NHS: Will you only miss it when it’s gone?

This coming Tuesday the House of Lords hears the second reading of the bill that will see the end of the NHS in its current form as the Con-Dem coalition’s Health and Social Care bill returns to parliament.

The NHS was founded to meet the needs of all, to be free at the point of delivery and to be based on clinical need, not the ability to pay. This bill will lead to the end of an NHS based on those founding principles, principles that stood and delivered for more than 60 years and which made the NHS an institution admired and unrivalled around the world.

Cameron cunningly signalled during the election that the NHS would be safe in his hands claiming he would “cut the deficit, not the NHS” but the reality is that he has introduced a bill that will do “irreparable harm to the NHS, to individual patients and to society as a whole.” That’s not the words of the opposition, but of more than 400 senior doctors and public health experts who wrote to the Telegraph this week calling for the Lords to throw out the bill and the government to abandon its plans which would see the end of the NHS as we know it.

Cameron has consistently claimed that he has the backing of the health professions, in fact he cites the above letter as support for his changes, ignoring what the letter actually said. One signatory, Dr David McCoy of University College London, said: “The prime minister is disingenuous to claim that the letter praises the bill. It couldn’t offer a more stark repudiation.”

This isn’t the first time that Cameron has played with the facts. He has regularly said the bill has the backing of the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of GPs, all of whom have denied backing the changes. Cameron has also been a serial misquoter of shadow health secretary John Healey’s comments on the bill; when Cameron says he is listening it seems only to what he wants to hear.

The only way to change that is to make sure Cameron hears exactly what people really think about the changes to the NHS. That’s why it is time to take action.

The bill will destroy our NHS. Unite is utterly against the bill, and wants it stopped. Unite supports all the efforts up and down the country as people fight to save their NHS, ignored by this government as it pushes on with the privatisation of this country’s greatest public asset.

Demonstrations make a difference. The last week has seen hundreds of arrests in New York after Occupy Wall Street protesters were kettled on Brooklyn Bridge during their demonstration against inequality and corporate excess. Author Salman Rushdie jumped to their defence stating: “The world’s economy has been wrecked by these rapacious traders. Yet it is the protesters who are jailed.” The story not only received global coverage in the press and in social media, but led to the spread of protests as demonstrations broke out in Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and Washington.

The same can happen here.

This Sunday UK Uncut will be holding a mass demonstration in Westminster. Unite members may well wish to attend but they will do so as individuals. UK Uncut’s blocking of the bridge is designed to symbolically block the bill, but while UK Uncut is planning an act of ‘spectacular civil disobedience’ there are many ways for people to take action within the law.

There are over a 1,500 NHS hospitals across the country, and your local hospital is under threat by the changes in the bill. it’s time to take action. If you love the NHS then join the fight to save it.

This weekend (8-9 October 2011) sees the latest mobilisation. Unite has been working with other unions, the Socialist Health Association, the Labour party and TULO to challenge this threat to the NHS.

Why not run a ‘Big NHS Weekend’ in your constituency, you can download campaign materials from NHS Alert and get in touch with your local union branch and Labour party to ensure as many people as possible are involved.

Why not set up a street stall outside your local hospital, collect signatures for a petition or even present your local Tory or Lib Dem MP with the ‘golden bedpan’ award for voting to destroy the NHS. And if you haven’t got enough time to organise it this weekend then there are further days of action on 13-14 November and 10-11 December.

The more people that join the campaign the more pressure can be placed on government and politicians. As more local MPs learn their voters are against the bill and they will face a day of reckoning at the ballot box, there is more chance to block the bill. And as action spreads Cameron will be forced to tell the truth rather than believe what he wants.

It’s your NHS, if you don’t defend it, you will lose it. A few simple steps could go a long way to protecting the NHS and safeguarding it for future generations, don’t sit back and imagine what could be done, take action so you can say that when the call came you stood up and backed the NHS.

Dave Carr is a NHS worker, intensive care nurse and Unite member and activist