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To: The government

Stop NHS cutting services in Lincolnshire

We are the Boston Focus Group and I am the chair, - we set up a government e-petition and have already over 10000 signatures , NO government response yet!
The CUTS across England and here in Lincs are all based on political ideology and are WRONG! All residents have no real quality of life without good health! We pay taxes all our lives, health is the MOST important reason in everyone's lives and the NHS is OUR Health service NOT the government's and must be funded to deliver. The politicians MUST serve the nation not the current way which is the "tail wagging the dog." Politicians are elected to do the will of the people NOT to impose THEIR own ideologies on the people - the majority who elected them. Theresa May has NO mandate as an unelected PM to allow Jeremy Hunt to progress the current NHS disaster in the making. It will lose her government the next election if implemented that is certain! Health is the most significant aspect of people's lives. Without good health we have a poor quality of life or we die! As we only here once, we MUST ensure we get the best that our HUGE taxes including HUGE NI payments can deliver.
We are very concerned that LHAC Lincs health and care committee and the 4 CCG's costing approx £17 million annually (why FOUR? duplicating execs jobs and costs from Lincs NHS budgets when ONE will do like neighbouring Cambridgeshire) aided by LCC are planning to cut and downgrade our services at Pilgrim local hospital (down to a nurse led midwifery unit, closing obstetrics, paediatrics putting lives at risk and downgrade A&E ) the format is now public as Grantham hospital has no midwife unit and A&E is set closie at night - all because ULHT is citing NO staff as the reasons, there is an SOS Gratham group seeking a judicial review! BUT we know after a meeting with ULHT (United Lincs Hospitals Trust) that they are not applying commercial principles to recruitment, it's all self -serving. A ULHT staff member confirmed to the Focus Group that public consultation will change nothing when the STP - Sustainability Transformation Plans a euphemism for CUTS - are released because decisions are being made and approved now ( going on behind the scenes for THREE years and LHAC have spent £4.2 million mostly on outside consultants!).
The officials say "doing nothing is not an option". We say the only option is doing the right thing:- FUND THE NHS PROPERLY AND DO NOT MAKE CUTS BASED ON CENTRAL GOVERNMENT EDICTS TO COVER PREVIOUS OVERSPENDS, THAT ONLY HAPPENED BECAUSE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT HAS STARVED THE NHS OF SUFFICIENT CASH TO COVER IMMIGRANTS AND A POPULATION LIVING LONGER AND HIGHER INCIDENCES OF CANCER AND OTHER MAJOR ILLNESS LIKE MENTAL HEALTH . The government says it will give Mental Health " parity of esteem" but then cuts the budget last year by 4% to the already underfunded Lincs Trust LPFT ! We will fight because Governments change because of BAD policies and this current government will get voted out by the very people they are condemning to poor quality of life or sadly, death. Making huge CUTS to defund the NHS will lose them the election and another Party, a future Labour government has pledged to properly fund the NHS.
There is a growing wave of thinking that, without doubt, Boston Pilgrim Hospital should revert to its former success as a self-managed Hospital away from the Lincoln Trust and its Lincolnite Centralising mentality and become a Centre & Beacon of Excellence for South and East Lincolnshire. !
We have a local paper partition also getting signatures. Facebook page SOS is set up and and a website coming soon www.sos-pilgrim.org

Why is this important?

People - babies and mums needing emergency C-section will be at great risk of mortality! The gold standard is no more than 30 mins! - as it is over one hour (more in ice, snow, fog and rain) to Lincoln County Hospital where they are planning to centralise more and more services. We have the largest migrant community influx and A&E is regularly swamped. There are more residents in east and south Lincs, over 250,000 residents compared to the Lincoln city region (130,000 2011 census), yet they plan to take away local delivery of services contrary to professed NHS policy. . Already local NHS employees worried about their loved ones tell us that EMAS are being instructed to divert ambulances to Lincoln and Nottingham (90 to 120 mins).. We have not seen any evidence that our local Tory MP is taking positive or constructive action to stop what is happening, and on the face of it seem to be in cohoots with the government and that means the NHS England overlords and the Health Minister Jeremy Hunt MP. Surely an MP should be working for their electorate and not just agreeing with their political masters. Cutting services will be a complete and utter disgrace. Defund the NHS, don't try hard to hire staff, offer NO commercial incentives or local training schools, publicly "talk down" the area and South Lincolnshire by ULHT (the Hospital trust) and if Agencies can hire Staff for ULHT's quoted £30 million annually, why isn't ULHT hiring the same people (on payroll cost £10 million they say) for far less (without the agency profits) !! ULHT intend to move services to the City of Lincoln under the guise of improvements and cost savings! A Lincolnite, centralising mentality that puts cash before residents local needs! We believe our MP should be telling Jeremy Hunt to fund the NHS to the standards required and take it from the over £50 BILLION surplus in the "national insurance fund" a legal requirement under the "social securities act" that is FOUR times higher in surplus than is needed according to the government's own actuaries. Ask your MP about this fund! Furthermore with Brexit success, the government must stop funding Brussels and save more than half of the £18 Billion sent there annually to fund the other 26 states & fund the NHS with OUR taxes - who would object? AND curb Oversees aid waste, and both reclaim hundreds of millions in unpaid NHS bills and stopping NHS Heath tourism access! Government figures show that UK welfare sent £43 million in child benefit payments to claimants in Poland, imagine every year how many Cancer drugs that cash would buy here in England to save and prolong lives and stop the huge cuts announced by NICE to the so-called "Cancer drugs fund" a puppet government organisation that both buys and approves drugs. Drugs that NICE the non elected but government appointed people, when told to cut their budget by the government, are able to arbitrarily stop approving the (expensive) drugs, whose price THEY negotiate - a huge conflict of interest especially when much of the rest of the world and European counties who PAY far less into Brussels freely approve them - and in so doing downgrade the saving & prolonging of cancer sufferers lives to the lowest level of "not good value for money". Disgraceful, imagine you are denIed it from a self-serving government board called NICE - a total misnomer & should be termed BAD - the Board Advocating Death! We want the government to FUND our National Heath Service properly.
Ask yourselves this - why do we ALL pay NI taxes - and why should we if we are denied care, operations, TIMELY Health access, Cancer drugs (condemning cancer patients to death) and many ill patients put at risk of poor quality of life or face death because of political Machiavellian plans to defund, part privatise and introduce graded self Insurance premiums- like in the USA see Jermey Hunt's video in 2013! Consider if we cannot enjoy our lives without good health why should we pay NI and taxes at all? poor or no health means NO retirement!! We pay NI from 11% and companies pay NI around 13% = 24% and this is on top of taxes of 22 to 50 %, yet NO NI (national Insurance started to fund the NHS) contribution is ringfenced for Health now - it is lumped into the tax "pot" and much wasted and consider being diverted by the government towards a white elephant £60 billion railway line that itself was not elected and is blighting people's lives who live in its way- what would you prefer? the redirection of NI is a disgraceful abuse of our taxes. The NHS must not be dismantled, it must be free to all, it must be risk free and we must not let those few in their ivory towers and fat pay cheques (and the means to access private health care too!) to work against the needs of the local residents just to keep their vested interest jobs intact at the expense of residents' lives. We are informed that the plan is to close obstetrics and paediatrics at Pilgrim Hospital and downgrade our very busy A & E in favour of a 90 min drive to Lincoln County Hospital - this is clearly discriminating against Boston and Skegness region residents'. This coastal region has two million tourists, second only to Blackpool & local tourism Chiefs have confirmed plans to double it to 4 million with huge job increases meaning MORE services will be needed, not LESS! Central government MUST fund our region properly as we are the 4th largest county in England & poor roads & public transport and no investment in new road infrastructure, Except Lincoln, with an over £100 million expenditure on a ring road that may help Lincoln residents get to Lincoln County Hospital quicker BUT will NOT help the demographics of well spread out citizens in south & east Lincs whose Health care will be compromised! The CCG & hospital management admit spending £30 MILLION ANNUALLY on agency staff - THIS IS ONE MAIN REASON WHY THEY ARE IN DEBT. SAY NO TO CUTS & LOSS OF LOCAL, ESSENTIAL SERVICES.

How it will be delivered

We will deliver our local petition to our MP Matt Warman, Conservative, who should get off the fence and support the Boston Focus Group and publicly add his voice to our campaign to stop the draconian cuts planned by LHAC, CCG's and ULHT who has appointed ' placed people ' directors to oversee the Cuts. LHAC was set up because the Government ordered it. We will have press conference for the media. LETS FIGHT FOR IT AND STOP THE CUTS!

Lincolnshire -  Boston based

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Updates

2016-10-24 15:08:37 +0100

50 signatures reached

2016-10-24 08:20:22 +0100

25 signatures reached

2016-10-24 06:18:55 +0100

10 signatures reached