Oxfordshire Keep Our NHS Public
Our campaign aims to:
– Keep Our NHS Public! This means funded from taxation, free at the point of use, and provided as a public service by people employed in the NHS and accountable to the people and Parliament.
– Build a broad-based non-party political campaign to prevent further fragmentation and privatisation of the NHS.
– Inform the public and the media about what is happening as a result of the government’s ‘reform’ programme.
– Call for a public debate about the future of the NHS and halt the further use of the private sector until such a debate is had.
Contact Oxfordshire KONP: secretary.konpox@gmail.com
Oxford KONP meets on the second Tuesday of every month. Our meetings are in the Oxford Town Hall and begin at 7.30. All meetings are open to the public.
Are Accountable Care Organisations a vehicle for even greater privatisation of the NHS? If hospitals, GPs, mental health, and community care are all operating not as separate independent entities but within multiple unitary systems known as Accountable Care Organisations, all with a single provider contract, who will manage these complex contracts? If commissioning contracts so far are any guide, it will be private companies. Read more.
Future of the Horton still uncertain
When the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) decided to close down obstetrics at the Horton and centralise everything at the JR, the County Council’s Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee objected and referred the matter to the Secretary of State. The response from the Secretary of State came this month and was very critical of the CCG’s decision. But will it save the Horton? Read more.
Response to draft action plan
Healthwatch Oxfordshire has responded to the action plan produced by Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group, following criticism by the Care Quality Commission of services in the county for older people. The response makes a number of observations and calls for greater clarity and financial detail. You can read it here
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY SPECIAL
Women workers, carers, patients: Cuts in health services have fallen disproportionately harshly on women, as they have in education and welfare. Most workers in the NHS and social care are women. They have endured years of real pay cuts. Four out of five such workers are in pay bands 1-4 at rates from £7.88 to £11.60. (Oxford Living Wage set by the Living Wage Foundation is £9.69 an hour.)
read more
Care Quality Commission Report on Oxford NHS The national Care Quality Commission has published a probing and critical report into ‘how people move through the health and social care system’ in Oxfordshire. They find a service with kindness from frontline staff but otherwise lacking leadership, future vision, and collaboration. Read more
Our January newsletter, Oxfordshire NHS News, has information about radical changes to Oxford’s GP services, as well as news about the Horton and a new head at the Clinical Commissioning Group. Plus disturbing news about cancer care at the Churchill.
Judgement Reserved In Horton General Hospital Judicial Review The judge ordered the Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (OCCG) to take no further steps or decisions with regard to the Horton General Hospital until judgement is handed down.
Read more.
Campaigners in recent years have frequently used the slogan, ‘Austerity Kills’. Now we know that it’s true. A landmark study, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), concluded that the cuts to spending on health and social care led to ‘around 120 000 excess deaths from 2010 to 2017‘. If austerity continues, this would lead to 150,000 extra deaths between 2015 and 2020.
Government reorganisation of the NHS has failed to boost community care in England. One of the key aims of government has been to cut back on the number of patients turning up at A&E or being referred to hospital specialists and have them cared for instead within the primary care or community care sector. According to a recent study, this hasn’t worked.
National Konp Briefing on Accountable Care Organizations, November 2017. This briefing outlines how, as little as five years since the massive restructuring imposed by the Health and Social Care Act (HSC Act) of 2012, the NHS is again undergoing radical change, this time at breakneck speed and without parliamentary consent.
Simon Stevens has signalled his distance from Tory cuts that he has championed since 2013. It remains to be seen if he will keep his job under a Labour government.
Our case will be heard on Thursday 7 and Friday 8 December. The hearing will centre on the legality of the Oxford CCG’s consultation concerning the downgrade of Horton General.
//
