Wednesday 12 October 2011

Will we Save the NHS Today?

Today's a bit epic.

Left Foot Forward have posted this brilliant article on where the Health and Social Care Bill (NHS bill to normal people) is at and today it will face some of the most crucial votes in its history. Nye is spinning so fast in his grave that they're using him as a wind turbine. Beveridge is next on the list and even Churchill is shifting about uncomfortably.

In a world of rhetoric and hyperbole, us geeky types love to stretch adjectives to their very limit, but today, of all days, they are probably justified.

You may have all noticed that I'm a little preoccupied with the Welfare Reform Bill. When I started writing it was to reform the NHS. I mean really reform it and make it fit for this century. Not privatise it and develop a US style healthcare provision in Britain.

Then I saw that no-one cared about sick and disabled people. They had no glossy celebrities, no passionate politicians to advocate a better path, and little hope of being heard. The NHS on the other hand, had the RCN, the BMA, the media, the politicians and most importantly of all, the overwhelming support of the public. I figured it would just have to fight its own battles while I focused on an even greater injustice.

But today, Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and Labour Lords alike must decide whether we will allow a "Top-Down Reorganisation" of our NHS that no-one voted for no-one wants and that most experts claim will be destructive to a health service free at the point of use.

As Peers vote today, they must ask themselves whether a little discomfort over not toeing the party line is worth the unremitting fallout that will follow if this bill is passed. They must consider every headline that will lay blame at their door. Every hospital that will close. Every waiting list that will go up, every Nan or Brother or Mum who may not get the treatment they so desperately need.

So I ask the Noble Lords to do just one thing this morning. Find a quiet place and ask yourself what the politicians from the past would do? Ask your heroes, ask Nye and Beveridge and Churchill. Think for a moment not of today, but of next month, and next year and the legacy you want to leave. Do you want to be remembered as the group of representatives that went against a nation to erode the single greatest achievement of our past?

What you do today, will matter for every last person's future. A little conflict in cabinet is the smallest, most insignificant of repercussions. Politicians will come and go, political compasses will shift back and forth but the UK will always value and trust the NHS. Whether they value and trust you is irrelevant. You are there to do a job and today, millions of people will be watching and hoping and praying that you listen to them and act only for a future of health equality for all.

Even at this late hour, if you want to send this to any Lords, please feel free. Details, including email addresses can be found here : http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/lords/

21 comments:

  1. An URGENT, people-powered petition can show the Lords that huge numbers of us want them to protect the NHS. Please add your name NOW!

    133,000 so far - let's make it 200,000 in the next couple of hours - that's all the time we've got!! Please share this!!!

    http://38degrees.org.uk/

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  2. God Sue i sure as hell hope so. The NHS has it's faults being inside of one of the now defunct pct's i can see a lot of good that people do,

    This is why this government is busy with it's cohorts are busy spending their time and spinnign a loud of crap. So many negative stories. It is exactly the same as what they did with welfare reform bill. Made sick and disabled out as scroungers and were not.

    I think the governments spin this time has got peoples backs up. Theirs a lot of peed off people that know these stories are exageerated.

    A number of talented people are being driven out of the nhs. A numbe rof my colleagues are worried.. Doctors being asked to be money men. You can be a good clinician or a good money man. You can go half way but alot of the doctors don't want to go half way they dont want to worry about money. they want to treat the sick and disabed as best they can

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  3. i think it will be saved but at what cost, can the govt overturn the lords vote? Its the WBR bill that needs looking at although i fear that has gone to far now so wont be blocked by our noble lords

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  4. I really thought that we, the people, would win this one. I really believed that the peers would stand up for the NHS. The future just became even more bleak.

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  5. the public has got no chance whatsoever of ever stopping the govt that is fact the only way to show our displeasure is to march, strike and be totally unruly towards them that is the only way talking, lobbying DOES NOT WORK PEOPLE.

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  6. Well the votes are in and it didnt look good before but it looks even worse now so whats next.

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  7. Death and Destruction of people's live sort of come to mind of what is next

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  8. Yep i am afraid that once this gets through...and it will... then we are all second class serfs in a modern day fuedal system in reality.When you have banks in the us that are sitting on 26.5 trillion dollars stolen from the public you have to know that in a globally linked economy its big business that rules the day and as todays Daily Mirror pointed out how so many of these noble.... lords are connected to or indeed are directors of health related companies (wether that be directors of Bupa or directors of lobby companies) then we should know we do not matter and never did and the only way to save what is one of the worlds best ever institutions is to rid ourselves of the whole lot of them and to do it before our children and thier children suffer the effects of this money grabbing set of bastards.It is no coincidence that just last week the tv was running ads from Unum the health insurance company that along with Atos and others is part and parcel of the big grab.Ask yourself why would a compnay under investigation in the states pay out for expensive ads here if it didnt already know the outcome of the bill.Well cameron you can fool some of the people some of the time but .....The only answer here is to march and protest to rid ourselves of these turbulent beasts .Look at the occupy movement in america and ask yourselves if a country that hates any form of socialism is prepared to take on the govt and big business then what do you think is heading our way due to those two devils of vested interest.Do nothing and take what you get or fight and take it back.No other choice is morally,ethically,socially or finacially valid...

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  9. Totally agree sacrboy, people being lulled into false sense and it aint security. This so called democracy has failed millions not just with this bill but the WRB as well. What can be done i dont know i know peacefull demonstrations dont work. Lambs to the slaughter all of us.

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  10. Do a search on utube for “preppers” and “SHTF” to see how thousands of others are preparing for the coming collapse. We of course cannot prepare so you are right we are lambs for the slaughter.

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  11. Well of course we are all in it together now just like bullingdonboydave wanted except we aint.Bankers Mps and Lords are but the tip of the iceberg.All those who have vested interests in the so called NHS reforms aka PRIVATISATION.. stand to gain millions between them in gold plated profits and pension plans etc etc.There is only one option and its to rebel against them and the bankers who pay em and if that means getting out there and protesting then it is what it is and how you stand is how you are defined.No government has a mandate to cause its electors harm to be such is a morally bankrupt body and as such should be removed by the electorate that is the duty of a fair society.Enough is enough.We already have ONE million youths with no job or hope of one and the real unemployment figure will be maybe 10 million when you add it up(not just the jobseekers figure) and it will surely rise.
    In such times as we are facing old wounds and divisions resurface and such things wars are made of and geuss who would profit even more from that ...those bankers and corporate moguls who along with thier political puppets got us in this mess in the first place.As Robert Wyatt sang(look it up it was a song about the falklands and i hope it will not ring true today) Soon we'll be shipbuilding.Now do we all want to be sheep.....

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  12. With you all the sarc but how do we go about it?

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  13. SamCam's nailed it! PM's wife turns beautician for campaign to help families with disabled children. ( Daily Fail)

    Dont you just love it on the one hand she's helping disabled people then on the other hand her husband is taking their benefits away.

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  14. Start by educating yourself the below is as it states “The Most Important Video You'll Ever See” it is in 8 parts.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s44kP9Hsd8c&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

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  15. Well thats a good question there anonymous but look at whats happening in the citys over in america.It always starts with one step and has to reach a critical mass and to be trully effective one has to be resigned to being out of your comfortt zone totally.Many would be arrested in reality in any protest but there is a price to pay either way.Do nothing and you gain nothing.One thing though dont post as anonymous give a name as it gets confusing and lets ask sue what she thinks as its her blog here.Maybe we should start another called RESIST or something

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  16. Facts are facts
    Eighty Lib Dems backed the Tory-led Coalition, with just two joining Labour and Crossbench peers to vote against the plans to turn the NHS into independent foundation trusts while also forcing them to make £20billion of savings by 2014.

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  17. Hello,

    Would be great if you could make it to Defend Welfare gathering on 23rd October in London – http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?p=122

    If not, let us know if there’s anything you’d like to feed in and we’ll try and stay in touch!

    info@boycottworkfare.org

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  18. Well yes anonymous facts are facts and read the gaurdian today(page 38) and its goes in to it as to who voted with who.We have to understand that it seems pointless trying to sway MPs who are elected and that we now have to try and get the unelected house of lords to save the nhs.The mechanism of how they operate and how effective they are is one thing we need to fully understand and wether they can kill a bill or amend it sufficently enough or indeed slow it its passage down to such a pace as to make it unpassable in the present govts term is what we all need to understand.I believe the 38degrees people will know more and we should all maybe look at that site as well as this blog.There was an amendment pushed for by lords owen and hennesy to kill the bill but this was voted down but maybe all is not lost yet as zoe williams on page 38 of the guardian says and as she says we should look at the defeat of the owen -hennesy amendment not as a defeat but as the beginning of a process where the Lords are indeed lobbied directly ,as we should on other issues too, because the commons regards us the electorate as buzzing annoyances to be ignored.WEll lets get bloody annoying then...It aint over yet...

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  19. Like on the bbc news the elderly are going to go the same way as the sick and disabled and that is to put as much pressure on them so that they die weather they be the elderly in hospital or the sick and disabled at home if you have no back up then your a dead man and it's as simple as that

    we posting here will be like water off David Cameron back as he has no real interest in the likes of us just as Mrs thatcher once told me "your to expensive" and we keep posting about isn't going to help were just going over old ground and when you get to my age and still no further forward i think that the only fool in this life is me for sticking around and going around and around in circles all my life

    At least i know I'm a fool which is more then sum there are sum that think that one day in the next 50 years things will get better and to them i say "Jackanory"

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  20. Well come up with a solution then.

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  21. Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHPOzQzk9Qo

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