Actors join rally against NHS cuts
Reporter MORE than 1,000 marchers led by two protesters wearing Jeremy Hunt and Richard Branson face masks took to the streets of Newcastle for a NHS rally.
It was an impressive turnout in spite of the damp weather, as the demonstrators gathered at Grey’s Monument for speeches, including two by TV and film stars, Stephen Tompkinson and Denis Lawson.
They are currently appearing in the comedy Art at the nearby Theatre Royal, but Tompkinson, from Stockton, Teesside, said what was happening with the health service was no laughing matter. He said: “The underfunding of the NHS is a political decision which has resulted in huge pressure being placed on all NHS staff who are desperately trying to keep services going.
“For patients there are long waits for GP appointments, hours lying on trolleys in hospital corridors, rationing of treatments and avoidable deaths.
“The NHS staff work hard – the problem is underfunding and cuts.”
He referred to the Government’s plans to develop ‘accountable care organisations’ (ACOs), which NHS England says are simply a new way of ensuring that different types of health service bodies can work together, and with providers of social care services, in an area to better integrate care to benefit patients’ health.
But those against them fear ACOs could ultimately gain control of budgets worth billions of pounds and restrict access to care in order to avoid overshooting their budgets. The Government is currently subject to a crowdfunded legal challenge by academics including Newcastle University Prof Allyson Pollock, and backed by Prof Stephen Hawking. Mr Tompkinson said: “The sustainability and transformation plans that the Government and local clinical commissioning groups are trying to introduce will lead to further cuts, closure and privatisation. We believe STP [sustainability and transformation plan] stands for slash, trash and privatise.”
His co-star in the play Mr Lawson said: “There is no public mandate for the plans the Tories are pursuing. No one voted for ACOs and they are not accountable and they will lead to privatisation.”
The event yesterday was organised by the region’s health campaign groups, trade unions and the North East People’s Assembly Against Austerity. It was a good-humoured event with ‘pantomime boos’ reserved for the mention of Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s name as well as that of Richard Branson, whose controversial private healthcare firm Virgin Care last year sued six NHS clinical commissioning groups after it failed to win an £82m contract. South Shields MP Emma Lewell Buck joined the rally after what she described as a local victory against health plans on Friday concerning South Tyneside. In February, health bosses decided to close the inpatient stroke beds at South Tyneside District Hospital for good and to move key children’s emergency and maternity services to Sunderland. However, councillors decided to refer the decision to Mr Hunt. The decision will now go to South Tyneside Council’s overview and scrutiny committee and Sunderland Council’s health and wellbeing scrutiny committee for ratification. Ms Lewell Buck said: “No hospital is safe under this Government’s watch. “There is an end game here and the end game is where our NHS no longer exists.”