Central Council

CENTRAL COUNCIL MEETING
Saturday 2nd December 2023

10.00am start
AGENDA

  1. Welcome Chair
  2. Opening remarks Chair / Lesley Spillard, Vice Chair.
  3. Apologies for absence Chair/all
  4. Minutes of the previous meeting Chair/all
  5. Matters arising Chair/all
  6. Preparation for the national AGM Chair/Secretary
    a. election of a Returning Officer
    b. electronic voting (Election Buddy)
  7. Motions …. See below
  8. Reports from Standing Groups and/or Branches and welcoming new
    branches Plymouth and Cumbria.
  9. Report International Health Working Group by Rathi Guhadasan; Director
  10. Break (5 minutes)
  11. Finance report Treasurer
  12. Implementation of Action Network (new IT platform) – progress report Secretary/all
  13. Any Other Business/close

MOTION: Escalating violence and healthcare crisis in Palestine

Motion submitted by East of England Branch of SHA on 8 November 2023

MOTION: Gaza
SHA condemns the appalling consequences of Israel’s latest attacks on Gaza, which have led to more than 14,000 deaths since 7 October, including at least 6000 children. We also condemn the indiscriminate slaughter of hundreds of civilians by Hamas on 7 October. We are appalled by the scores of attacks on hospitals and other health facilities, which have caused the death of hundreds of medical workers. At least 21 of Gaza’s 35 hospitals are completely out of service, and others have been damaged and are short of medicines and essential supplies.

Even before the latest attacks, health provision in Gaza had been devastated by 56 years of Israeli military occupation and eighteen years of almost total siege and blockade. 80% of children showed signs of emotional distress, and more than one-third needed care for conflict-related trauma.

We note that more than 80% of Gaza’s population of 2.2 million are Palestinian refugees and their descendants, denied return to the homes from which they were evicted in 1948.

We resolve:

1.    to organise a meeting with MAP for SHA members and supporters
2.    to promote fund-raising for MAP
3.    to disseminate information concerning the medical and humanitarian crisis in Gaza
4.    to urge SHA delegates to move a similar motion at their CLP
5.     to call on the Labour Party leadership to demand and act to help bring about an immediate ceasefire, as called for by the UN, WHO, the TUC and many others

Motion submitted by SHA London Branch 30 November 2023

Emergency motion

Motion:
 

SHA to stand with public calls to reverse NHS staff downskilling.

 
The Socialist Health Association welcomes recent moves by the BMA, the Royal
College of Anaesthetists, the Doctors’ Association UK and other medical organisations
to oppose NHS England unethically substituting skilled clinical professionals, such as
doctors and anaesthetists, with far less qualified individuals -often with just two year’s
training.
 
Congratulates those who have brought this festering issue to public attention via the
media.
 
Notes that the policy itself, in tandem with the wildly disparate efforts to recruit
physicians’ associates compared with the government’s relaxed attitude to the mass
exodus of doctors, merely underscore what we already knew: NHS England’s business-
oriented new care models and the reshaping of our public healthcare in the image of
Medicare’s accountable care organisations -or integrated care systems- institutionalises
a service-cutting drive which includes staff in its firing line.
 
(Described in our own report “In Place of Profit”: https://sochealth.co.uk/wp-
content/uploads/2023/09/sha-report-in-place-of-profit-1-3.pdf)
 
Notes this adds to earlier critiques, such as Shadow Health Secretary Diane Abbott in
2016 calling out “the downgrading of treatment by skills, responsibilities and pay bands”

  • part of an NHS England programme explicitly geared to creating business
    opportunities.
     
    Notes the SHA’s repeated calls, since 2017, to oppose that programme, including this
    substitution, via Labour conference.
     
    Calls on all organisations concerned with the existence of an NHS, and of the wider left,
    to join in opposing this deliberate dumbing down of publicly-funded healthcare provision
    to suit big business.

References:
”An emergency motion passed by BMA @BMA_GP GPC England calls for “a pause on
all recruitment of PAs across PCNs and General Practice until appropriately safe
regulatory processes and structures are in place”.”
https://twitter.com/BMAGPRegistrars/status/1720338077544001596
“Stop hiring physician associates immediately, BMA demands”
“Medical association says lack of regulation of such workers has ‘blurred the
boundaries’ and puts public at risk”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/16/nhs-stop-hiring-physician-associates-
bma-safety-risk/



NOTE 2023 election procedures and results.