Clap, but no applause

By Grace Fletcher-Hackwood / @msgracefh

On Tuesday, like a lot of people, I took a moment to celebrate the 63rd birthday of our National Health Service. Actually, it took me all day.

I marked the occasion by posting out an update on the government’s NHS reforms to everyone who had written to my boss, Julie Hilling MP, to express their concerns about the reforms – including those who had sent one of Unite’s online birthday cards. Even with a teenager on work experience to help me fold letters and stuff envelopes, it took me several days to get the letters out. Constituents had written in in their hundreds.

By Thursday I was worried that I might die of paper-cuts, so pleaded with my colleagues to let me go a little early – staggering via the postbox with a pile of post second only to the News of the World’s outgoing P45s – so that I could get to Manchester Central, site of the NHS Confederation’s Annual Conference, and welcome Andrew Lansley to Manchester.

If you’re planning an NHS-themed protest, by the way, ‘Never trust a Tory with the NHS’ works better as a universal truth than it does as a chant, but ‘What shall we do with Andrew Lansley’ to the tune of ‘Drunken Sailor’ went down splendidly. (The answer, of course, is ‘chop him up and privatise him’. Early in the morning.) And you can never, ever go wrong with the Andrew Lansley Rap.

As a local councillor I was asked if I’d like to speak, but my impromptu speech skills aren’t what they were, so I hid behind the Socialist Health Association banner to think about what I wanted to say: about the confusion I’ve seen from Julie’s constituents and my own and have blogged about here; about how so many people in Bolton West opposed the government’s NHS reforms that just writing to them all had taken me several days; about how important it is that people keep giving people like me more work to do by bugging their MPs. (Sorry, bad choice of words – in case there are any News International journos reading, I mean keep bothering your MPs.)

Because it’s essential to keep getting our voices heard. The government’s ‘pause’ on the Health Bill was meant to be a listening exercise. But giving feedback to coalition ministers is like telling cats to eat cat food rather than the stuff in the bin: they show every sign of paying attention, but as soon as you turn your back they come out with some weird shit that looks nothing like what you fed them.

Analogies like this are why I don’t make impromptu speeches anymore; but if I had spoken on Thursday, I would have gone on to say: if you want to get your message across on the NHS, you can’t wait for the government to give you the opportunity. You have to pester your politicians. You have to keep showing up to protests. You have to use every method you can to stick up for our NHS.

And while I was cowering behind my banner, one of the speakers outside Manchester Central told us about a method I’d never thought of.

He was talking about sexual health services – one of the countless areas suffering under this government. The decision to remove the British Pregnancy Advisory Service from the Department of Health’s Sexual Health Advisory Board and replace them with Life would seem to indicate that this coalition just doesn’t get sexual health, at all – how to do it, or even what it’s for.

And that’s bound to hit the budgets. Already, HIV services in London have been cut by 43%, when HIV diagnoses have doubled in the last decade. Targeted sexual health services may be particularly at risk: earlier this year NHS Stockport cut 100% of the funding for the sexual health programmes they previously bought from Manchester’s Lesbian & Gay Foundation.

So what the speaker said outside Manchester Central on Thursday was: if you have sexual health services, use them. Go to a drop-in. Get yourself tested. Take a free condom if you need one. The greater the take-up of services, the better placed the providers will be to argue for their continued funding. We’re talking about activism through pap smears. Chlamydia screening versus the coalition. Condoms against ConDems. #Testsnotcuts!

It’s not a frivolous use of NHS resources: just using services that we’re entitled to, and which would lead to NHS savings – and a healthier population – if they were better used. Chlamydia testing is a great example.

Chlamydia is the most commonly diagnosed STI in the UK; testing for it is quick, easy, painless, non-invasive and relatively inexpensive; and if caught early it can be treated with antibiotics. Left undiagnosed and untreated, it can cause reduced fertility in men. In women, it can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease and everything that can involve: blocked fallopian tubes; ectopic pregnancy; infertility. That’s a lot of expensive treatment and a lot of human trauma.

So, are you interested in saving the NHS some money? Want to help defend services from future cuts by maximising their take-up today? Then why not do it while thinking about your own health. Ever had unprotected sex? Ever? Be honest – and ask yourself whether you need an HIV test. Have you been putting off your cervical smear? Book an appointment. Had a chlamydia test recently? Get on with it – Lansley’s pissing all over the health service, the least you can do is piss in a pot. Find out what sexual health services are available in your area and use the ones you need while you still can.

And if you can’t – if it turns out that what you need isn’t available in your area – contact the PCT. And your MP. And Andrew Lansley. Get up a petition, go on a demo. Come to Manchester in October when Lansley returns with the rest of the Tories. Kick up a fuss. We need to use every angle we can think of to get our message across on what this Government is doing to our NHS – and #testsnotcuts is just one more.