend our existing science-led approach to public health protection – the National Institute for Health Protection.”

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-future-of-public-health-the-nihp-and-other-public-health-functions/the-future-of-public-health-the-national-institute-for-health-protection-and-other-public-health-functions

Public Health England is now to be replaced by the National Institute for Health Protection, headed initially by Baroness Dido Harding.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The following links provide some additional reading:

Covid-19: Government ramps up “Moonshot” mass testing BMJ 17 Nov 2020.

Covid-19: politicisation, “corruption,” and suppression of science    BMJ 13th Nov 2020

Government fails to publish details £4 billion shady Covid contracts  The London Economic 9th Nov 2020

BMJ lashes out at UK ‘state corruption’ and ‘suppression of science’  The London Economic 16th Nov 2020

Corruption and covid-19—the story so far  Transparency International  8th July 2020

Government test tsar has £770,000 shares in drugs firm that sold us £13million of “pointless” antibody screening kits—after it emerged that Sir Patrick Vallance has a financial interest in company racing to find vaccine  Daily Mail 26th Sept 2020

Covid-19: Mass population testing is rolled out in Liverpool BMJ 3rd Nov 2020

See also: All rapid responses  BMJ  11th and 16th Nov 2020

Covid-19: Rapid test missed over 50% of positive cases in Manchester pilot   BMJ 6th Nov 2020

Testing times for the government’s favoured antibody kit BMJ 16 Nov 2020

Mass testing for covid-19 in the UK  BMJ 16 Nov 2020

 

More information is on our “Covid-19 and NHS Privatisation” webpage here

 

 

 

Dr Sarah Walpole, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

“We were absolutely gobsmacked” – the words of Prof Boland whose research has just highlighted that bottle fed babies are consuming in the order of a million microplastic particles per day. Why was this such a gobsmacking result? Well, firstly, because it wildly outstrips previous estimates of adults’ microplastic consumption; World Health Organization studies suggested that adults consume 300 to 600 microplastics per day. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, because of the potential health implications.

While the health risks of microplastics are not well understood and certainly not well quantified, the precautionary principle applies here. Given that microplastics may harm babies’ growth, development and health, avoiding introducing microplastics into babies’ milk is a sensible precaution.

Legislation in the USA has tended to pay less heed to the precautionary principle. Which is why, for example, USA law allows cosmetics companies to use any of over one thousand chemicals (some of which are likely carcinogens) in the make-ups, creams and other products that US citizens apply to their skin. And also why it is important that we pay attention to the Trade Bill and future trade deals if we wish to maintain regulations that are in place to protect health in the UK.

The Trade Bill: Decisive for UK standards, the UK health services and UK health

The Trade Bill is the piece of UK law that will determine how the UK designs, debates and agrees to future trade deals as well as how previous deals, agreed when we were in the EU, will be ‘rolled over’. It will determine the extent to which the UK maintains its existing food standards, labour rights and cosmetics legislations post-EU exit. The Trade Bill is now going through the House of Lords, where a date for the ‘Report stage’ is awaited. After it has been voted on by the Lords, it will go back to the House of Commons for decisive votes by MPs, our elected representatives.

Members of Parliament (MPs) will be voting on an amendment to the Trade Bill which allows ‘Parliamentary approval of trade agreements’ (amendment 57). This amendment would give MPs a chance to scrutinise and debate future trade deals before they are agreed and become enshrined in international law. With this scrutiny amendment in place, MPs would have a vote and the chance to ensure that UK standards are protected.  

An alternative future is one where trade deals are passed without MPs having a say on the contents. There are mechanisms in international trade law through which corporations can promote their own interests, even if this might be at the expense of public health. Any company with a foreign operations base can challenge the UK government under international law (sue them under the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS)) if they perceive that the government is putting up barriers to trade. For example, if the UK government tried to limit the sale of cosmetics containing asbestos, the company selling the cosmetics could sue the UK government in the international corporate courts.

Managing invisible, future risks – challenging, but critical

Microplastics fall into a broad category of things that you cannot see, which may cause you significant harm. It’s difficult enough to take into account risks that are invisible, but to add to the trouble, the harm that microplastics may cause is likely to be felt at an unknown point in the future. Prof Boland and his team have developed simple guidance on how parents and carers can prepare bottle milk avoiding such high doses of microplastics. Yet, it’s challenging to encourage healthy choices in relation to microplastics, not only because you can’t see them, but also because there is a delay between making positive changes and potentially reaping the health benefits.

In ‘The Intelligence Trap’, David Robson explores some of the biases that cause humans, regardless of their intelligence, to make ‘stupid’ decisions. These include ‘future discounting’, where we do not count future benefits as highly as those in the present, and the ‘availability heuristic’ where we pay more attention to risks that are easier to bring to mind.

Trade legislation faces some similar issues. Trade issues are not news items or an area of policy that enjoy a high profile in the media. The connections between UK domestic law on trade (the UK Trade Bill), the loss of state protections and the rise of corporate power and influences on health may seem tenuous and complex; yet there are clear and critical risks to the health of UK populations if we do not pay attention to these issues.

Protecting public ownership – the only way to keep our NHS

We have seen increasing marketisation of the NHS over recent years, and this leaves the NHS open to trade on the international market unless it is explicitly excluded from future trade deals. The risk to our beloved and yet neglected NHS if it is opened to trade on the international market, is that privatisation is locked in. Resultant privatisation could be irreversible beyond any one parliament. An international company could sue in the corporate courts using ISDS if the UK government tried to bring a health service back into public ownership.

Private healthcare providers with new models and ideas might seem an attractive proposition, but directed from abroad and lacking in responsiveness to local needs and accountability to local communities, would these companies really be able to promote health and provide high quality, sustainable healthcare? The realities would only be experienced once the damage had been done and there was no turning back.

The NHS provides a safety net for everyone. We have become so used to this luxury that we may not recognise how much it affects our lives. For over 40% of people who get cancer in USA, their treatment costs them most of their life savings. In the UK, cancer treatment is free on the NHS, even though cancer medications can cost thousands. Without careful scrutiny of a future trade deal with the USA, we are likely to see medicines prices rising towards USA levels (often four times as much). This would be unsustainable for the NHS and lead to many medicines being available only to those who can afford to pay for them.  

MPs will soon vote on the Trade Bill – ask them to protect the NHS

The Trade Bill will soon return to the House of Commons and be voted on by MPs. To protect the NHS and UK population health, our demands of MPs must be clear.

Firstly, the fate of the NHS is in their hands. To ensure that parts of the NHS, from service provision to digital services, are not contracted out to foreign companies, we call for MPs to vote for an amendment to keep health services off the table in future trade deals (amendment 51).

Secondly, it is critical that MPs are involved in decisions about matters as important and influential as trade deals are binding under international law. We can ask our MPs to vote for the scrutiny amendment (amendment 57) to ensure that current and future MPs have a vote on future trade deals, a necessary provision for democracy to endure in the UK.

Dr Sarah Walpole works at a hospital in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and is a member of Keep Our NHS Public North East.

For more information about the Trade Bill Campaign, please click here

Allowing businesses to buy up parts of the NHS through international trade deals would fragment a national institution that we depend on and mark the end of the NHS as we know it.

Dr Sarah Walpole, Junior Doctor, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

I’ve seen the damage that treating healthcare as a business, and the patient as a commodity, can do.

This reality first hit home for me when I was a junior doctor in cardiology. A patient had come in with chest pain and we were reviewing images of their heart in a clinical meeting. We were surprised to see that they’d had a heart valve replacement. When they’d previously attended hospital with chest pain they’d had only limited heart valve disease.

The patient’s consultant filled in the gaps – apparently, while on a short trip to the USA, the patient had experienced chest pain, attended hospital, and been advised by a cardiothoracic surgeon that their insurance company should pay for a heart valve replacement. We’ll never know for sure whether their heart valve disease had suddenly got much worse before or during their trip to America, but it would be a vanishingly rare scenario.

In private healthcare, a financial incentive exists alongside an information imbalance. The person who holds the information and makes decisions about what intervention is or is not needed also stands to gain financially if the intervention is provided. In the USA and many other countries, conflicts of interest exist between those who fund medical research, those who write guidance for health professionals, those who develop and sell medications and medical devices and those who provide healthcare services.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us the importance of collecting and bringing together information about the spread and treatment of diseases to guide effective policies and planning. During COVID-19, a private provider, Serco, was given the contract for disease monitoring, Test and Trace.

Test and Trace has fallen far short of what was needed – many positive COVID-19 cases have not been followed up. The government could have used the UK’s existing public health systems and experts to run a programme to monitor COVID-19, which would have ensured links to local public health knowledge, effective planning and public health capacity development.

It is important that NHS and public health data is stored safely and securely and used to improve health, not sold to private companies or used by businesses to make profits. If amendments to the Trade Bill are not passed to exclude the NHS and supporting institutions such as the National Institute for Clinical Excellence and Public Health England from future trade deals, our health data may be held by companies in other countries where rules on data protection are less stringent.

Failing to exclude UK health services from international trade deals may cause the prices of some medicines to skyrocket. Some drugs that patients rely on may become unavailable on the NHS. Certain medications would be out of reach, except for the very rich, so health inequalities would increase.

A critical problem with allowing the NHS to be part of international trade deals is that we would ‘lock in’ marketisation. International trade law promotes international trade by putting more power in the hands of businesses. Businesses can sue the government if they deem that the government is putting up ‘barriers’ to free trade. And if things go wrong or a service isn’t up to standard, it is difficult or impossible to end a contract with a private provider early.

Donald Trump has said that ‘Everything will be on the table’ when it comes to trade deals with the UK. Whilst he has later rowed back this comment, the reality is that unless there are specific provisions in Monday’s Trade Bill to exclude the NHS from future trade deals, the NHS and UK health institutions remain very much ‘on the table’. And we must take our lead from the British public, three-quarters of whom do not want the NHS included in any trade deals.

The NHS is unlike any other health system in the world. It was designed to meet health needs without discriminating and it still has these principles at its core. Like most UK health professionals, I chose my career because I wanted to help patients and improve health, and I feel fortunate to have trained as a doctor in a publicly provided health system where negotiating contracts and providers has not been part of my role.

MPs have a chance to vote in amendments to the Trade Bill that would protect the NHS by excluding it from future trade deals. I stand with fellow health professionals in urging MPs to stick with their election promises – and cast a vote for the NHS.

Dr Sarah Walpole is a Junior doctor and member of Keep Our NHS Public who has written an open letter NHS_Staff_OpenLetterToMPs_FINAL to the UK government signed by 450 high ranking NHS health professionals and academics calling for the NHS to be excluded from all future trade deals.

This article was written for the national KONP website and was published on 20th July 2020 here. The national website also contains a range of relevant links and information.

Click here for more information about the local KONPNE Trade Bill campaign.

Our elected representatives on local Councils are the only piece of democratic accountability in the CCGs “Integrated Care System” 

John Whalley, KONPNE Steering Group member and retired nurse

Ever had that feeling that you’ve asked someone a crucially important question (one which means the difference between life and death), and you’ve been fobbed off with nebulous platitudes of empty nothingness? The response from Cllr Margaret Hall (Chair, North Tyneside Council Health and Wellbeing Board) to last weeks formal question from Keep Our NHS Public North East was totally underwhelming.

Two years ago, in March 2018, North Tyneside Councillors unanimously and impressively passed the motion that “we agree to oppose any proposal to implement the delivery of healthcare in North Tyneside via an ACO / ICS, a project which in North Tyneside CCGs own report was stated to be high risk”. (1)

In North Tyneside, we clearly had a Council to be proud of; a positive force to be reckoned with in standing up against NHS England’s and local CCG’s plans to railroad through a health system which will ultimately lead to increased privatisation and the demise of the NHS. This system, originally known as “Accountable Care” and subsequently rebranded as “Integrated Care Systems”, is imported from the United States where healthcare is privatised, underpinned by health insurance, and is definitely NOT equitable, accountable, or available to all in need.

So, fastforwarding to 2020, where are we now? Sadly, it seems, in downward spiral. Over the intervening months, KONPNE became increasingly alarmed by a number of reports in Council minutes which, seemingly, indicated a softening of approach and a warming to the demands of NHS England and the local CCG.

At the full Council meeting on 16th January 2020 (2), Dr Helen Groom, retired GP, local resident and member of KONPNE formally asked the following two questions on behalf of Keep Our NHS Public North East:
Initial question: “What evidence does North Tyneside Council have that members have opposed or even raised objections to the ICS? In becoming part of the ICS, what safeguards have you obtained on behalf of North Tyneside residents to ensure services will not be privatised?”
Supplementary question: “Given that North Tyneside Council appear to be in equal partnership with North Tyneside CCG in developing the Integrated Care System in the borough, what risk assessments have been carried out specifically by North Tyneside officers with regards to the Integrated Care System and the possibility of this developing into a private health system which is underpinned by private health insurance?”

Given growing concerns about Council decision-making, KONPNE anticipated a certain amount of gloss, but the reply from Cllr Margaret Hall, on behalf of North Tyneside Council, was astonishing. In a prepared response, Cllr Hall stated publicly that “there is no need to oppose or object to the ICS, as there are no proposed changes to services” (not yet, Margaret, but there is an urgent need for you to do more reading around the subject to see where the ICS is heading…and, whilst you’re at it, also check out your own Labour Party’s policy: “We will stop Tory plans to further entrench the private sector delivery of health care under the cover of integration plans set out in the NHS Long Term Plan” (3)

Additionally, seemingly unfazed by her stance and in response to our second question, Cllr Hall went on to surprise the Chamber by stating “There is no way that North Tyneside Council would agree to privatisation in North Tyneside” (err, Margaret, just down the road at North Tyneside General Hospital, all of your “Urgent Care” and “Out of Hours” services are now privatised, and GPs throughout the Borough are scratching their heads and needing to discuss with patients private options following cuts to specific treatments that were up until recently available on the NHS).

We are unsure if this response by North Tyneside Council represents a head in the clouds (“don’t understand”) stance, or if it signifies a head in the sand (“don’t want to understand”) stance but, whichever, there is an acute need for the head to re-engage with reality.  Whilst, no doubt, some North Tyneside Councillors are still willing to stand up and be counted regarding our NHS, we suggest that others need to see the bigger picture and not be taken in by the lengthy documents, smoke, mirrors and gloss offered by senior CCG officers. There is no excuse for this seemingly lack of insight by Councillors – much has been discussed locally and nationally, both within and outwith political parties and, together with many academics, Professor Allyson Pollock (Newcastle University) has researched and reported widely on the methodology strategically employed by the Government regarding NHS privatisation. (4)

The building blocks are in place and now that we have a Tory government for at least 5 years, so they have the political means to complete the privatisation of the NHS. Unlike those working in the CCG who are paid to carry out policy as dictated by the Government, our elected representatives on local Councils are the only piece of democratic accountability in the CCGs “Integrated Care System”. As such, it is CRUCIAL that Councillors hold firm in fighting against the covert introduction of cuts and privatisation, and do not passively collude with the political decision to dismantle our NHS.  The people of the North East are placing our trust in our elected Councillors to continue to stand up for a fully funded, publicly owned and publicly provided National Health Service, which is available to all on the basis of need and NOT the ability to pay. 

Dr Groom said after the meeting: “It remains our great concern that North Tyneside Council appear to have done a U turn and ridden roughshod over a Council motion unanimously passed two years previously, and have become complicit in the CCGs plans. Members of KONPNE were astonished by the response from Cllr Hall on behalf of North Tyneside Council; we will, of course, be taking this further, as we still require full and respectful responses to our concerns”.

Jude Letham, Co-ordinator, “Keep Our NHS Public North East” said: “Our group has been in existence for over ten years, and is made up of members of the public, including doctors and nurses – many live and work in North Tyneside. We believe in a publicly provided health service, and also believe it to be the responsibility of EVERYONE to stand up for these ideals, using whatever ways and means we can. All Councillors bear this responsibility”.

1 https://my.northtyneside.gov.uk/meeting/1959

2  https://democracy.northtyneside.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=136&MId=236&Ver=4

3 https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Real-Change-Labour-Manifesto-2019.pdf   (pg 33)

4 https://konpnortheast.com/stp-aco/