We fear that privatisation could critically endanger the quality of Dorset County Hospital's pathology service and put patients at risk. We have been fighting an intense campaign against this privatisation in many different modes. Town centre petitioning events have provided 8000 signatures on paper. We need your help to lift this number as the campaign enters is last stage, so as to show the hospital the the Dorset public say NO to their important pathology laboratory being sold off. Where pathology labs were privatised elsewhere there were quality problems seen in the ensuing services and eventually financial problems had to be corrected. Where finance becomes tight then there is a temptation to cut corners. Over 100 people work at the Dorset County Hospital Pathology Laboratory, carrying out tests whose results guide the treatment of patients throughout a good part of Dorset and its surroundings. Private companies have been invited to bid to deliver this service in place of the existing NHS Pathology Laboratory. Should the service be moved away from Dorchester, there would no longer be the possibility of carrying out rapid on-site testing for patients in danger at the Dorchester hospital; moreover consultants would lose the valuable ability for close cooperation with the expert testers in cases of difficult diagnosis. The users of Dorchester Hospital Pathology Lab have no complaints about the service. It was being developed as a centre of excellence for cancer testing. The Dorset Health Campaign group was formed in late 2012 as a result of the 38 Degrees NHS privatisation campaign.

Carers save the country an estimated £119 Billion pounds a year, and yet achieve no recognition for their work. Like myself a full time carer for my wife most carers are unable to escape the stresses of placed on us by the continuous need to be on duty 24/7 and the assistance provided by GPs Social Services and Charities, is severely limited by the cuts inflicted by this government. In general most governments and public service unions prefer to ignore us, and are content to allow us to take the brunt of spending cuts full on. These stresses are increasing day by day, causing both physical and mental problems thus increasing the workload on an already over stretched NHS. This must stop right now. Home Carers should be supported by the government and not be pitched from one charity to another like orphans looking for a new home. The government must stop abdicating it's responsibilities and do something positive.

The National Gallery has decided to privatise up to 400 of its 600 staff including those who look after security of the paintings, deal with the public and requests for information about the collection, complaints, school bookings and more. This came just a week after Director Nicholas Penny announced his resignation. Ten senior managers at the Gallery have left, been made redundant or dismissed in the last two years. A temporary “Security Consultant” responsible for the privatisation used to work for G4S, the private security firm. Only last November the Gallery Executive endorsed the view that privatisation could not guarantee quality of service and would not save money. Now they and the Board of Trustees have announced privatisation is the only option. This petition is initiated by the PCS union (Culture Sector) and so far supported officially by the Peoples' Assembly, the Musicians' Union, Lost Arts, BECTU and SERTUC

Bury Hospice provides invaluable in-patient, out-patient/day services and hospice at home services. They ensure vital support and care for those with a terminal or life-limiting illness and their friends and families.

This is important because the vast majority of people reading this petition will still be around in five years, and so this affects YOU. If we don't act now, then our safety and the safety of future generations will be in danger as our National Health Service slowly crumbles from a lack of funds.Furthermore, the population is ever increasing; as the ONS predicts, within 25 years the UK population will reach just over 73 million. This will put further strain on an already struggling institution. We need to say NO to spending £1.4 billion on redundancies, and YES to more spending on the NHS itself, its resources and its staff.

When we are treated in hospital or by another practitioner we need to be able to trust that we receive correct, well administered, well handled treatment. When we complain we need to see clearly that our complaint is well handled, and, most important, that the outcome of the complaint is carried through in practice. When we are forced, because of the closure of ranks, to complain to the Ombudsman we expect fair and even handed treatment of our complaint, with high professional standards. This is about us, our lives and in some cases our deaths. We need to be able to trust hospitals, doctors and nurses. And, when it all goes wrong and we have to complain, we need to be sure that our complaint is given a fair hearing. We need to be able to trust the Ombudsman. Today we cannot.

SSCL has already cut 500 jobs across the UK. It's also announced the closure of three offices in Cardiff, Leeds and Sheffield, and is shipping 200 posts to India. SSCL, the joint venture company, is 25% government owned. The remaining 75% is controlled by French multinational Steria - one of the companies responsible for failing to deliver a £56m IT project, recently written off by The Ministry of Justice. Despite this, MoJ is now rewarding failure by awarding further work to the company. If this privatisation and offshoring goes ahead,1,000 staff in Newport and Bootle also face being privatised. More jobs could be lost. The staff in Newport and Bootle handle personal data belonging to thousands of public servants, prison and probation officers. This data would be at risk if it was offshored to a country without the UK’s robust data protection regulations. We want the government to use its stake in the SSCL company to prevent the offshoring of jobs and data and to stop future offshoring by ending its privatisation agenda.

I have been a registered psychiatric nurse for more than twenty years. I am gravely concerned regarding the situation unfolding within our communities and mental health services as a whole. Times are difficult and I appreciate the need for financial constraint but fear we have gone too far down this road. Following the suspension of our local psychiatric inpatient unit in 2012 our area has been without sufficient inpatient beds to meet the needs of its community. Consequently people are being placed in intolerably difficult and potentially life threatening situations, as people are discharged prematurely to free up beds, increasing pressure on dwindling community resources. Similarly people are becoming unnecessarily acute symptomatically, prior to admission, necessitating Mental Health Act Assessment, where timely intervention would minimise the need for such measures. Services are at breaking point and I fear a significant rise in untoward and avoidable incidents were sufficient resources in place. The lack of adequate inpatient beds is resulting in many of our most vulnerable being hospitalised in an untimely manner, hundreds of miles away from family, friends and the familiarity of local support and services, exacerbating difficulties arising from already fragmented care and a lack of continuity and seamlessness within service provision. Waiting times for care co-ordination are in excess of 3 months. Something I have never before encountered, leaving people in the community unsupported and without service provision. Timely intervention at the point of referral is critical to recovery, promoting well-being and optimising the efficacy of community based solutions, as alternatives to hospital admission. My purpose in writing to you is as advocate to those I serve. They are amongst the most vulnerable and I fear, increasingly neglected members of society. I respectfully petition you to bring their plight to the attention of government and support my plea to you, to support the urgent need for adequate inpatient beds, per head of the population. Services are in collapse and otherwise avoidable tragedies are going to become common place. In the last two years 1291 acute inpatient beds have been c!osed. Below is a list of individuals within my local authority, who at the time of writing are being accommodated in inpatient wards a great distance away from local facilities. There are 60 such local authorities in England alone: 19 year old hospitalised 85.2 miles away from home. 20 year old hospitalised 83.1 miles away from home. 23 year old hospitalised 48.2 miles away from home. 27 year old hospitalised 75.6 miles away from home. 27 year old hospitalised 76.8 miles away from home. 30 year old hospitalised 105.5 miles away from home. 34 year old hospitalised 222.6miles away from home. 47 year old hospitalised 82.7 miles away from home. 54 year old hospitalised 316.3 miles away from home. 58 year old hospitalised 237.8 miles away from home. 68 year old hospitalised 81.5 miles away from home. 73 year old hospitalised 69 Miles away from home. 93 year old hospitalised 81.2 miles away from home. My greatest fear is these difficulties are not locally based but reflect a national crisis within the provision of services for those in need of acute psychiatric care.

We need our hospital services back. Maternity and paediatric services at Eastbourne District General Hospital (DGH) were downgraded a year ago. The local NHS Trust said it was a temporary measure. Now we are facing a bleak future with these core services likely to be lost forever in Eastbourne. Why? In May 2013, the local NHS Trust centralised consultant-led maternity services for the area at the Conquest Hospital in Hastings leaving only a midwifery unit at the DGH. At the same time it stopped overnight care for children at the Eastbourne hospital. We were assured these changes were temporary for 18 months only. In the meantime, the East Sussex Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), the organisation which commissions NHS services, launched a review of permanent services for maternity, paediatrics and emergency gynaecology in East Sussex. It drew up six options, none of which include a two-site option for consultant- delivered services. Option 6 (selected by the CCGs) will keep consultant-led services for maternity and paediatrics at the Conquest Hospital. So people in Eastbourne will have to travel to Hastings for this care with an average total transfer time of 1 hour 34 minutes from the DGH to the Conquest. This far exceeds acceptable safety limits for many interventions such as emergency Caesarean sections. What is our alternative? Save the DGH launched an alternative proposal for the CCGs to consider alongside its six options. Option 7 keeps consultant-led maternity services, emergency gynaecology and in-patient paediatrics at both hospitals. Our proposal also maintains a level one special care baby unit and a short stay paediatric assessment unit at the DGH and the Conquest. It also goes further by stating that all core services, like emergency general surgery and emergency orthopaedics which have recently been removed, are needed and should be provided at the DGH. Option 7 maintains all of the services that the IRP stated must remain. Why do we need Jeremy Hunt's help? The CCGs made a ruling on permanent changes to services in June and selected Option 6. Then HOSC met on the 28th July and failed to refer the decision back to the Secretary of State. The IRP ruling states that these Consultant-led services must remain in Eastbourne and Hastings and therefore we ask Jeremy Hunt to intervene and enforce the IRP ruling. People living in Eastbourne deserve a hospital in the town that provides them with the care they need. If maternity and paediatrics are permanently downgraded at the DGH, we will have the most disadvantaged town in the UK for the population size. Please support us by signing. We need your help! For more information visit www.savethedgh.org.uk

There are already many millions of visitors to the area each year, hikers, cyclists and motorists, a number which Scarborough Borough Council's Tourism Strategy is seeking to increase. The removal of public toilets in this area will leave many people in distress and will discourage tourism in the area.

East Lothian Council should not be able to dictate to their tenants what animals they can keep, unless the animal causes damage to the property or is a danger to the public. So if you have a GUINEA PIG, RAT, CHINCHILLAS, DEGUS, TURTLE, CHIPMUNK, SNAKE, LIZARD, GECKO, SCORPION, AFRICAN PYGMY HEDGEHOG, FROGS, TOADS, NEWTS, SALAMANDERS, STICK INSECTS, ANY INVERTEBRATE, TARANTULAS, SPIDERS, AFRICAN LAND SNAILS OR ANYTHING REMOTELY EXOTIC YOU WILL BE MADE TO GET RID OF THEM.

Thousands of victims of domestic violence are forced/pressured into unsupervised contact orders every year, between their children and the perpetrators who abused them. This is because the UK law states that it is in the 'child's best interest to have two parents', regardless of whether there is a history of violence. The government has limited funding for contact centres, so unless violence has been proven to have happened 'towards children' (many parents shield their children from this happening) in the majority of cases contact is ordered, and moves out of contact centres as quickly as possible. This frequently happens after risk assessments are ordered. Perpetrators are offered an opportunity to offer excuses for the abuse, to discredit victims. Abuse can then be cited as the result of a bad relationship – thus eliminating the risk as the relationship has ended - so contact can be moved out of contact centres. Saving the government substantial costs in the long term. Anger management and domestic violence courses may be ordered, but these offer no guarantees. What isn't acknowledged is the effect the violence and emotional abuse has on the abused parents. The abuse may not be aimed directly at children - often because the abused parents shield them and take the abuse themselves - but any parent who has been punched, choked, kicked, verbally abused, bullied, and demeaned, will feel extremely anxious about unsupervised access. It's common for perpetrators to seek contact, knowing that it will cause victims further distress. Many victims of abuse are so distressed at the idea of unsupervised contact orders, they are diagnosed with anxiety and depression, and medicated. Medication has side-effects. In a recent study of 1,829 people who have taken antidepressants in the past five years, led by Professor John Read, University of Liverpool, 60% of participants reported 'feeling emotionally numb', 52% 'feeling not like myself', 42% reduction in positive feelings, and 39% reported caring less about others. These side effects aren't in children's best interests. Yet parents are forced/pressured into a position, in that if they struggle with anxiety or depression, as a result of unsupervised contact orders, they risk being labelled 'fragile' and losing their children. Either into care, or to the abusive parent (who can then state he or she is reformed) because the primary carer is then considered an 'emotional risk'. The UK is one of the only countries to remove children for such a reason. I believe this is wrong. In cases in that parents have been found guilty of significant abuse towards their partners, risk assessments should be carried out by specialist domestic violence workers, to help find a way forward for contact to progress that is safe for chidren, and that doesn't subject victims to further distress. This does not necessarily mean no contact, or long-term contact in contact centres (as understandably funding is short.) In many cases contact could be supervised into the long term by a party the primary carer feels assured by, without over night contact. This would significantly reduce emotional distress, which would be positive for both children and victims of domestic violence into the long term. Fear leads to poor mental health, dysfunction and addictions (all a strain on public funding.) It can also lead to desperate-measures; Parents have fled the UK to escape such contact orders. Only to be brought back under the Hague Convention, to lose their children forever for seeking to protect them. Children's best interests should be paramount. But the fundamental flaw in the current law, is that it neglects to take into account parental emotional wellbeing. If primary carers are subjected to significant stress, this inevitably effects children. Although this is recognised in court proceedings, and is intended to be taken into account, there is a SERIOUS CONFLICT; The current UK law states that children can be removed from parents who 'pose emotional risk', Because of this there is reluctance from parents to admit to struggling with court orders. Any parent who has been violently attacked over many years, by his or her partner, will inevitably feel afraid of unsupervised/unsupported contact. This is not because he or she is mentally ill, or of a fragile disposition, it is because parents instinctively look to protect their children. Take the ability to protect your children away from you and it leads to distress. I believe it is important for children to have a relationship with both parents. But I believe it is equally important for parents who have been abused not to be subjected to further distress. This isn't in children's best interests. Nor for children to be put at further risk of abuse. I ask for re-assurance for victims of domestic violence, that children be kept safe. Please sign this petition and share it! Thank you! Zoe.