The Labour Party Conference is on 24-27th September 2017. We hope that a Labour MP will retable the NHS Bill for the 2017-2018 parliamentary session. All these MPs have stated their support.
Allyson Pollock, one of the co-authors of the Bill, has outlined on the ourNHS news site, ‘Why the next Labour Manifesto must pledge to legislate to reinstate the NHS’. In it she outlines why the Labour Party 2017 health manifesto failed to tackle the underlying issues, and why bold thinking and a commitment to the NHS Reinstatement Bill is needed now. Allyson will be speaking in Brighton at a rally for the NHS, organised by Sussex Defend the NHS at 12:30pm on Sunday, September 24th.
The Socialist Health Association submitted the contemporary motion (below) which will be discussed at the beginning of the Labour Party Conference and may make it to the conference for debate if the NHS is prioritised. Several constituencies have adopted the motion which increases its chance of being debated. It ends with reference to the bill. The full text of the motion is below.
Please keep asking MPs to show their support for the NHS Bill.
The SHA contemporary motion:
Conference notes:
• The NHS Accountable Care System (ACS) contracts announced on 7 August impose a basis for 44+ local health services to replace England’s NHS, bypassing Parliamentary debate and legislative process.
• On 9 August, the House of Commons Library revealed a doubling of the number of NHS sites proposed for sale. 117 of these currently provide clinical services.
Like their US templates, ACSs will provide limited services on restricted budgets, replacing NHS hospitals with deskilled community units.
This will worsen health indicators like the long term increase in life expectancy, stalled since 2010.
The ACSs and asset sell-off result directly from the 5 Year Forward View (5YFV) currently being implemented via ‘Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships’ (STPs). The 5YFV precisely reflects healthcare multinationals’ global policy aims.
Conference reaffirms its manifesto commitment to restore our NHS by reversing its privatisation and halting STPs. We therefore call on the Party to oppose and reverse funding cuts (ideally meeting Western European levels) but also 5YFV policy:
• creating ACSs;
• replacing 7500 GP surgeries with 1500 “superhubs”;
• downskilling clinical staff.
• reclassifying NHS services as means-tested “social care”;
• cementing the private sector role as ACS “partners” and as combined health/social care service providers.
Conference recognises that reversing this process demands more than amending the 2012 Health & Social Care Act and calls for our next manifesto to include existing Party policy to restore our fully-funded, comprehensive, universal, publicly-provided and owned NHS without user charges, as per the NHS Bill (2016-17).