Save Our NHS

Campaigns (36)

• London
  

  Keep Lambeths NHS Counselling Service safe and effective

  A several million pound publicly funded contract has been agreed but not yet signed by NHS Lambeth. The money is not being spent on employing qualified and experienced counsellors by The Awareness Centre who has been subcontracted to provide counselling. There has not been any transparent discussion on the role of trainee counsellors in Lambeth and nobody in Lambeth has been properly consulted about the change to services. The current counselling service that provides experienced and qualified therapists for patients registered with GP's in Lambeth is being replaced by a private organisation that uses trainees and volunteers only. This means that they don't get paid (and even have to pay for their internal training) and that they will be working alongside no qualified staff. This is both unethical for patients and for trainees. I have been working for the NHS since 1984 and the complexity of cases has got harder and harder and I dread to imagine the impact this will have on patients and staff.

  785 of 800 Signatures

  Created by Carolyn Emanuel
• Salisbury
  

  NO TO POSTCODE PAY

  The consortium – which includes Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust – aims to cut pay for nurses, doctors and other healthcare staff by up to 15 per cent at a time of unprecedented change and financial pressures in the health service A total of 20 trusts across the south west are ploughing £200,000 into the cartel in an attempt to introduce radical changes to pay and conditions through a regional pay system. The proposals – which could include making staff work longer hours with less annual leave and smaller pay packets – would undermine the national pay system that provides a fair and transparent system and ensures health managers anywhere in the country can recruit staff with the right skills and experience to give patients the right care. The proposals will be bad for staff morale and have an adverse knock-on effect for patient care. It will damage recruitment at the hospital and cause staff instability as fewer people are attracted to work in a low pay zone. With a workforce of 4,000 at Salisbury, lower local pay will also hit the local economy.

  108 of 200 Signatures

  Created by Dick Bellringer
• Manchester
  

  Save A&E at Trafford General

  Patients will face longer journeys to A&E at other hospitals in Manchester and longer delays for treatment because these hospitals are already working well above their planned capacity. Patients lives in Trafford will be put at risk if they are stuck in traffic jams when they need emergency care. And loved ones face longer, more expensive journeys to visit patients in hospitals outside the borough. See www.savetraffordgeneral.com

  2,958 of 3,000 Signatures

  Created by Matthew Finnegan
• Middlesbrough
  

  Save North Tees & Hartlepool Hospital

  The NHS is very important to us as it is to millions of people in this Country.Myself and family have a lot to thank the doctors,nurses and staff as they saved the lives of our two grandchildren when they were babies both suffered from a virus which nearly killed them both. Thanks to the doctors and nurses they are both fit and well aged 11 years old and 8 years old.Our son who has a genetic conditon also has a lot to thank our local hospital and a hospital in Sunderland who done their best for our sons eye sight they give him years of sight and fought very hard to save his sight but sadly 3 years ago he lost his sight.He then went on to have a stroke at the age of 24 years old through the skill and care he recieved by James Cook Hospital he has pulled through with no lasting effects. So for us our NHS is the best in the World and fighting these cuts in services like a hospital a few miles away from us is having to run a monthly care boot sale to pay for front line services.This should not have to happen to our NHS we care passionatly as we do about our GP's service.Thank You.Ron,Viv

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  Created by Ron Carter-Bonsteel
• 

  Save our Blood Plasma Service

  The government is planning to sell off Plasma Resources UK, the firm responsible for supplying blood plasma products to the NHS, to a private contractor. We, the undersigned feel that this is unacceptable for the following reasons: 1. Blood plasma is essential for the treatment of many conditions, including burns, shock and major trauma; immune disorders and neurological conditions; protecting unborn children from haemolytic diseases. Possibly best known plasma product is Factor VIII used to treat around 3,000 haemophilia patients. 2. The profit impetus may compel any company taking over services to cut corners in order to make return. This could have devastating consequences for patient safety should contaminated, poorly packaged or improperly labelled products reach frontline healthcare services. The next part of this section is a fuller statement about Blood Plasma and why it is so important to stop the sell off of Plasma Resources UK. It shows how the Government has already split plasma services away from the National Blood Service so that part of what was a unified Blood Transfusion Service can be sold off for profit. Read on: First of all an apology. I started this petition on 38 Degrees after seeing and signing a similar one on the Government ePetition website. After doing a little research of my own and receiving an email via this site, it is clear that the Blood Transfusion Service (NHSBT) is not being sold off. However, Mr. Lansley has been party to breaking up NHSBT in 2011. It is the part that he has separated off that he is looking to sell off. That company is Plasma Resources UK (PRUK), the principal supplier of plasma and plasma products to the NHS. Blood and Plasma are obviously ‘joined at the hip’. When a donor gives a pint of blood, 55% of that fluid by volume is plasma. Much of today’s service is about producing blood and plasma products for the treatment of a wide range of patients. Treatments using plasma products are no less important than those using blood products. You have only to ‘google’ medical uses of plasma to find out the wonderful way its products can influence patients lives, such as the treatment folk suffering from burns, shock and major trauma; immune disorders and neurological conditions; protecting unborn children from haemolytic diseases. Possibly best known plasma product is Factor VIII used to treat around 3,000 haemophilia patients. The work of producing these valuable plasma products (there are hundreds of them) has been carried out by the Bio Products Laboratory (merged with the Blood Service in 1993 and now called Bio Products Limited (BPL)). Plasma Resources UK (PRUK) is the Health Dept company that manages the supply of blood plasma from the US through US based British owned company DCI Inc, which has been necessary since the BSE outbreak and concerns about people developing vCJD. For some years there has been a particular strategy to reduce the dependency of NHSBT's blood products division (BPL) on government subsidies. ‘Our Fractionated Products division (BPL) operates in competitive markets across the UK and globally with other multi-national pharmaceutical companies. A key strategic goal has been to move this part of our organisation into a profitable trading position. This was achieved during 2008/09 thanks to the continued growth in sales and throughput. Our future plans seek to sustain and build on this performance.’ Just a year later this part of the Blood Service was hived off to a separate division from NHSBT: ‘On 1 January 2011 Bio Products Laboratory was transferred into a new legal entity, Bio Products Laboratory Limited, a 100% owned subsidiary of Plasma Resources UK Limited (PRUK), which is 100% owned and managed by the Department of Health.' There are concerns about ‘blood and plasma markets’ in the US. The cost to DCI includes payment to donors. The market has also been described as working like a monopoly or cartel, where at one extreme price can be fixed or competition can be fierce leading to among other things attempts to reduce costs and all the inherent dangers in that. This market in the USA has been described as representing “everything wrong with American-style capitalism”. It is too early to know what relationship a privatised PRUK would have with the NHS and hence what the implications to the NHS might be in terms of cost and guarantees about supply. I recall that a few years ago there were fears of a flu epidemic (I think) and it was found that vaccine originally destined for this country was redirected to other countries where the Pharmaceutical Company could get a higher price. Could the same happen with a privatised Plasma Products company? If the time comes when we can recommence plasma donations in this country, would anyone sign up if their altruistic gift was given to a company concerned with making a profit from it?

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  Created by Geoff Dunbar
• Newark-on-Trent
  Say YES to Newark Hospital

  All patients (50,000) from the Newark district have to travel a minimum of 25 miles to a hospital when we had a perfectly good service given by our own hospital in the town. The A&E as been down graded to what is known locally as a Bumbs & Bruises (B&B). The front line staff numbers have been cut. All this was done we believe without full consultation. Finally lives are being put at risk because of time and distantance and lack of ambulance cover. We are asking Andrew Lansley for a full review without sucess.

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  Created by Vic Hall