Jeremy Corbyn wrote a long letter to Boris Johnson on 31st March.
As well as wishing him a speedy recovery, Jeremy made some strong points about aspects of the current crisis, and asked for immediate action on:
(the 4 pages of the letter are attached)
Posted by Jean Smith on behalf of SHA member Diane Jones.
The NHS Staff Council statement of 28 February 2020
English Social Partnership Forum Joint Statement on Industrial relation – 1 April 2020
https://www.socialpartnershipforum.org/media/166314/SPF-Covid-19-statement-final-and-formatted.pdf
Protection for whistleblowers in the UK is provided under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA).The PIDA protects employees and workers who blow the whistle about wrongdoing.
For more information please contact Unite senior communications officer Shaun Noble
Email: shaun.noble@unitetheunion.org
PROTECT ALL FRONTLINE HEALTHCARE WORKERS
31/03/2020 cllralanhall Blog, Press Leave a comment
Personal Protective Equipment, known as PPE is in demand. There are reports that there is a shortage in hospitals and care facilities.
The Daily Mirror reports that hospitals listed as having shortages include Rotherham General Hospital, Bristol Children’s Hospital, Hillingdon Hospital in Uxbridge, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and at St Thomas, Lewisham and two other unnamed hospitals in London.
“The correct PPE must be made available at every site that might require it. This is vital in order to protect our patients but also to protect the lives of the life-savers.”
DAUK’s Dr Natalie Ashburner in @DailyMirror @nashburner#COVID19 #testNHSstaffhttps://t.co/Mhd2UISZeF
— The Doctors’ Association UK (@TheDA_UK) March 19, 2020
The view from the NHS frontline is explained here:
Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden, an intensive care doctor and president of the Doctors’ Association UK, told Nick Ferrari that more doctors will die unless they get proper equipment.
In a further twist, healthcare workers who raise their concerns are facing being “gagged”. Helen O’Connor, GMB says in The Guardian “It is scandalous that hospital staff speaking out publicly face being sacked by ruthless NHS bosses
who do not want failings in their leadership to be exposed. Suppression of information is not just a matter of democracy, it is now a major public health issue.”
The Local Government Association has sent a letter to the Secretary of State for Health, Matt Hancock MP. It says that there is an urgent need for Government to move faster in making PPE available for the adult social care sector. Sufficient supplies that are of acceptable quality are needed immediately. Councils and their provider partners also need concrete assurances about ongoing supplies for the days and weeks ahead.
Councillor Alan Hall has written to the Director of Public Health for Lewisham seeking reassurances for both hospital and social care staff locally. The full letter is below:
Catherine Mbema
Director of Public Health – Lewisham
Dear Catherine,
I have been informed that the lack of Personal Protective Equipment for cleaning staff at Lewisham Hospital is a real concern. Trade Unions say that there is a shortage of supply and that staff are very worried. It has been described as “a total nightmare”.
As the Public Health Lead across Lewisham, I would be very grateful if you could raise the shortage of supply with the NHS and the Hospital and reassure us that PPE will be available.
Whilst I write, personal carers have reported shortages and inadequacies nationally. Can an assurance that all Lewisham Council and NHS staff have been provided with effective PPE?
May I take this opportunity to thank you and your team for all the incredible work that has been placed upon you. I have always campaigned against Public Health cuts and the short sightedness of this is surely been borne out now.
Kind regards,
Alan
Cllr Alan Hall
In an article on the United Nation’s website, there is a chilling message:
“COVID-19 will not be the last dangerous microbe we see. The heroism, dedication and selflessness of medical staff allow the rest of us a degree of reassurance that we will overcome this virus.
We must give these health workers all the support they need to do their jobs, be safe and stay alive. We will need them when the next pandemic strikes.”
Please help: NHS Staff need adequate PPE now https://t.co/XLsLDNaz5g via @socialisthealth
— Alan Hall (@alan_ha11) April 1, 2020
Unite senior communications officer Shaun Noble
Unite senior communications officer Shaun Noble
We have now launched another collaborative petition with the people at Change and have support from Health Campaigns Together and Socialist Health Association.
It is likely other campaigns will support too in the next few days. Here is the link
Please sign and share widely. Please not only post on your own social media networks (though this is vital) but please include in your local group newsletters and prominently on your local group facebook and twitter pages – it might even be an idea to pin the post to the top of your timelines or facebook walls.
Also please take the time to write an email to your colleagues, fellow campaigners and friends asking them to sign too…
We’ve put together a model email for you to use here so it won’t take you long, it reads:
“Dear ____
Keep Our NHS Public is helping launch a new petition putting six key demands to the government around its response to the Coronavirus pandemic. These demands cover a cross-section of our campaigning priorities, applied to the current moment of crisis – click here to read in full!
In the current climate, this petition could become absolutely huge, so we definitely need to get out the gate fast with sharing it. Please sign your name and share the petition to all possible contacts! SIGN HERE
On Twitter, we’re using the hashtags #NHS4All, #6Demands, #Covid-19, #SafetyFirst, #Coronavirus with #NHS4All as the main one.
Best”
Remember our last petition with Change received 1.3 million signatures and helped the organisation widen its reach, recruit unprecedented numbers and raise much-needed funds – so the bigger this is the better for all of us. And in this moment of isolation and likely imminent lockdown – it’s time at last to embrace, social media and digital campaigning!
Good luck and thank you from all the team.
In Solidarity
Tom Griffiths
Keep Our NHS Public
Campaigns Officer
Fire and rescue service personnel must receive priority testing and vaccination for coronavirus, the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) has said after some brigades reported losing hundreds of staff to self-isolation.
In a letter to ministers in Westminster and the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the FBU has said that without testing, firefighters and control staff could be self-isolating unnecessarily, when they could be on hand to protect the public.
The union also says that testing could help reduce the risk of frontline staff transmitting the infection to vulnerable members of the public.
London Fire Brigade has at least 280 personnel in isolation, 5% of its overall staff; West Midlands Fire Service, which covers Birmingham, has 105 staff in self-isolation, 5.5%; Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has 285 staff in isolation, 3.75%; Essex County Fire and Rescue Service has 61 staff in isolation or 4%.
Fire and rescue services across the UK are operating with 11,500 fewer firefighters than in 2010, and, unless services are able to test their employees, they could face dangerous shortages.
Matt Wrack, FBU general secretary, said:
“In this time of national crisis, every emergency service worker has an important role to play. The NHS is an obvious priority, but any testing regime needs to address all key public services.
“Without proper testing, the number of fire and rescue personnel available could drop to dangerously low levels. Fires and other non-virus related emergency incidents won’t wait for this crisis to subside and ministers need to consider that carefully.
“It is vital for public safety that firefighters and control staff, like their colleagues in the NHS, receive priority testing and, once available, vaccination.
“We’re pushing for measures to limit our members’ exposure to the virus, but some interaction with the public cannot be avoided and ministers need to manage that risk.”
While the FBU has called for firefighters to cease all non-essential, non-emergency interactions with the public, they will continue to come into contact in emergency situations, placing them at greater risk of infection.
Emergency fire control staff handle 999 calls and provide vital fire survival guidance for areas of up to 5 million people from a single room. Should one member of staff contract the virus, the emergency call infrastructure for an entire region could be at risk.
Media contact
Joe Karp-Sawey, FBU communications officer
20/03/2020
OPEN LETTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER FROM THE SOCIALIST HEALTH ASSOCIATION
Dear Mr Johnson,
The pandemic has exposed the steady destruction of our public services and welfare state which has happened over the last 10 years.
This is the most unprecedented health challenge in 100 years which is complex and difficult – but as voiced by many experts in the field, we have significant concerns about the way the UK government has hitherto been approaching this national emergency. We hope from now on this will be better co-ordinated. We support frontline staff at this worrying time.
However the public is finally waking up to the fact that, as a result of government austerity and privatisation policies, we are ill-prepared – with too few ICU facilities, NHS beds, healthcare staff and equipment – to offer a safe and effective response to the virus. Those most at risk also have to use a threadbare social care system which is already bending under the strain.
The UK should be in a relatively strong position on public health with a comprehensive service, considered one of the best in the world. However, Tory reforms in England destroyed the health authority structure below national level and has slashed budgets but at least Public Health England has a regional organisation and Local Government have Directors of Public Health. We wish to make some key points:
There is not enough personal protective equipment (PPE) for clinicians/frontline staff who are now personally at risk every time they go to into work.
There is insufficient testing of staff who, having been put off work with minor illness and then return to the front line, do not know whether they have had the virus or not.
There are too few beds and too few trained intensive care staff and equipment such as respirators. The government appears to have acted too late. We should be requisitioning beds from the private sector, not paying them £2.4 million a day.
Covid-19 testing has been wholly inadequate. It appears that a combination of inadequate preparation and misguided policy is responsible.
Undocumented people, for instance migrants and refugees, have long felt unable to use the NHS for fear of being referred to the police or the Home Office. This will increase risk. Legislate on charging and reporting undocumented migrants must at least be suspended.
Those precariously employed, particularly gig economy workers, are still not financially protected and may be compelled to continue working inadvertently spreading infection.
Thousands of excess deaths have occurred in the last few years as a result of the slowdown and reversal in life expectancy. Austerity policies have been a significant cause. It confirms international evidence that cutting the welfare state while at the same time introducing austerity, kills people.
This pandemic is likely to add to that grotesque toll.
Government policy has split hospitals from general practices and from each other. It has created an industrial approach to care where staff and patients are increasingly seen as economic units. The newest redisorganisation has opened up the English NHS planning process to the private sector and to the US, especially if we have a trade deal. In addition, it has the potential to split the English NHS into 44 independent units – exactly what we do not want as we fight a global pandemic. If your government’s Long-Term Plan had already been fully implemented doing exactly that, we would not have been capable of a well-coordinated national response to the Covid-19 crisis.
Too little funding for Local Authorities has put social care on life support. Those most at risk receiving personal or residential care appear to receive the least advice and the least support to combat the virus. Those with Direct Payments, organising their own care with Local Authority funding, appear to be entirely on their own if their carers get ill.
The most recent reorganisation of the NHS has made both formal and informal democracy more difficult. Just when we need all communities to collaborate and contribute to responding to this global challenge, NHS organisations have become more distant and poorly responsive.
It has been frustrating and confusing to have changing government advice without any formal presentation of the data and evidence behind it. It was patronising and did not inspire confidence.
WE EXPECT YOUR GOVERNMENT TO:
Faced with this international emergency, we need to combine medical expertise – including support from abroad, with technical investment with practical solutions and community engagement along with emergency economic measures to fight this together.
Chair SHA
Dr Brian Fisher, London
Vice-chairs SHA
Dr Tony Jewell
Tony Beddow, Swansea
Norma Dudley, London
Mark Ladbrooke, Oxford
Secretary
Jean Hardiman Smith, Ellesmere Port
Treasurer
Irene Leonard, Liverpool
Co-Chair KONP
Dr Tony O’Sullivan, London
Co-signatories
Dr John Carlisle, Sheffield.
Terry Day, London
Carol Ackroyd, London
Corrie Louise Lowry, Wirral
Caroline Bedale, Oldham
Hazel Brodie, Dumfries
David Taylor-Gooby, Newcastle
Peter Mayer, Birmingham
Dr Alex Scott-Samuel, Liverpool
Dr Jane Roberts, London
Dr Judith Varley, Birkenhead
Vivien Giladi, London
John Lipetz, London
Jane Jones, Abergavenny
Dr Kathrin Thomas, Llandudno
Dr Louise Irvine, London
Dr Jacky Davis, London
Dr Coral Jones, London
Dr Nick Mann, London
Dr John Puntis, Leeds
Brian Gibbons, Swansea
Anya Cook, Newcastle,
Alison E. Scouller, Cardiff
Punita Goodfellow, Newcastle upon Tyne
Parbinder Kaur, Smethwick
Gurinder Singh Josan CBE, Sandwell
Jos Bell, London.
Steve Fairfax Chair SHA NE, Newcastle upon Tyne
The Socialist Health Association is a policy and campaigning campaigning membership organisation. We promote health and well-being and the eradication of inequalities through the application of socialist principles to society and government. We believe that these objectives can best be achieved through collective rather than individual action.
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Posted by Jean Smith on behalf of Maternity Action.
Interactions between firefighters and the public should temporarily be drastically scaled back to limit coronavirus contaminations, the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) has said.
Non-emergency work such as fire safety visits and inspections, school visits, and public meetings, should be temporarily suspended to reduce the exposure of firefighters to COVID-19 and to protect at-risk individuals from potential contamination from firefighters.
A number of fire and rescue services have already taken measures to restrict interaction between firefighters and the public, despite little directive from central government.
Matt Wrack, FBU general secretary, said:
“While the FBU fully supports public engagement and preventative work as essential to improve fire safety, these are exceptional circumstances.
“Any non-emergency work that involves interaction with the public must be ceased immediately, as some services have already done, for the protection of both firefighters and the potentially at-risk individuals they interact with.
“As a core emergency service, firefighters and control staff need to be protected from infection as far as possible. When an emergency does happen, we need to ensure that firefighters are healthy and available in good number to respond.”
The FBU is calling for services to cease all outside activities other than emergency response unless there is an immediate or imminent safety imperative.
The union supports actions by services including Northamptonshire to limit these activities and believes all services should immediately tightly control access to emergency fire control rooms and cease:
The announcement was made in a circular to the FBU’s more than 30,000 members, representing the vast majority of the UK’s firefighters and control room staff.
Joe Karp-Sawey, FBU communications officer
The Socialist Health Association is a campaigning membership organisation. We promote health and well-being and the eradication of inequalities through the application of socialist principles to society and government. We believe that these objectives can best be achieved through collective rather than individual action.
31 Links Avenue | Little Sutton | Ellesmere Port | CH66 1QS | 0151 208 4879 | 07758 822 564 or admin@sochealth.co.uk
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