The NHS is prided on being free at the point of delivery, in Northern Ireland we deliver our health service under the banner of the NHS and the ethos of free at the point of delivery should never be changed. GP's deal with up to 90% of face to face contact of patients within the NHS, their contribution cannot be measured with a contact fee. As potential patients we have already received directions not to attend A&E's and to first consider vising a GP, GP waiting lists are in the extreme and practices are already struggling to meet the demand placed on them on top of having to cover unfilled doctor posts in Hospitals as well as their own general Practice. Some GP surgeries are beginning to to look like our crowed A&E waiting rooms with patients queuing up for appoints in the mornings due to the limited capacity of GP practices. Growing waiting lists for outpatient and day case procedures are leading to more patients visiting their GP to ensure that their illness has not got worse while waiting for treatment. In a recent poll by doctors in the British Medical Association, BMA, doctors overwhelmingly voted not to introduce a GP charge at its 2014 annual GP conference in York. "Dr Laurence Buckman, a GP from London, added the idea was "unethical, dangerous and disingenuous". Dr Chaand Nagpaul said general practice was becoming "conveyor belt medicine". "Add to this the sheer volume of phone calls, visits, repeat prescriptions, results, reports and hospital correspondence and we have an unmanageable, exhausting and unsustainable workload that puts safety and quality at risk,"

My husband has an advanced prostate cancer. He wants to die at home, but he may not get what he wants, because there are inadequate services and support in the community; and if he runs into any medical problems there is little or no communication between the Hospital and those who work in the community. Whether you want to die in a hospital, a hospice or at home, you need the services to link together and support you. And you need seven days a week services. Research carried out ten years ago found that 2/3 of people want to die in their own homes, but only 1/3 do. Let's all work together to change this! It will be too late for my husband, but it will benefit everyone else. There needs to be an overall plan for each individual, as put forward in the End of Life Care Strategy. This is important for every one of us. Whilst there have been three pilot studies in Lincolnshire, Leeds and Somerset, the majority of Hospital Trusts and Clinical Commissioning Groups have failed to get their act together. Please sign my petition and show the NHS that people want action and they want it NOW!

North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust is the largest ambulance service in the country covering 5,400 square miles and serving a population of more than seven million people. It is already extremely challenging for an ambulance service to provide excellent response and clinical care in a timely manner. As part of a cost improvement plan the Trust Board and Management is proposing to reduce day and night time cover across the whole of the North West. This action without doubt will have a detrimental impact on patient care and safety as a reduction in resources will mean that patients may have to wait longer than they do now on some occasions. It will affect residents from Carlisle to Crewe. The proposed cuts in resources will mean that Ambulances that cover outlying rural towns and villages will be pulled into urban areas to respond to 999 calls. The public everywhere will have a lower level of service whether they live in large urban areas, towns or villages. The North West Ambulance Service is a unique service with its mixture of large urban cities and vast rural areas. The North West should not suffer any detriment in the provision of patient care provided by the Ambulance Service just because of its size. We are campaigning to keep the Ambulance resources that we currently provide for our patients within the North West. To make these cuts will have an impact on patients and could ultimately cost lives. Please support our campaign

In 2004 the government changed the funding formula for GP surgeries and didn't take account of the fact that in deprived areas people have higher health needs. Many practices would have gone bankrupt, so they introduced something called the 'minimum practice income guarantee' (MPIG) to stop practices falling below their previous level of income. Now the government is taking away the MPIG and many practices are threatened with bankruptcy again. Good quality surgeries (who spend the most, employing more staff to provide the best possible service to patients) will be the first to go. This will open the door for more GP surgeries run by large private firms on the cheap. The government is targeting poor areas to push it's agenda of increasing privatisation of the health service.

Mental health deserves equality with physical health. Service user involvement in the form of tokenism is unacceptable but none at all is shameful in 2014. Health And Social Care Act 2001 ''Section 11: Public involvement and consultation. 66. Section 11 confers on each Health Authority, Primary Care Trust and NHS trust a new statutory duty to make arrangements with the aim of involving patients and the public in the planning and decision making processes of that body, in so far as they affect the operation of the health services for which the body is responsible. In relation to Health Authorities, this would cover both the hospital and community health services for which they are responsible and the family health services provided by practitioners in their area'' Mental health must have parity with physical health services and the same legal entitlement to user involvement .Cornwall's complete absence of a meaningful independent voice for service users and carers is putting lives at risk, causing a huge rise in self harm and needless loss of lives.

In April 2013 a weedkiller (this was the heavily toxic Glymark) was sprayed around the circumference of Camden Square. All visible wildlife immediately disappeared. No birds, no squirrels - absolutely nothing. For three months no birds flew through the square. Even the ravens, hardy carrion crow, were nowhere to be seen. Local councillors and environmentalists came down to the square to witness the devastation. It was agreed that no chemicals would be used on Camden Square for a period of a year and the wildlife monitored. We have actually succeeded in keeping Camden Square pesticide free for two and a half years. But the Councillors want to change that now....... On Thursday 12th November this year, at a meeting about the “improvement and maintenance” of the Square, the big guns were wheeled out with the attendance of no less than THREE Camden Councillors! The decision was reversed, without giving the community a chance to martial the numerous local opponents of the spraying of glyphosate. Councillor Phil Jones stated that there is a HUGE BUDGET to be spent on the square and yet he cannot afford the expense of a little hand weeding? He claimed that our petition had only 200 signatures to date (seriously untrue!) and that there was a lack of support for keeping the Square chemical free. Angela Mason denied even attending the meeting in April 2013 where she observed the absence of wildlife and that birds had stopped flying through the Square. Her tune has now changed. As we know, London is heavily polluted. Camden Square is a sanctuary hidden right in the heart of it all that still remains. It is a valuable and ancient lung. The attendees at this “Camden Square Community Meeting” showed no resistance to proposals to tear up all beautiful rose bushes and axe the central horse chestnut tree, as they find it “ugly”. It took a whole year for the square to be repopulated with wildlife. It is of the utmost urgency that Camden Council enforces a total ban of the use of ALL chemicals on the square. The current threat is Glymark, which contains Glyphosate. Glymark/Round Up/Glyphosate is created and distributed by corporate giant Monsanto, the inventors of the deadly weapon Agent Orange, which devastated Vietnam and its people during the Vietnam War. Monsanto sadly has huge respectability, with high-level supporters and even an American law, which states they can never be held responsible if their products are proved to be harmful to humans or animals. http://www.globalresearch.ca/monsanto-protection-act-signed-by-obama-gmo-bill-written-by-monsanto-signed-into-law/5329388 Monsanto are leaders of the GM revolution, which means that 90% of US crops are now genetically modified. According to e-newsletter “Sustainable Pulse” and many other studies, “For the past 35 years Monsanto has known of the link between glyphosate and cancer, but has systematically worked to cover it up through scientifically fraudulent methods in its safety testing research programme.….. For the first time the authors, Dr. Anthony Samsel and Dr. Stephanie Seneff, presented in tabulated form the data contained in secret Monsanto studies conducted in the period 1980 – 1990, which showed unequivocally that animals exposed to different quantities of glyphosate in their food supply developed tumorigenic growth in multiple organs.” “Monsanto Stunned – California Confirms ‘Roundup’ Will Be Labeled “Cancer Causing”. American news sources declared in September 2015: Holland is the latest European country to forbid the use of glyphosates in eg. residential areas. These chemicals are toxic, not only to the environment, but also to human beings and pets, causing permanent damage to eyesight and respiratory disorders. Toddlers and children frequent the square and will be at severe risk. Please sign with urgency to stop the destruction of Camden Square wildlife. An ultimate ban on such toxic chemicals in Camden, London and further is the ultimate goal. Here's the article from Camden New Journal in 2014: http://www.camdennewjournal.com/news/2014/may/councils-chemical-weedkiller-burned-pet-dogs-and-killed-squirrels-campaigners-claim. Digging Camden Square all up, chemicalising it, re-sculpting it just to qualify the spending of a budget, plus pandering to some deeply un-naturalistic homeowners who want to feel that they are presiding as in Hampton Court, is a crime against our ancient and beautiful Square.

On 22 May 2014 GP's are to vote on whether to introduce appointment charges (estimated £10 - £25 per visit). If this vote is passed it could mean the end of our NHS, free at the point of use. The NHS is currently being dismantled under the guise of an ineffective system and more consumer choice. Increased GP workload and patient demand driving this issue is largely as a result of government policy, hospital closures and privatisation. GP income has fallen by design and patient charges are not the answer. "How many times are we going to fall into the traps set by our political masters?" asks Gurdave Gill, GP Partner writing on the Pulse Today website. "Patient charges are NOT the answer. User charges deter the sick and poor as much as the 'worried well'. Expensive and bureaucratic to collect, evidence shows patients delay seeking medical advice when user charges are introduced. Delay in diagnosis can cause significant harm. If we know this to be fact, to introduce charges appears to suggest that our incomes are more important than any potential harm to the patients. Is this ethical? "The current crisis in Primary care has been manufactured to create a pressure from GPs for charges. [...] We should be demanding increased resources from Government and not our patients. The NHS returned £5bn underspend to the treasury in the last 3 years. The cost of the purchaser-provider split exceeds £10bn pa yet delivers absolutely no patient gain at roughly the entire cost of primary care! {...] We need to identify the correct target and demand our representative bodies are more effective rather than the incompetence/collusion with Government we have seen in recent past. The minority of pro-privatisation GPs leading the call for charges need to be recognised for what they are. We must not be persuaded by the 'greedy and dims' amongst us.” And how about that consumer choice? Right now we have the best of both, individual private healthcare and tax-payer funded. Both are a form of 'paid for' healthcare, one is paid for by the individual, the other paid for and negotiated collectively. If the asset strip continues we will only have the most expensive poorly-negotiated option open to any of us. That is no choice at all. UPDATE The BMA's current position on this motion as outlined to one of our members, obviously, it would be naive to rest on these laurels: "The BMA's current position is not in favour of charging patients for GP appointments. Introducing charging would undermine the basis of the NHS; that healthcare is free at the point of use, and patients receive care based on their clinical need. A fee charging system could require an expensive bureaucracy to collect money from patients. It is also possible that the charges may deter vulnerable patients from seeing their GP which could lead to delays in treatment. However, there will be a motion debated at the Local Medical Committee (LMC) conference in York later this month. If the motion is carried, this does not mean it will become BMA policy. BMA Policy is decided at our Annual Representative Meeting (ARM) in July [ed- It's actually Sunday 22 - Thursday 26 June 2014] and motions are proposed by individual branch of practice conferences (e.g. GPs, consultants, junior doctors etc) and submitted for debate by geographical divisions. It would require further consideration by the BMA's leadership and the BMA's Annual Representative Meeting in July. It is understandable that GPs are looking at raising these kind of ideas, given the enormous pressure on GP services. Many GP practices are struggling from a combination of rising patient demand and falling funding that ministers have failed to recognise. However, the BMA feels that we don't need a complicated and unfair charging system to be introduced for GP appointments. We need the government to provide the resources to enable GPs to deliver the care that their patients need. I hope this is helpful and that it clarifies the BMA position for you." Links: Facebook page that inspired this petition: https://www.facebook.com/healthcharge Pulse Today - GP leaders to vote on whether to support patient charges for appointments: http://bit.ly/1lrI1gg LMC Conference - Full Agenda: http://bit.ly/fullagenda BMC/GPC: http://bit.ly/bmcandgpc BMC Annual Meeting: http://bma.org.uk/working-for-change/arm-2014-info Wessex LMC: http://bit.ly/aboutWessex

Cumbria is the second largest county in England covering 2632 square miles, therefore it is extremely challenging for an Ambulance Service to provide excellent clinical care in a timely manner. As part of a cost saving plan the management of our Ambulance Service are proposing to reduce night time cover by a third in Carlisle, Cumbrias only city. They are also reducing the night time provision provided by a Rapid Response Car in the town of Penrith which is manned by a Paramedic some 16 miles south of Carlisle. This will have a detrimental impact on patient care & safety as a reduction in resources will mean that patients may have to wait even longer than they do now on some occassions. It will affect not only residents in Carlisle but most probably all of North Cumbria as Ambulances that cover outlying rural towns & villages are pulled into Carlisle to respond to the proposed shortfall in resource. Cumbria is a unique county and as such cannot and should not suffer any detriment in the provision of patient care provided by the Ambulance Service just because of its size. We are campaigning to keep the Ambulance resources that we currently provide for our patients within Cumbria. To make these cuts will have an impact on patients and could ultimately cost lives. Please support our campaign

Firstly, MS is incurable and progressive. Drug treatment is already a postcode lottery across different NHS areas/hospitals. Drugs which keep us as active, mobile and employable are of huge benefit to patients and to society. Neurologists report very good results from Fampyra and Sativex. Currently, patients with the help of the Neurologists are able to try Fampyra for 4 weeks, but are told thereafter that they must pay £2,500 approx if they wish to continue treatment. Cost-effectiveness includes use of long term drug treatments to stem, as far as possible, the relapses and disease progression of this illness. To ask MS patients to pay for drugs which may enable them to move about more freely (and continue in employment if applicable) is to create a two-tier service for those with this illness. Secondly, the prospect of MS patients not being able to access specialist MS Neurologists is outrageous. The proposals (1.4 - Regular Review) make clear that non-specialist professionals could carry out reviews with patients. Consider a cancer patient being told to have reviews of their illness/progression/treatment plans with their GP rather than an Oncologist specialising in their particular kind of cancer. It doesn't bear thinking about, does it? Yet MS patients are facing that scenario if these proposals are enacted. The brain is the most complex living organism known to Man and Womankind. Diseases of the brain are little enough understood, without the prospect of non-specialists being involved in reviews, treatment plans etc. Say no to these draft proposals. The consultation period ends on 10 June 2014. Please support this campaign and those of us with MS, their loved ones, their Neurologists, their employers. We need your help.

Sure Start Children's Centre services in Newcastle are facing a two thirds cut in funding over the next three years. This will mean closure of services, buildings, parents groups, activity for young children across the city. It will mean at least 100 jobs will be lost across the council and the voluntary sector. It will mean the opportunities for children and parents will continue to be worsened, following significant cuts already 2010, and the axing of the councils play and youth services last year. SSCCs in Newcastle are all rated Good and Outstanding by Ofsted, reach the vast majority of children under 5 and their families offering universal as well as targeted services. The council proposals:  For the three year budget cycle (2013 – 2016) - the cuts proposed equate to over £5 milllion (or approx. 65% of the total budget) The first £1 million savings have already been agreed, with a proposal for a further £1 million this year and then £3 million for the year 2015-16.   Overall the cuts since 2011 will equate to over 70% with the budget being reduced to less than £3 million from approximately £10 million in 2010-11.   The review of Sure Start and Early Years Services has now been incorporated with the Family Services Review which is being asked to cut £670,000 over the next two years out of budget of £2.3 million which is a 34% cut in services to the most vulnerable families, children and young people.   50% of these services are delivered by the council and 50% by the Community and Voluntary Sector. The city council have estimated that for the work they directly deliver this would equate to the lost of 63 full time equivalent posts (i.e. this will actually be more than 63 people losing their jobs as many jobs are part-time or may be job share) we can only estimate that the equivalent level of job cuts would be made by the Community and Voluntary sector meaning the job cuts proposed would be at least 126 full time posts (probably between 130 and 180 people losing their jobs)   The review has not identified which Sure Start Children’s Centres, Services, Buildings or staff will face cuts.   The councils review timetable includes: ·         April 2014 onwards: Options appraisal (looking with partners at what the cuts could like and coming up with proposals) ·         July 2014: Consultation on the proposed cuts and closures ·         August 2014: Partners agree which options are to be implemented ·         September 2014: Implementation of the cuts for both 2014-15 and 2015-16. ·         March 2015: All cuts implemented.   The councils proposals for 2014 – 2016: http://www.newcastle.gov.uk/sites/drupalncc.newcastle.gov.uk/files/wwwfileroot/your-council-and-democracy/budget_2014-15_-_pc_-_2_-_family_services_review_0-25_incorporating_early_years.pdf   Previous year budgets: http://www.newcastle.gov.uk/your-council-and-democracy/budget-annual-report-and-spending/budget   Unison’s campaign page: http://unison-newcastle.org.uk/sure-start.html   Motion passed at Unison Newcastle City AGM: http://www.unison-newcastle.org.uk/assets/files/AGM2014/140210_18%20Motion%20-%20Save%20Sure%20Start.pdf

The permission was granted by the Forest of Dean District Council for their ownership, but the Monmouthshire Council have been making excuses for the last few years since the original proposal. All over the UK county after county's citizens have been benefiting from these valuable resources for leisure and transport purposes. Why are we waiting and consistently fobbed off with trivial excuses all the time? There are no cycle paths through Chepstow while everywhere else benefits. Despite all the Bills, Papers, and Consultations you pass and now 'The Wales we Want' campaign, we are ignored. This path would enable less able bodied people to access the beauty of the Wye Valley, it would provide business and opportunities locally, and hold these opportunities within Chepstow and surrounding villages where presently people go further afield for leisure facilities. Also it would encourage forms of sustainable transport such as cycling and walking, enabling many people to leave their cars at home. The already established paths in the UK are used by thousands everyday for multiple purpose. Why are we denied this resource, is it because our Council is blind to the future?

People are suffering and not enough is being done done. Even the GP's who work in this field and they are few and far between, still dont fully understand it. They need to speak to health professionals who suffer with the conditions http://m.wikihow.com/Live-With-Chronic-Fatigue-or-M.E