Petition Tag - nhs

Interpreter service. We want to keep BSL interpreter at GDA for things you need like doctors, appointments ok. But we have a problem, we might lose this service at GDA ok, why? Because NHS Gloucestershire want to put it together with other service like French, spanish translation team. That mean hard get good BSL in Gloucester if they have one big office somewhere else like maybe birmingham, anywhere cos cheaper for them save money.

Please sign this petition if you want to keep this BSL service at GDA and you know that good for us here in Gloucestershire.

Thanks


GDA = Gloucestershire Deaf Association

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Gloucestershire's community health services - nine community hospitals, nine health clinics, and other county-wide services (see list below) - have been scheduled for transfer out of the NHS by the Board of NHS Gloucestershire.

But Social Enterprise Trust or Community Interest Companies like Gloucestershire Care Services CIC, which has been proposed to take over the services, are not an alternative to the break up and privatisation of the NHS - they are part of that process. If the transfer goes ahead, services will be judged not on the basis of need and quality but whether they will be successful in the competitive market, staff terms and conditions will be attacked, patient care will suffer, and accountability to the public will be lost.

A legal case in Gloucestershire, supported by local anti-cuts groups, challenges the claim of management that there was no alternative to social enterprise. It puts the option of keeping staff and services in the NHS back on the table, if management want to consider it. Elsewhere campaigns have successfully defended NHS services.

The legal case can buy us time to campaign together against social enterprise, but we must put pressure on the Board of NHS Gloucestershire to make the right decision. They can legally keep the serives in the NHS and do not have to open services up to private sector competition. Integration with an NHS trust locally or nationally is one route, and as has happened elsewhere, it could be possible to set up a new NHS trust - there is no legal barrier to this (but it would be a matter of Department of Health approval).

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The services affected include District Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy, Specialist Nursing, and Out of hours medical and nursing services. Pharmacy, Sexual Health and Chlamydia screening, Podiatry, Dental services, Wheelchair services, Musculo-skeletal services, Telehealth and Specialist Domiciliary care are also to be transferred to Gloucestershire Care Services Community Interest Company.

Nine community hospitals (Stroud, Cirencester, Dilke, Fairford, Lydney, Bourton (Moore Cottage), Moreton, Tewkesbury, and the new Vale Hospital in Dursley) and nine health clinics (Beeches Green Stroud, Stonehouse Health Clinic, Cinderford Health Centre, Coleford Health Centre, Lydney Health Centre, Hesters Way Healthy Living Centre, Holts Health Centre Newent, Lydbrook Health Centre, Symn Lane Clinic (Wotton-under-Edge)) are also part of the plans.

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The NHS Lancashire Care Trust has announce a proposal that all dementia sufferers requiring specialist care in Lancashire be treated in Blackpool.

For people in the Rossendale and Burnley area this will mean an 80 mile round trip to visit their loved ones or friends. Most patients are likely to be elderly and the fact is that their husbands or wifes may not be able to drive.

This will put extreme pressure on the visitors in terms of time, expense and distress just when they need all the support that they can get. This is an inhuman way to treat people and cannot be in any way justified.

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The results of a nursing survey released on the 23rd September 2011 revealed that 75% of nurses fear for their patients' safety because of poor staffing levels.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) estimates that 40,000 posts across Britain will be axed within three years as trusts are forced to slash budgets under NHS plans to save £20 billion. Of the 600 nurses questioned for the survey, 25% said their biggest safety concern was identifying deteriorating patients, followed by drug errors, slips, trips and falls and insufficient nutrition and hydration. Four per cent worried about patients receiving the wrong treatment through misidentification. All levels of the profession were questioned for the survey published by Nursing Times magazine.

RCN chief executive and general secretary Dr Peter Carter said: "It is critical to patient safety that changes to staffing levels and skill mix are made in line with patient need rather than as a knee-jerk response to financial pressures.

"Nurses and health care assistants are telling us that reduced staffing levels are compromising their ability to provide high quality care, and we urge employers and the Government to listen to these concerns.

"We remain very concerned that with so many NHS Trusts making staffing cuts to save money, patient care could suffer as a result."

The Royal College of Midwives survey finds that further cuts will put women's safety at risk as maternity units, already under-staffed and over-stretched, expect further job losses.

The stark figures collated by the RCN in Scotland show fewer than 30% of Scottish NHS nurses now feel secure in their jobs. Only two years ago, 82% felt they had a long-term future in their posts.

Figures released at the end of August showed that across Scotland nearly 1000 nursing posts are set to be cut by the end of the year. The nursing cuts will take figures below that of five years ago, according to the RCN Scotland.

Evidence of a current nursing shortage that is impacting on patient care is clear and it’s going to get worse over the next three years, if there is not just a freeze on nursing job cuts, but an increase in the number of nurses training through incentive schemes such as a starting bonus. Josie Irwin, staff-side secretary at RCN said: "Coalition policy means that nurses face suffering a second year of pay cuts. This comes on top of unprecedented change and upheaval in the NHS, leading to low morale, uncertainty and insecurity. The RCN calls on the pay review body to recognise that further attacks on pay will only do more damage to recruitment and retention in the NHS."

The results of increasing training numbers now will not be seen until in 2014, so to bridge the immediate gap consideration should be given to three year visas for qualified nurses from abroad.

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This petition is based on a number of my letters that were sent to MP Right Honourable David Cameron PM, which concerned an ever-rising number of unlawful deprivation issues to UK society. These irrefutable shown issues were presented to the current Prime Minister in requesting he uphold his public duty and the acts of UK law on behalf of UK society.

The Prime Minister has been made aware many times not only in these requests but also by an ever-rising many concerned other people of the UK by their lawful requests. Who have the same or similar concerns in the ever-rising deprivation towards UK society that is unlawfully/un-legislatively maliciously causing their unnecessary suffering? Where an unlawful willing malicious blindness to upholding any stated public duty or the upholding of the acts of UK law gives lawful rise to the petitions question

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The Tory-led Government are forcing the NHS to make £20 billion cuts. As a result, waiting times are already increasing, including in Brighton & Hove.

While slashing NHS budgets, the Tory-led Government are planning a top-down restructure of the NHS. This is despite promising not to do so before they were elected.

As well as these changes having no mandate, they will bring more bureaucracy, waste and private competition to the NHS.

Join us in our fight to save the NHS and to keep it a public service organisation, not a free market.

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Miss Neelu Chaudhari was struck off the Register of the General Pharmaceutical Council after a 27 year unblemished career as a senior pharmacist, for Whistleblowing.

The professional body accused her of bringing the profession into disrepute by her belief that the drug overdoses prescribed in a five week period, before her neice's death, were not errors but deliberate and should have been investigated by the professional bodies, independently of the Coroner, Police Primary Health care Trust, NHS Hospital Trusts and the hospitals.

The drug overdoses prescribed by the GP were continued by hospital paediatricians after admission to hospital and the baby was denied intensive care. She was then subjected to a secret "withholding withdrawing treatment", "allow to die" and "Do Not Resuscitate" medical opinion against her parent's wishes and without their knowledge.

The hospital doctors finally invited social workers to apply for a secret ex-parte Emergency Protection Order and Police arrest Warrant to isolate the baby in hospital, remove her mother from her cubicle and deny family visits to hospital in the last 6 days of her life.

The details of the drug overdoses were omitted by the Coroner, Pathologists and Police at the Inquest.

Neelu compiled an expert report into the drug overdoses and provided copies to the respective professional bodies yet no doctor, pharmacist or nurse has been properly investigated. Instead, Neelu has been struck off for doing what the professional bodies ought to have done. She is also required to pay costs of thousands of pounds to her professional body.

This petition seeks public opinion as to whether,

1. Miss Neelu Chaudhari should be reinstated as a pharmacist;
2. Whether the professional bodies should investigate complaints independently, promptly and without time limits;
3. Whether Whistleblowers should be compensated for their time and effort and commended for their courage, honesty and integrity.

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England is now the only country in the so called 'United' Kingdom that pays prescription charges. Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland all pay nothing.

This is unfair and undemocratic. People who live in England have been taking it for too long.

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HELP US SAVE THE NHS!

We believe the coalition government's NHS changes will significantly damage healthcare in this country. Specifically, they're cutting NHS funding - you may have heard the recent announcement about ward closures at the Hallamshire hospital. Also, they're pushing a new NHS Bill through parliament. If this becomes law, private companies will almost certainly be increasingly involved in healthcare. This may mean a greater risk that other NHS services and hospitals will close. If enough people object to the government's proposals, we can persuade them to change their minds.

Please sign this petition now; and ask your friends and family to do so. In a few weeks time, we will send the petition (with the list of people who have signed it) to Andrew Lansley, the government health minister, urging him to take note of the points below. We'll also send a copy to Nick Clegg, the Sheffield MP and leader of the Lib Dems.

If you want to find out more or get involved in our NHS campaign, please e-mail info@sheffieldgreenparty.org.uk or phone 07842 374392.

Thanks very much
Sheffield Green Party

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The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) consults on new draft quality standards and guidance on service user experience in mental health and patient experience in NHS services and has launched a new consultation.

HOWEVER an interested party has discovered that the only people able to contribute are 'Registered Stakeholders'. and finding out who these are, and being able to get your views represented is a process which guarantees little, if any success.

Some may not wish to provide personal stories to Registered Stakeholders (strangers), and there is no other facility to have YOUR important views heard.

This means the results cannot be fully representative of the Service User Community as a whole and we would call on NICE to consider changing the process by which they determine and gather the evidence they use in their guidelines.

This is especially important during this traumatic period of changes to the NHS, cuts in Mental Health Service budgets and an increase in cases of mental illness.

See http://www.nice.org.uk/newsroom/pressreleases/PatientExpAndAdultMentalHealthServiceUserGuidelineQS.jsp

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The Liverpool Care Pathway, (LCP), is in widespread use in the UK. It is flawed and dangerous. The Daily Telegraph has referred to it as the Death Pathway. There have been calls from victims families to have it banned. The old are particularly vulnerable because many of the so-called signs that are looked for to put a patient on the death pathway, such as frailty and declining mobility, are symptomatic of old-age in any case.

In fact, age is one of the factors also taken into consideration in putting the patient on the LCP! This petition is to call for its withdrawal. Every patient is an individual and deserves that individual consideration of their condition.

As it stands, anyone who falls into the clutches of the proponents of LCP and ticks all the boxes will be given assisted passage into the next world care of the NHS. This will apply particularly to the elderly who are, in any case, already suffering from that most terminal of all conditions - Old-Age! This will apply even contrary to the expressed wishes of patient and family, as this family has discovered.

According to Dr Peter Hargreaves, Consultant in Palliative Medicine, P. H. Millard, Emeritus Professor of Geriatrics University of London and others, in the year 2007-2008 alone, 16.5 per cent of deaths came about after terminal sedation through the, quote, disturbing blanket application of the Liverpool Care Pathway being rolled out across the NHS in the UK.

Currently, an estimated 20,000 patients have their lives taken each year while receiving care under the LCP which also prohibits administering artificial nutrition and hydration to those assessed as dying and states that doing so is ethically indefensible and, in the case of patients lacking capacity, is prohibited under the Mental Health Act.

To my comments that my mothers life was taken at Caterham Dene Hospital where LCP is in use, the NMC responded that I am, quote, at liberty to contact the police.

My mother was robbed of her life through application of the Liverpool Care Pathway. NMC registrants at Caterham Dene Hospital, even by the standards set out by that flawed measure of who is and who is not at Deaths door, were far too zealous in the liberal helpings of morphine they doled out to my mother. The PCT were actually required to set in place new practices at the Dene in regard to analgesics and their use on ward.

Following widespread application of the LCP, relatives of many hospital, nursing home and residential care patients have watched in horror as their loved ones are kept under sedation and food and fluids are withdrawn. Does the NMC therefore assert that, in like fashion, these relatives are, quote, at liberty to contact the police and that this is their advice to them? They make no reply.

The critic of the LCP mentioned above, Peter Millard Emeritus Professor of Geriatrics, warns that there is a risk that elderly people with chronic conditions and disorders may be easily dismissed as dying when that may not, indeed, be the case. Certain media have even compared the LCP with euthanasia. Euthanasia is still against the law in this land. Perhaps, then, the advice of the NMC does stand in good stead and these relatives should be, quote, at liberty to contact the police. And is that their advice to them? The NMC makes no reply.

The Liverpool Care Pathway was a tool designed to be used with patients already diagnosed to be terminally ill; it was never a diagnostic tool per se to determine a terminal condition. It was designed at the Marie Curie Hospice in Liverpool specifically for the terminally diagnosed patient and to recognise when a point had been reached that death was near or imminent so as to provide as peaceful and gentle path from this world as might be provided. These patients were already diagnosed to be dying from cancer; the Pathway was not the tool used to make that diagnosis, but a means - a 'pathway' to follow - to determine that point.

A culture of death is pervading the NHS in the UK. A dark shadow is stalking our hospitals and care homes. The right to death is becoming paramount over the right to life. The LCP is providing a newfound legitimacy and cover to an unspoken policy that has, actually, been in place for decades! Will the NMC, if it will do nothing more, not add its voice to that of Dr. Peter Hargreaves and others and raise a hue and cry to get this Care Pathway rolled back and removed? Will the Care Quality Commission, the new body set in place to investigate such matters not step in?

The NMC have stated that any further correspondence will be filed, but not answered. Then, let it go on record that the NMC were asked to add their voice to denounce this scandal and declined to do so. Posterity will look back in anger and horror!

An afterword:

The Department of Health committed to investing 286 million pounds over the two years to 2011 to support implementation of this End of Life Care Strategy. That is 286 million pounds spent to assist people on their path to the next world while denying the necessary funding to keep them alive and well in this!

A Daily Mail on-line article outlines how we in the UK have the worst cancer survival rate in the western world. Doctors in our local surgeries, hospitals and health care centres are providing us with treatments based on our illness, our age, our families. The Daily Mail article explains how doctors tend to late-diagnose older patients or provide them with less beneficial treatments. The elderly are routinely denied surgery or drugs.

It is a duty incumbent upon every medical person to protect life and to do no harm. And yet, through the LCP, there is a policy set in place at Caterham Dene - and across the NHS - to make no great effort to intervene to preserve life, to let them go and even to help them on their way.

So much of the public purse to spend on death, so little to spend on life. There is something very wrong here. The elderly, suffering from the most terminal of all illnesses - OLD-AGE - are on the sharp end of this cutting-edge of end-of-life policies. A culture of death really is pervading the NHS in the UK. A dark shadow is stalking our hospitals and care homes. The right to death is becoming paramount over the right to life!

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Please support this as it can help everyone and hurt no one. The cuts are due to the debts caused by the banks failing and they are hurting society in a very serious manner.

The banks failed in their own eyes and by their own standards. Yet we are bailing them out at great expense and harm to ourselves. Our social infrastructure and societys across the world are being harmed. It is not necessary. If we Drop The Debt no lives will be lost no one will die and no buildings will disappear.

These debts are just marks on a piece of paper, cyphers in a computer. The Banks dont have and never did have the money we are paying them, they cant loose what they never had. As we pay the debt we harm every school and hospital every social structure and every family and every job. No one is free of the harm. They did not have the money they are asking us to repay. So if they didn't have it, why are we paying it back?

No matter what wealth is, its in the people and their work, not the banks, but when these said banks bankrupt themselves, one way or another, we get to pay. Their wealth is our work. Now their "fictional" debts are paid with our real work and lives. Economics is not like physics or chemistry, it is not a science. It is invented and shaped only by humans. We can shape it any way we want. If the nature of our economics is hurting us then we can simply change the nature of those economics. We have that power.

Banks wont be damaged by Dropping The Debt because to the banks the wealth is virtual, it is flickers on a screen, not like a house or food or cars or anything real, produced by work. They will not loose anything they actually had. No houses will disappear, no schools will close, no roads will go un-fixed, Nothing real would be lost. So when the banks change society for the worse because they messed up we could simply Drop The Debt. Remember wealth is not created by the banks but by people, by our work. The banks only create debt.

Banks are a private business. They exist to, and do, make vast profits for themselves at our expense. If they mess up its nothing to do with us. We owe them no loyalty. We should not be hurting society to give them "back" money that they never actually had. We can change that. So I urge you to Drop The Debt.

We did it before with third world countries and it worked very well, no one died, and lives were improved across the globe. Lets do it again.

Please support this as it can help everyone and hurt no one.

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Since the government announced its proposals to reform the NHS, pressure has been growing from all directions calling on them to think again and drop the Health and Social Care Bill. Health professionals, Unions, service users, charities and the public have all expressed deep concerns.

These include the estimated £3 billion it would cost to implement the changes which would effectively privatise almost 1 million NHS staff in England by 2014. Over £80 billion of tax payer’s money will be handed over to GP consortiums and a commissioning board who will be able to introduce major changes without any real public scrutiny or accountability.

Clinical services will be opened up to 'any willing provider' opening the door to cowboy private companies, smashing down quality of care and lead to the NHS being subject to EU competition laws. Foundation Trusts will be free to make as much money as they like from private medicine allowing them to concentrate on more wealthy patients from home and abroad while NHS budgets are squeezed. The expansion of private providers will inevitably bankrupt and close many local NHS services and hospitals. GPs will not really be in charge but will be under the thumb of a remote commissioning board and will not have a say over which providers will be included on the new national register.

The Bill does not protect against conflict of interests between those commissioning and the private providers meaning decisions could end up being based on profit rather than the needs of the patient. Hospital referrals will require the rubber stamping of 'management referral' teams often run by private companies seeking to cut spending.

Due to widespread opposition to the Bill, the government has recently announced a 2 month break in the Bill to "pause and engage". Please sign this petition calling on the Council to support the wishes of the vast majority of the population and contact the local MPs demanding that the Bill is dropped.

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Since the government announced its proposals to reform the NHS, pressure has been growing from all directions calling on them to think again and drop the Health and Social Care Bill. Health professionals, Unions, service users, charities and the public have all expressed deep concerns.

These include the estimated £3 billion it would cost to implement the changes which would effectively privatise almost 1 million NHS staff in England by 2014. Over £80 billion of tax payer’s money will be handed over to GP consortiums and a commissioning board who will be able to introduce major changes without any real public scrutiny or accountability. Clinical services will be opened up to 'any willing provider' opening the door to cowboy private companies, smashing down quality of care and lead to the NHS being subject to EU competition laws.

Foundation Trusts will be free to make as much money as they like from private medicine allowing them to concentrate on more wealthy patients from home and abroad while NHS budgets are squeezed. The expansion of private providers will inevitably bankrupt and close many local NHS services and hospitals. GPs will not really be in charge but will be under the thumb of a remote commissioning board and will not have a say over which providers will be included on the new national register. The Bill does not protect against conflict of interests between those commissioning and the private providers meaning decisions could end up being based on profit rather than the needs of the patient.

Hospital referrals will require the rubber stamping of 'management referral' teams often run by private companies seeking to cut spending. Due to widespread opposition to the Bill, the government has recently announced a 2 month break in the Bill to "pause and engage". Please sign this petition calling on the Council to support the wishes of the vast majority of the population and contact the local MPs demanding that the Bill is dropped.

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The government says all public services face sell-off. NHS put at risk under new Tory government. Benefit cuts creating a divided Britain causing unnecessary poverty.

This Tory government has turned all his anger and Britains economic crisis on the sick the unemployed and the elderly.

This has got to stop.

Stop the cuts.

http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/campaigns/campaign-resources/there-is-an-alternative-the-case-against-cuts-in-public-spending.cfm
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/columnists/routledge/2011/02/18/cuts-only-benefit-david-cameron-and-the-tories-115875-22930824/
http://www.epolitix.com/latestnews/article-detail/newsarticle/cameron-defends-housing-benefit-cut/
http://my.telegraph.co.uk/cameronpain/jonathan_hemmett/147/nhs-savaged-with-cuts/

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Like myself there are many thousands of people who have no confidence in this governments handling of our NHS I would like those people to join me in a vote of no confidence in the governments handling of the NHS.

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No Secrets currently provide peer-support to those affected by self-injury. We are a voluntary group and non of our volunteers are paid for their time.

We provide training to local professionals around self-injury however it seems that accident and emergency and other medical staff think that this is not relevant to them.

ANYBODY can be affected by self-injury, and if you are working in healthcare of any kind you should be appropriately trained to deal with self-injury.

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HMS also known as Joint Hypermobility Syndrome is a condition where you can over extend your joints and easily dislocate joints, it is also known as Double Jointed. HMS is very uncommon and was only discovered in the last 40-50 years. Many areas are up on this condition and other conditions associated with HMS and offer alot of treatment/information and services, NHS Fife & Grampian however don't know much about it or provide the information and treatment available. Many of us are still waiting to see a Physiotherapist and Rhumatologist and having to deal with the pain on our own.

Our nearest centre is Glasgow and we have to be referred to it, but many of our doctors won't.

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Feedback from a public meeting held in 2005 gave a clear indication of a locally unmet need around the provision of information and support for cancer patients and their carers and also for the wider general public on issues such as screening and cancer awareness.

In pursuit of this goal a Working Party comprising representatives from NHS Bolton - the Primary Care Trust, the Royal Bolton Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Macmillan Cancer Support, cancer patients and carers have been developing a business case for the proposed centre and have received the first Architect’s drawings of how the Centre might look. At the point at which the final meeting in the Feasibility Study being undertaken by Macmillan was due to have taken place, NHS Bolton withdrew their support of the project.

Whilst we remain hopeful of a successful bid to Macmillan for building costs and several years running costs, the project is dependent on assurances of having the running costs picked up once their pump-priming comes to an end, which is where NHS Bolton would come in; as Commissioners of our local Health Services and decision makers on how the budget for such is spent, it would fall to them to pick up these costs.

Cancer will indiscriminately touch the lives of 1 in 3 people; of the several thousand local people referred for suspected cancer last year alone, 1430 people received a cancer diagnosis at the Royal Bolton Hospital. Nothing can change the devastating impact of a cancer diagnosis but much can be done to support and empower patients and their families throughout the journey With the number of people being diagnosed on the increase, plus improvements in treatment and screening, there are a growing number of people who could potentially benefit from this facility, not to mention the advantages of such a resource to the wider general public.

Over 300 people visited Macmillan Cancer Support’s Mobile Unit during its last two visits to the town; the need is out there.

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The South East Coast Specialist Commissioning Group (SECSCG), consider funding applications on behalf of Primary Care Trusts in Surrey, Sussex and Kent.

The SECSCG have placed a blanket ban on funding Cyberknife Stereotactic Radiotherapy, and state that they do not fund Cyberknife Stereotactic Radiotherapy under any circumstance. We argue that the grounds cited by SECSCG for this blanket ban do not meet Department of Health guidelines, are based purely on cost, and provide no evidence whatsoever that would support a blanket ban. We also argue that as Cyberknife is now becoming available within NHS Hospitals, and is funded by 28 PCT's in other parts of the Country, that this ban is a poor use of exisiting NHS resources, and is unjust.

Cyberknife is a specialist form of radiotherapy that is so accurate that it can be used on tumours that conventional radiotherapy cannot be used for - such as tumours in the Brain, Lungs, Liver, Spine etc. Additionally, because it is so accurate it can be used at a potentially curative dose.

Cyberknife radiotherapy is highly regarded amongst the medical profession. There are currently over 200 Cyberknife Machines used around the world, and it has been the subject of over 400 peer reviews. Mount Vernon NHS Hospital recently acquired Cyberknife and now accept patients. Similarly, The Royal Marsden, in London, St. James Hospital in Leeds and Derriford Hospital in Plymouth have also purchased Cyberknife, and will start accepting patients this year (2011).

NICE are still deciding if Cyberknife actually requires evaluation, but in the meantime the Department of Health have told PCT's that they must conduct their own reviews, and that these reviews must take account of the NHS Constitution and the Human Rights Act. Unfortunately, SECSCG have not conducted their own review, but have relied on a 2003 Canadian Public Health Report, which only considered the cost effectiveness of Cyberknife - not the clinical effectiveness. Furthermore, the report only considered cost effectiveness for the treatment of certain cancers. So, SECSCG have no evidence whatsoever that would support refusing to fund Cyberknife for all cancers (even just on cost grounds).

Twenty eight PCT's around the Country do fund Cyberknife, but not one of these is in Surrey, Sussex or Kent. This is not only unfair, but a crazy waste of NHS resources, given that we have Hospitals in the South East able to accept patients.

If we can successfully challenge the SECSCG, then other PCT's may recognise that they cannot refuse funding on such flimsy grounds.

Please sign the petition, and write to your MP now.

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The NHS has vastly improved under the Labour Government, the highest level of satisfaction from patients. What is the point of a massive, expensive, unnecessary re-organisation, other than to allow private companies to become involved, at the expense of patient care.

The most lucrative procedures will be cherry picked leaving the underfunded NHS to pick up the less lucrative areas.

Profit is the rationale for private enterprise, not patient care.

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We believe that the decision of the Sheffield NHS PCT to withdrawn funding from Birch Avenue and Woodland View homes is short sighted and cynical.

The closure will affect the lives of 100 residents with complex mental health issues, Alzheimers, dementia and livelihoods.

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The planned redevelopment of the Royal Liverpool Hospital through the use of a Private Finance Initiative has proved highly controversial. Public opinion is in favour of a new hospital, but there is no consensus in favour of PFI.

In fact, those who defend the use of PFI despite its higher cost, do so on the basis that "we need a new hospital and there is no alternative to PFI". We think that the consequences of spending hundreds of millions of pounds on unnecessary financing costs will do lasting damage to the local health economy and that alternatives to PFI are necessary and feasible, even more so since the onset of the credit crunch.

The alternative advocated in this petition is Public Finance.

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As of the end of September 2010 there is a little over 8000 people waiting for a potentially life saving or life changing organ donation. Each year around 3000 transplants are carried out, but sadly that is still below the number of people added to the register. More than 400 patients die each year while on the waiting list.

Up to 90% of the UK population support organ donation but only 24% have joined the NHS Organ Donor Register. Many people tell the NHS it is simply just something they "have not got round to doing". (Source NHS)

The UK Government have spent many years procrastinating about implementing an 'opt-out' organ donation system, but they have been unable to make a decision.

I am not suggesting that we try and badger the government to make the hard decision here. What I am suggesting is that they give the public the responsibility of making the decision for them.
I would like to believe that we are mature enough to take the responsibility upon ourselves and we might finally get around having something done to help reduce the number on the waiting list.

It may be obvious from reading between the lines that personally I am FOR the opt-out scheme and I am gambling that if it went to a public vote, that is how the general public would vote. But having said that, if you are flat against the opt-out system this petition is ALSO FOR YOU, as you will have your say if it goes to a vote, rather than the government deciding for you.

Some other facts from the NHS :-

You are (currently) more likely to need a transplant than become a donor.

30% of the people on the NHS Organ Donor Register are aged between 16 and 25 when they join.

All the major religions support organ donation and many actively promote it.

Repeated surveys show that the majority of the public support organ donation.

A donor can donate a heart, lungs, two kidneys, pancreas, liver and can restore the sight of two people by donating their corneas.

Donors can also give bone and tissue such as skin, heart valves and tendons. Skin grafts have helped people with severe burns and bone is used in orthopaedic surgery.

Transplanting a kidney patient costs around £26,000 in the first year for surgery and drugs and £7,500 a year thereafter - £56,000 over five years. A patient remaining on dialysis would cost between £98,000 and £148,000 over the same period.

Finally, I do not work for the NHS. I am simply an interested party.

Thank you.

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Have You Ever Lost A Child ? 


Well we have. The care some of us have received from the NHS is lacking in so many places we believe that this should and must be put right.

The majority of mothers of still born babies are left on delivery wards. 

To under go the emotional heartache of hearing the joyous celebration of other families as they welcome to the world their new arrival is unbearable to those who have just lost their baby.

Mothers and fathers of babies lost under 24 weeks are left with nothing to remember their babies by, as it is classed as a miscarriage.

After care counselling is not always available or there is an extremely long waiting time. Bereaved parents need help immediately after their loss.

Medical staff need to READ peoples notes thoroughly to stop the heartache of the mother having to explain over and over again what has happened.

Better training on this area to be given to all medical staff.

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Right to Work in Manchester has helped to initiate a campaign against the closure of mental health wards in Manchester.

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Many patients died needlessly at the Gosport Memorial Hospital and Redclyffe Annex between 1988-2001.

In the last 11 years their families have fought tirelessly for the truth as to why their parents and partners died before their time under the regime of Dr Jane Barton?

Why has no one been held accountable?

There has been:
• 4 police investigations
• An investigation by the Commissioner of Health Improvement
• A death audit conducted by Professor Richard Baker (a report which has yet to be released into the public domain)
• An inquest where the Coroner, Mr. Bradley, withheld vital evidence from the Jury even though they still found Dr Barton guilty of causing deaths
• A GMC hearing, found Dr Jane Barton guilty of professional misconduct to a criminal standard yet she was not struck from the register.
• A review of the GMC’s decision by the CHRE which only came to the same conclusion that as she is now retired it was not necessary to remove her from the register (even though she can still practice if she wishes).
• Three reviews by the CPS who still have not addressed the alleged murders of the victims at the Gosport War Memorial Hospital.

Amid the Quango cover-ups and the amount of evidence still being withheld from the victim’s relatives, there is no hope for them to move on with their lives. It is only right and proper that they should have their answers. With the immense publicity surrounding this scandal for over 10 years, the people of Gosport should hear the truth. . giving closure to the families who continue to fight on.

It is their fundamental right!

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Drugs used in the Liverpool Care Pathway have been under much speculation. Although an audit of Care of the Dying, by the Marie Curie and the Royal College of Physicians in 2009 found that nearly 4000 terminal patients found the framework to be of high quality, there is no doubt that some patients remain at risk.

There is room in current practice for elderly, vulnerable patients to be started on the LCP without their or their family’s consent; it is not good enough to assume that in all hospitals, hospices and care homes that conversations will take place and that patients and families will be kept informed.

The audit reveals that two thirds of the 3,893 patients whose deaths were assessed needed no continuous infusion of medication, and all by 4% only needed low doses of opiates. However, there have are cases where patients have been started on high doses of opiates and sedatives via infusion and died prematurely.

We shouldn’t have to fight for justice after death; the law should be there to protect us when we are alive.

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The management of Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Huntingdon is threatened with privatisation. Three companies are in the running to take over the hospital from May 2011 - Serco, Ramsay Health and Circle Health. None of them have experience of running a hospital on the scale of Hinchingbrooke.

The move sets a dangerous precedent for the future of the NHS with the possibility of many more hospitals in similar financial situation moving in the same direction. This would see a fundamental change in how NHS hospitals are run and could well be a precursor for the break up of the NHS as we know it.

Privatisation means putting profit before people and has no place in the NHS. As services such as A&E and Maternity fail to offer a profit, then we fear that these services could be under threat.

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NHS Hillingdon plan to make changes to the availability of the EHC (morning after pill) for young people. As it stands, any young person under the age of 20 is able obtain the EHC (morning after pill) over the counter in pharmacies, at no cost.

The change proposed by NHS Hillingdon is to cut funding for the availability of the EHC (morning after pill), resulting in a reduction in the age group who can currently access the pill for free. The new proposal states that now any young person who is 18 or under will have access to the pill for no cost.

In summary, students aged 19 and 20 will have to pay full cost, around £25, for the EHC morning after pill).
This decision will stand to affect many of the young adults surrounding the Uxbridge area who may wish to collect the EHC (morning after pill) from the local pharmacies.

Brunel University’s on campus pharmacy has provided the current under 20’s service to its students. The statistics show that over 60% of the clients using the service are aged between 18 and 20. This displays a need to abolish this new decision.

The decision to reduce the age range for the service will create a setback for clients who may find it difficult to buy the EHC (morning after pill) over the counter (which currently stands at £25.00) or attend family planning clinics. This can result in higher risk of pregnancy.

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